Alan was born and raised in the Salt Lake City area and after graduating from High School he filled a full-time mission in the Arizona Tempe Mission from 1975-1977. His twenty-five year professional life has been in the sales field.

His Church service has included serving as a Bishop's Counselor, Stake High Counselor and Stake Young Men President in his earlier years; and include teaching the Gospel Doctrine class twice and the Gospel Essentials class and High Priests Group more recently. He currently serves as the Teachers Quorum advisor in his Ward.

Alan's avocations include acting in semi-professional and community theatre productions in the Salt Lake City area, and riding a bicycle between twenty-five hundred and three thousand miles a year.

As his first book Challeges And Choices: Discovering the Proper Use of Agency goes to press he and his wife Linda will celebrate twenty-nine years of marriage. They are the parents of four children and one grand child.