Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ferguson received a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Drexel University in 1984, and earned his Master of Science Degree in aeronautical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in 1991. He received his Naval Aviator wings in NAS Kingsville, Texas in 1986 and was ordered to the F-14 Tomcat training squadron in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He joined the ‘Red Rippers’ of VF-11 deploying to the North Atlantic, Mediterranean and Indian Ocean on board the USS Forrestal (CV-59). While with VF-11, he also attended the Navy Fighter Weapons School (TOPGUN). He was selected for the United States Naval Test Pilot School program in 1989 and graduated in 1992.
Through June 1994 he was assigned to the Weapons Branch of the Strike Aircraft Test Directorate at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland where he served as the project officer for the F-14D weapons separation program. He served one year as an instructor at the Naval Test Pilot School before joining the ‘Checkmates’ of VF-211 in 1995 and completing a deployment to the Western Pacific and Persian Gulf in defense of the Iraqi no-fly zone on board the USS Nimitz. Ferguson served as CAPCOM for the STS-118 mission. He also served as CAPCOM for the STS-128 and STS-129 missions. Ferguson currently works for Boeing as director of Crew and Mission Operations for Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program.