by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
Mark Bachara appreciates having a job with some variety to it. He just doesn’t want it to get too exciting.
Those who have attended meetings or gatherings where Jacksonville Mayor John Peyton was present also may have noticed two compact young men nearby. They’re not the high-spirited, carefree ones.
These two are more focused.
Bachara and Tye Welsh are special investigators for to the mayor. They would just as soon not be identified as bodyguards, but they certainly intend no harm to come to their boss.
“We don’t like to use the term ‘bodyguard,’ ” Bachara said in his office, on the fourth floor of City Hall, around the corner from the mayor’s suite. “If you want to consider our position as sort of a security detail, that’s what we do.”
In addition to the customary attributes expected of people providing security, Bachara said, he found he had to sharpen another skill. Being able to shift gears without thinking about it.
“There’s a fine line to this job,” he said. “We have to be able to go from our best table manners one minute to swift defensive tactics the next. If need be. So far, we haven’t had any need to, knock on wood.
“It’s a good job, but a delicate job.”
As a special investigator, Bachara said, he and Welsh have “a wide selection of tasks. “Obviously, we handle security issues related to the mayor’s office. And we do background checks on City personnel.”
They also investigate any type of complaint coming into City Hall that could involve criminal behavior by a City employee.
Bachara is a Jacksonville native who graduated from The Bolles School, “a good school that did a lot for me.”
He received a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Alabama in 1991 and returned to the city, where he volunteered as a paralegal with the State Attorney’s Office.
“I was possibly going to go the attorney route, but I
didn’t,” he said.
After one year, Bachara decided to attend the police academy when it was on Florida Community College at Jacksonville’s South Campus. He was hired by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office in 1993 and worked patrol for two-and-a-half years, primarily in the Mandarin area.
He returned to the State Attorney’s Office in 1996 as an investigator.
“I worked in different divisions,” he said, “but it mostly involved assisting prosecutors prepare cases for trial, locating witnesses, bumping up arrests from a misdemeanor to a felony charge.”
At one time, Bachara had thought about possibly going into the construction business with his father, Henry, owner of Bachara Builders, Inc. and past NEFBA president.
At the University of Alabama, however, “I had taken a couple of elective courses [in criminal justice], and I was fascinated with them.
“When I was at the State Attorney’s Office, my parents were pushing for law school. They would have liked to see me do that. But I was committed to law enforcement. I love being a detective.”
He was in the State Attorney’s Office when he was asked to join the Peyton team.
“It’s different every day, which makes this such a neat job,” Bachara said. “The first thing, I’ll pick up the mayor. Depending on his schedule, we either come straight into the office, or if he has any type of meeting or event outside the office we attend that with him.
“The job is almost more of an assistant than security.”
Bachara hasn’t been in his new position long enough to speculate about the future.
“I’m just enjoying the present right now,” he said. “Just wrapped up in it.”
Welsh pointed out that he and his partner have a very similar professional background. He was in patrol for two years in the Southside and then spent almost a year in community policing in the Springfield area. He, too, worked in the State Attorney’s Office, primarily in the Juvenile Division.
In addition to their similar backgrounds, the two men apparently have the same regard for each other’s abilities and put the same determination into the job.
“We get along very well,” Welsh said with a big laugh. “We work very well together as a team. Which is essential.”