$90 BILLION A YEAR INDUSTRY

Jerry Wolsey is owner of Wolsey Investigative Service Inc.

Wolsey logo (FRED LYNCH)

Wolsey Investigative Service grows from its intitial start in 1989 to more than 125 employees with a million-dollar-plus annual payroll.

By B. Ray Owen

Two years ago, the city of Atlanta hired more than 13,000 private security guards during the Olympic Games.

During the same year, the Oklahoma City courthouse bombing created a windfall for security agencies as businesses in large and small communities started looking to the security industry as a necessity, not a luxury. Many offices, factories and shopping malls are protected by employees of private security companies.

Americans spend more than $90 billion a year on private security, and there are more private policemen in the U.S. than public ones. And, about a third of country's private security guards work for the government in some capacity.

Private investigative services and securities companies today are playing a greater role in reducing crime. They do everything from drive-by patrols to picking up mail and newspapers for vacationing homeowners.

Some specialty services may even include escorting individuals from a car to the front door, along with a complete door and/or window check.

Many private investigator cases involve domestic issues, missing persons, and surveillance work.

But, private investigation has been getting into the corporate world like never before.

The work runs the gamut -- employment background checks, probing into sexual harassment allegations and even scoping out business "competitors."

Investigations and security are on the grow, said Jerry Wolsey, who operates Wolsey Investigative Service Inc., in Cape Girardeau, one of the largest private security firms in Southeast Missouri.

"This will be a $100 billion industry by the year 2000," said Wolsey. "I never realized what it would turn into when I started this business less than a decade ago."

There are a number of security firms in Southeast Missouri.

Wolsey, a native Cape Girardean who makes his home in Chaffee, was a police office 15 years before breaking into the private investigations business. He worked for the Chaffee and Sikeston Police Departments and the Scott County Sheriff's Department.

In October of 1989, he founded Wolsey Investigative Service, then headquartered in Chaffee.

"I started with five people," he said. "Early on, the works was largely investigative -- domestic cases, missing persons, accident probes...We still have a number of investigative cases, but the work is mostly security guardwork now."

Today, Wolsey employs 125 people, including four investigators, with a payroll of more than $1.1 million a year.

"We're licensed for work in Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky," he said.

In November of 1997, Wolsey Investigative was awarded a state security contract for guard services under the Department of Social Services.

This includes Division of Family Services, Division of Youth Services, Division of Child Enforcement and the Division of Aging.

"We're placing guards in DFS offices throughout Southeast Missouri -- Cape Girardeau, Caruthersville, Sikeston, Poplar Bluff and Kennett," said Wolsey.

Wolsey's moved his headquarters to Cape Girardeau more than a year ago, and currently operate out of the Galleria Building, on Independence St., but will be moving into new quarters on Wintergreen Drive in the near future.

"A lot of people get the idea that we do what the private investigators on TV do," said Wolsey. "It's really nothing like that."

But, the need for private security has grown dramatically over the past five years," said Wolsey. "Who in the world would ever dream that a private investigation agency would be this busy in Southeast Missouri?"

Wolsey and his investigators work for attorneys and insurance companies from all over Southeast Missouri, investigating accidents, wrongful death suits, child custody cases and the like.

In many cases, the agency is hired by a private citizens, and investigators end up trying to locate a missing person, or doing surveillance work. And, in many of those cases, it includes spying on a seemingly untrustworthy spouse.

And a lot of the time people think you can do everything in a couple of hours, said Wolsey. "They want you to trespass on private property, and that's something we can't do. You have to explain the legalities to them."

And although he won't divulge the specifics of any case, he said every case is "interesting."

"I thought I'd seen it all in law enforcement. I was wrong."

Knowledge of the law is crucial for security service employees. All of Wolsey's employees have prior experience in law enforcement or the military, he said.

Very little of the work is glamorous, he said, and it's usually not dangerous. Most of the work is done at night and on weekends, leaving little time for family. And stakeouts can mean endless waiting.

"When you're doing surveillance, it's probably the most boring thing in the world," he said, "until something happens. But before that, 20 hours seems like 80 hours."

Wolsey said he and the other investigators usually start a case by looking through public records.

But they also utilize videotapes, interviews with friends and neighbors of the person or persons they are investigating and computer equipment. They are often called to testify in court for their clients, he said, so accurate record keeping is a must.

"You never see an investigator on television coming back to the office to file a report, and that's a big part of it."

He said they account for every hour spent on a case in writing.

Wolsey's clients come from a wide area. The existence of his agency has spread by word of mouth, he said. In Missouri he currently has clients in St. Louis, St. Charles, Kansas City, Independence, Columbia, Joplin and Neosho.

"There is a big need for a private investigation agency here. I found that out. We've more than doubled in size the past year," said Wolsey.

Wolsey Investigative Service Inc. of Chaffee purchased AA Security Inc. of Cape Girardeau during the past year. The company operates vehicles equipped with state-of-the-art radio repeater equipment, giving officers instant communications from Perryville to the Arkansas state line.

Wolsey provides a full range of security and investigative services. The service offers both armed and unarmed security guards, mobile patrol, special-event security and a wide range of investigative functions, including background investigations, missing person traces, person and corporate asset searches and criminal and civil case preparations.