When Joe Hortiz interviewed for various general manager jobs in recent years, teams inquired about the staff he'd build around him.
Hortiz, now the Chargers General Manager, always gave a quick response about who his assistant GM would be.
Chad Alexander.
"Through all my interviews, it was, 'Hey, if I get this job, I'm bringing him as my assistant GM.' He was always the guy I had ticketed," Hortiz recently told Chargers.com.
"Chad was my first choice before I got this job. And there were a lot of reasons," Hortiz continued. "Twenty years of experience working with him … he was a no brainer."
"Is he a friend? Yes," Hortiz added. "He didn't get hired though because he's a friend. He was hired because of the confidence and the trust I have in him as an evaluator and leader."
As the first regular season under Hortiz and Chargers Head Coach Jim Harbaugh winds down, the Bolts are in position to make the playoffs and can clinch a postseason spot Saturday in New England.
The Chargers revamped their roster in free agency, hit on a plethora of draft picks and made key preseason trades to help build depth to sustain a long and grueling season.
Credit Alexander leading the way as Hortiz's righthand man to help impart his vision in a new setting.
"It's really a kind of a never-ending process in terms of trying to churn the bottom of the roster," Alexander said. "Always looking for different avenues to make our team better, whether that be through our practice squad, other teams' practice squads or players who have become available on the wire.
"Just constantly trying to think of new ways and new ideas to help our roster."
Although Alexander is in his first season with the Bolts, this is his 26th season in the NFL.
He spent the last five years as the Jets director of player personnel. Prior to joining New York, Alexander spent 20 seasons with the Ravens in a variety of roles, where his time largely overlapped with Hortiz.
Alexander's sterling reputation continues to grow in league circles as witnessed by him once again attending the NFL's Front Office & General Manager Accelerator Program in Dallas earlier this month.
While not his first Accelerator Program, the time in Dallas was another way for him to network with ownership and share ideas with other front office personnel around the NFL.
"It was insightful and rewarding in terms of being able to just build relationships with my colleagues around the league. Relationships in this business are everything, and being able to share stories and experiences with fellow player personnel executives is important to growing in this industry," Alexander said.
"And then it was also obviously impactful in terms of having dialogue and being able to build relationships with ownership around the league and some of the key decision makers on these teams and just being able to talk to them about philosophy, team building, the hiring process, all of those types of things, and just get insights from them," Alexander added.
The goal for everyone at the program, of course, is to eventually move up and become a GM of their own team one day.
Alexander is certainly included in that group.
"If that opportunity presents itself, I'd be really fired up and honored to have that happen for sure," Alexander said. "At the end of the day though, you always want to continue to learn. Philosophically, you want to keep trying to add to your personal book of knowledge."
Right now, however, the 49-year-old is exactly where he wants to be and is focused squarely on preparing the Chargers' roster for a playoff push.
"I'm working with Joe day-in, day-out trying to keep everything moving in the right direction. The goal is to show up every day as the same guy, be consistent and keep working to make the team better," explained Alexander. "I'm trying to be the best assistant general manager I can be.
"This is really a great environment for that because Joe and Jim do an outstanding job of trying to involve everyone. They've really fostered an environment where you're allowed to grow, and you're allowed to fail if necessary. It's all about one common goal – to make the Chargers as good as we can possibly be."
If – and when as Hortiz likes to say – Alexander lands a GM job, he would be following in the footsteps of his mentor and former boss in Baltimore Ozzie Newsome, one of the NFL's preeminent talent evaluators and trailblazers for minorities in front office positions.
Alexander, whose father Hubbard "Axe" Alexander broke into the NFL as a wide receivers coach with the Cowboys in 1989, said the league has come a long way in recent decades.
"I think there has been progress in terms of shining a light on just how many qualified minority candidates there are around the league. There's been much more attention brought to their paths and qualifications, and I think it's great. I've been around the league for 26 years working in personnel, but I've really been around the league longer than that because my dad started working in the National Football League in 1989.
"There were very few minority coaches, very few minority scouts and people that worked in front offices [back then]," Alexander continued. "When you talk about the progress that's been made from then until now, it's pretty significant. I also think there's still work to be done, but we're definitely moving in the right direction of getting qualified candidates identified and prepared for prominent positions."
Alexander has worked his way up over the past two-plus decades, whether it was as an area scout, pro scout or assistant director of pro personnel.
Hortiz was with him nearly every step of the way in Baltimore, including when the two shared an office for three seasons in the early 2000s.
Each had an L-shaped desk in a room that heard its share of conversations over the years on everything from scheme to team building philosophies to general life lessons and more.
"We looked right at each other [in the room] and just developed a connection," Hortiz said. "I picked him up at the airport when he interviewed for the job.
"We just became like one person, you know? And if you walked into that office, you knew you had to have your defenses up on both sides because Chad and I were going to be coming at you."
When each were elevated to higher roles with the Ravens, the two had offices right next door to each other.
The colleagues and friends — Alexander was in Hortiz's wedding — now have a three-office buffer between the two but still connect on a daily basis and can generally be found in the others' office when not in their own.
Almost a full season in after being hired by the Chargers, Hortiz said Alexander has been an invaluable resource throughout his first season as a GM.
"The big thing is when you're in this seat [as the GM], you want to have someone who will tell you the truth and give you their opinion," Hortiz said. "And if they disagree with you, they're not afraid to disagree with you.
"I think what allows us to have that dynamic is our relationship. Chad's not afraid to say, 'I disagree with you,' because he knows I trust him. I can handle a disagreement. I can handle someone objecting. That's the trust that you build up over the decades and knowing each other."
And while Alexander was undoubtedly Hortiz's top choice for the Chargers assistant GM role, he's also aware that he might not be with him for too long in LA.
Much like Hortiz waited decades to get his shot, he now believes Alexander's time for a top job could be coming soon.
"I should lose him," Hortiz said. "If I don't, that's 31 other teams' faults or whoever's looking. But 100 percent I should lose him because he's that talented and he's that good.
"He's the type of guy that should be a GM in this league. Am I bracing myself to lose him? Absolutely I am. I'm going to support him in every way possible. I'm the one who's going to be out there saying that you should hire him. It may or may not be this year, but one thing's for certain. It's just a matter of time."
