Ferguson was born in
Dover, Idaho, and educated by the Jesuits at
Gonzaga High School (1950) and
Gonzaga University in
Spokane, Washington, where he graduated in 1954 with a Bachelors’ of Science in physics. He married Catherine Anne "Katie" Crosby, the niece of
Bing Crosby, in June 1956.
1954–1957 – military service Ferguson was commissioned as an officer after training with the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC). He attended Ordnance Guided Missile School at
Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, and was then transferred to
White Sands Proving Ground in 1956. He served as 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps at White Sands, New Mexico, until 1957. His career in the Army included temporary duty at the Pentagon and in Australia during the testing of guided missiles.
1957–1980 – Atomic Energy Commission/Energy Research & Development Administration/U.S. Department of Energy General Electric at Hanford: Ferguson began his career in the nuclear field when he joined General Electric at the
Hanford Site, known as the Hanford Works in 1957. He trained and worked as a reactor physicist and reactor operations supervisor at the historic
B Reactor, the first full-scale nuclear reactor in the world. The
B Reactor produced the plutonium used in the first nuclear detonation test at
Alamogordo,
New Mexico, and for “The
Fat Man” atomic bomb, which was dropped on
Nagasaki to end World War II.
Chicago Operations Office at Argonne: In 1961, Ferguson joined the AEC's Chicago Operations Office at
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) with the intention of turning his career toward peaceful uses of nuclear technology. He was sent to attend the historic
Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology (ORSORT), which was initiated by
Alvin M. Weinberg, director of
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Admiral
Hyman G. Rickover, father of the nuclear navy, for an accelerated course in all aspects of nuclear reactor safety. On returning to Argonne, Ferguson participated in the design, construction, and operational safety review of the AEC's Second Round Commercial Reactor Demonstration Program, the Space Nuclear Program, and research reactors at ANL in Illinois, the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS), now known as
Idaho National Laboratory, and
Atomics International's
Santa Susana Field Laboratory in California. Ferguson assumed project management responsibilities for reactor and high energy physics projects including the management structure for the construction of the National Accelerator Laboratory, renamed the
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab).
The Fast Flux Test Facility at Hanford: In 1972, Ferguson joined the Richland Operations Office at Hanford in Washington State where he served as Director of Contracts and Assistant Manager for Projects. In 1973, he formed the
Fast Flux Test Facility (FFTF) Project Office and assumed total responsibility for the Hanford Engineering Development Laboratory's breeder reactor program and construction of the FFTF experimental fast neutron reactor.
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Programs: In 1978, Ferguson was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Energy by the first Secretary of Energy,
James R. Schlesinger. During this eventful two-year period, Ferguson traveled extensively to manage and implement President Jimmy Carter's Nonproliferation Alternative Systems Assessment Program (NASAP) and the International
Nuclear Fuel Cycle Study (INFCE), which was jointly operated with the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as well as bilateral technical exchanges with England, France, Italy, West Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union regarding nuclear energy. Ferguson spent much of his early time at DOE in technology exchange meetings with foreign countries explaining President Carter's non-proliferation policy, which stopped indefinitely the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel out of concerns that it presented a serious threat of nuclear weapons proliferation. The U.S. had entered into multi-lateral and bi-lateral agreements with other nations for the exchange of fission energy technology following President
Dwight D. Eisenhower’s
Atoms for Peace Initiative in 1953. By 1978, the U.S. led the world in numbers and efficiency of nuclear power plants. The chemistry of wartime reprocessing had been adapted to the commercial fuel cycle. Experimental breeder reactors, which could burn plutonium fuel more efficiently and also make more new plutonium fuel than it could consume, had furnished experience for the design and construction of commercial-sized demonstration plants. The European nations, Russia and Japan particularly, were building nuclear power plants and looking ahead to breeder reactors for the future. Therefore, President Carter's dramatic changes in U.S. nuclear energy policy to discontinue reprocessing spent nuclear fuel and terminate the U.S. Breeder Reactor Program, a program Ferguson himself had worked on and believed in, were abrupt and difficult for most countries to understand. Carter hoped that in setting this example, the U.S. would encourage other nations to follow its lead. Most nations went ahead with reprocessing and breeder development until high costs and loss of political support delayed plans in nuclear projects around the world. because whatever lessons could be learned from the accident could be applied to other nuclear programs within DOE. The
Three Mile Island accident had a profound effect on the nuclear industry, resulting in the cancellation of 100 nuclear plants planned or ordered between 1972 and 1983. No new plants were licensed in the United States by the NRC from that time until 2012, and more than 80 anti-nuclear groups were formed in the United States out of fear of nuclear reactors after the
Three Mile Island accident.
1980–2022 — private sector nuclear energy industry/nuclear waste/medical isotopes Washington Public Power Supply System: In 1980, Ferguson was selected by a national recruitment firm as a candidate for Chief Executive Officer of the troubled
Washington Public Power Supply System (WPPSS), now called
Energy Northwest, a municipal utility. His friend and mentor Senator
Henry M. Jackson (“Scoop” Jackson) from Washington State encouraged him to take this job to get the construction projects for five nuclear power plants back on track for WPPSS, which were far behind schedule and over budget. Ferguson was WPPSS' first administrator with broad experience beyond the Northwest public utility community. He had turned around troubled nuclear construction projects before, such as the FFTF, and he and Jackson were convinced that the fate of the commercial nuclear industry was closely tied to the fate of the WPPSS projects. The need for these projects was based on an independent projection of energy need for the region. Four of the power plants were eventually cancelled, and two of those projects, WNP-4 and -5, resulted in the largest municipal bond default in U.S. history at that time — $2.25 billion. Eleven other nuclear and coal projects were also cancelled after regional power planners determined that the energy projections had been grossly over-estimated. Just one of the WPPSS nuclear power plant projects, WNP-2, in eastern Washington on the Hanford Site was completed. The plant was rechristened the
Columbia Generating Station and is still in operation, providing low-cost, carbon-free electricity for customers of the
Bonneville Power Administration. After a tumultuous three years of enormous effort, from 1980 to 1983, which included chaotic open public meetings in Seattle, anti-nuclear protests, union labor strikes on the projects, and death threats that required Ferguson to travel with a bodyguard, he suffered a heart attack and underwent emergency open-heart surgery at Seattle's Swedish Hospital at age 49. He resigned from WPPSS soon after.
Companies Founder/Boards of Directors: In 1983, Ferguson first job after CEO of WPPSS was chairman of UNC Nuclear Industries. In 1985, he co-founded RL Ferguson and Associates, and sold that company to
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in 1991. He then founded a company that specialized in waste management, environmental consulting, and alternative energy called Nuvotec through which he acquired ATG, a nuclear waste company, and renamed it Pacific Eco Solutions. Ferguson also founded a computer-based nuclear safety training company called Vivid Learning Systems for the Hanford Site. Today, Vivid is an occupational health and safety training company. In 2007, Ferguson sold Nuvotec to Perma-Fix Environmental Services and was appointed to its board of directors. He also served on the boards of UNC Nuclear Industries, Pacific Nuclear Services, Hanford Environmental Health Foundation, Frontier Federal Savings and Loan, Ben Franklin National Bank, Columbia Trust Bank, and British Nuclear Fuels, Inc. He was the last president of the Tri-City Nuclear Industrial Council (TRCNIC) and the first chairman and president of that organization's successor, the Tri-City Industrial Development Council (TRIDEC). Ferguson continues to serve as a director on the boards of Vivid Learning Systems and Perma-Fix Medical SA, a company based in Poland that developed an innovative method of generating medical isotopes that does not present proliferation risks. == Career highlights ==