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On the Job: Thomas G. Martin
By Melodie Nyman Posada with Thomas G. Martin
Job Title: President
Company: Martin Investigative Services
Business address: 2400 E. Katella AVe., Suite 675, Anaheim, Calif., 92806
Telephone: (714) 939-100
Residence: Yorba Linda
Age: 51
Salary range: $120,000 plus
What’s a typical day like?
A typical day for me can be spent dealing with locating friends and family, performing surveillance on cheating spouses, providing advice on personal and corporate security or investigating on artist and business scams.
I may recommend the best lawyers for a case, deal with parents and troubled teens, navigate the complexities of adoption and finding birth parents, assist in choosing child care, protect employers or employees in the workplace or be on call everyday to testify as an expert witness in courts around the country. Another duty is to choose which of my staff investigators will work on what case.
How many hours a week do you work? 70.
How did you get your job? What’s your background?
For 12 years I was a supervisory Federal agent with the U.S. Department of Justice. After I was inured and retired in 1981, this type of work seemed like the natural thing to go into.
What do you like most about your job?
The variety of assignments and the people. This is a local and international job. I’ve met chief executive officers of Fortune 500 companies and people in the sports and entertainment industries. This job is an entree to meeting people I ordinarily wouldn’t get to meet.
What would you change about your job if you could?
The paperwork. Everything we do must be documented. An insignificant detail taken in 1990 may have an impact in a court case in the year 2000.
What advice would you give to someone who wants a job like yours?
Call the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services in Sacramento to find out what you need to do to become a private investigator. As personal qualifications, you need good communication skills and to be a good listener.
What was the biggest hurdle you faced on the job?
Obtaining public record information, such as court documents or papers. I went through many sources until I developed my own computer database and got online services.
What motivates you to do your best on the job?
Understanding that the work I create will drastically change forever the scope of a person’s life naturally motivates me.