Alfred graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

When his father, Frank Sutherland PERKINS I, was deployed to Columbus, New Mexico, for General Pershing's punitive expeditions, he sent young Alfred a post-card of Las Cruces. Alfred kept this post-card, and eventually moved to Las Cruces, inspired largely by the post-card. He worked as an engineer at White Sands Missile Range, and first lived in a house on Main Street, where he ran a museum with artifacts of dubious provenance, and upon which the Denison Building now stands, before settling with his wife Ruth Antoinette Josephine ARTH at 322 Linda Vista.