Alexander Kugushev was born in France, of Russian parents, and educated successively in Yugoslavia, Austria, Switzerland, and Argentina. The son of political émigrés, growing up in a Europe rent by conflicts between the two World Wars, he experienced a fair share of life's ups and downs. As a boy and into his early teens, he lived through World War II, the defining experience of his life. He lost his father as a small child and his compassionate mother taught him respect for all life and regard for the equality of all people. She also inculcated love of music. From his grandfather he learned that we can all excel and that there is no ceiling to what we should know. From his years in Switzerland he learned devotion to democracy. From his two emigrations, to Argentina and to the United States, he learned about the contradictions and paradoxes of life. His Yankee wife taught him much about America and about the possibility of pursuing happiness (and of even catching it). He is a journalist by trade and a publisher by profession, having published educational materials in the United States for over forty years, in print and on the internet. He is a committed naturalized American, speaks seven languages and has traveled extensively throughout his life, at this point to over seventy countries. He reads omnivorously and is a dedicated outdoorsman. He lives in Menlo Park, in Northern California.