At 17 Alex moved to a Tibetan monastery to run traditional medicine programs, thereafter living in Nepal, India, and Sri Lanka studying ethnobotany and economic development. Upon his return to the United States, Alex consulted to Gen. Abrahamson, USAF, on remote sensing platforms, in part based on his botanical sourcing work in Asia. In 1985, Alex founded Pacific Bio, a nutraceutical company that studied and sold botanicals for treating HIV and Cancer patients. After selling Pacific Bio and retaining key intellectual property, Alex worked at an Estee Lauder subsidiary and consulted in the natural products industry. Alex later joined an investment bank to turn around a 20-year-old API company, and then worked as the design lead for what was at the time the largest CBD extraction and purification system in California. Alex holds a US and international patent and is a co-inventor of technologies for nutraceuticals, manufacturing, and drug delivery.