Alexander Franklin Hermann Goetz of Boulder died of cerebrovascular disease at age 86. Alex excelled in his career as a scientist, academic and entrepreneur, following in the footsteps of his father and of his direct ancestor, Benjamin Franklin.

Born in Pasadena, CA to Sylvia Scott Goetz and Alexander Goetz, Alex graduated from John Muir HS at age 16 and spent the next 2 1/2 years attending Schule Schloss Salem in Germany, where he became bilingual and attained the Abitur degree. After earning a BS in Physics and an MS in Geophysics at the California Institute of Technology, followed by Caltech's first PhD in Planetary Science, Alex's first job took him to Washington, DC in 1967. He spent three years working for Bellcomm (AT&T Bell Labs) on the NASA Apollo program and had the distinction of having the first manned experiment at the moon, carried there on Apollo 8. In 1970, Alex joined NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena to work on the Voyager Mission. Later, he started and ran the earth-oriented geologic remote sensing group, and spearheaded thermal inertia imaging and multispectral thermal imager development and analysis. From that base, he pioneered the development of hyperspectral imaging.

Alex was a principal investigator in the Skylab, Shuttle and Landsat 1, 2 and 7 programs. He received numerous awards, among them the NASA/DOI William T. Pecora Award and the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement. He served on NASA, National Research Council and Los Alamos advisory committees and was a consultant to government and private industry. In 1978 he founded his first of six companies, GeoImages, Inc., to enhance Landsat images for the oil and mining industries.

While teaching remote sensing at UCLA in 1985, Alex was recruited to CU Boulder to establish and direct the Center for the Study of Earth from Space within the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES). He was Professor of Geological Sciences until his retirement from CU in 2006. In 1990 he co-founded his last company, Analytical Spectral Devices (ASD, Inc.), in Boulder, a manufacturer of portable spectrometers and spectroradiometers for remote sensing research and quality testing instrumentation for the petroleum, pharmaceutical, mining, meat, forest and paper industries. ASD sold instruments in over 70countries and in 2009 won the Colorado Governor's Export Award. Until its sale in 2012, Alex was ASD's Chairman and Chief Scientist. To date, he has received over 13,000 citations for his research and published papers, and holds 13 patents.

Many other accomplishments and hobbies have filled Alex's life. He owned 7 sailboats (two of which he built) and sailed well over 70,000 miles on the Atlantic, Pacific and Mediterranean; he was a runner; a woodworker; a photographer; as well as being a loving father and grandfather, and a kind, thoughtful and generous man.

Alex is survived by his sister, Icy James of Seattle; his first wife (1964-1976), Nancy Alexander of Pasadena; his second wife (1982-1996) Rosa Maria Cyrus of Longmont and their children Freya E. Goetz (Sandy) of Washington, DC and Julian F.C.Goetz (Tabi) of Wheat Ridge, CO; and his LAT (Living Apart Together) life partner (2001-present), Kate Wilson of Boulder, her children Michel Haggerty (Nancy) of Allenspark, CO and Abigail Warner (Willy) of Victor, ID, along with their children, Peter and Isabel Warner.