Even before his graduation from Menlo College in California in 1974, Alfredo Mena Lagos became active in his family businesses. In 1973, he was on the board of directors of Pesquera del Pacífico, one of the fishing companies tied to Pezca, of which his father was president. The following year he returned to El Salvador and continued to work in the company. He also developed friendships with right-wing political figures including the famous General Jose Alberto Medrano, the founder of Organización Democrática Nacional (ORDEN), an organization that, by the late 1970s, became a 100,000-member-strong paramilitary organization based in the countryside.