Private Eye School Puts Students on Trail of Jobs

Forget the images of Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade--hard-drinking private eyes who were quick to use their fists or pull the trigger.

Today’s private investigator is more likely to resemble Dale Upton, a bearded, bespectacled man who quickly admits he would rather turn and run than shoot it out.

“No job is worth dying for,” said Upton, lead instructor and investigator of the Nick Harris Detective Academy in Van Nuys. “That’s the first lesson.”

The 95-year-old agency has helped train some of the 9,657 licensed private investigators in California, of whom 2,210 are in Los Angeles County. Nick Harris, a former crime reporter and police officer, founded the agency that now claims to be the oldest school for private investigators in the country.

The Harris school is part of an industry that has been booming.

“Since Sept. 11, there is more interest in background checks, and I can see where private investigators’ business would increase,” said Kevin Flanagan, spokesman for the state Department of Consumer Affairs.

Corey Friedman, 42, president of the Harris academy, said “there are more jobs than we can place” graduates in.

The walls of the cluttered Oxnard Street office are covered with plaques and framed letters from dignitaries, including a 1987 letter from then-Vice President George Bush congratulating the school for 80 years of service.

The 10-week course, which runs seven hours a day, five days a week, costs $4,775.

But to acquire a California private investigators license, a graduate must have three years’ paid experience and pass a state test.

The Harris curriculum includes classes on finding missing persons, stealth photography, insurance fraud and accidents, surveillance and criminal investigations.

The classes are taught by Upton, 45, a licensed private investigator and Harris graduate.

Upton was first exposed to the life of a private eye when he was 11. His mother landed a part-time job with an investigator, often doing surveillance on suspected philanderers.

“She would take me and my brother on surveillance,” Upton recalled, sitting in a classroom with cameras, computers, videos and books. “I’d knock on the door of the suspect and ask, ‘Have you seen my dog?’ then report back to Mom.”

Upton’s first paid job came in 1985, when a warehouse manager hired him to track a family member who was stealing the merchandise and selling it at swap meets. For weeks, Upton prowled swap meets until he found the man selling the goods in Reseda.

“I thought it was a waste of time,” Upton said, “but when I found him, it was such a rush--such an Adrenalin dump on my system.”

Upton tells his students that they are not going to solve every case in 60 minutes, like TV investigators. It takes patience. But even with patience, some cases will not be solved.

Many cases involve spouses suspected of cheating. But those cases sometimes take unexpected turns.

Friedman cited a case in which after several weeks, he concluded the husband was not having sex with another woman, but rather taking her dancing. “The lady that hired us was more upset that he was out dancing three times a week than if he had been out having sex once a week,” Friedman said.

Taking the academy’s entrance examination recently was Jaden King, 31, of Santa Clarita, who said he is tired of laying tile.

“Being a private investigator was something I always found intriguing,” King said. “Being undercover, finding information on people without them knowing about it, it’s kind of exciting.”

King said he is particularly looking forward to using high-tech undercover gadgets, such as a video camera inserted inside a cell phone.

Another device tracks where a phone call is coming from.

“You’ve seen the movies where the bad guy is on the pay phone and the cop says, ‘Keep him on the line for two minutes so we can track him,’ ” Friedman said. “We have this unit that can instantly track the location of the phone.”

In two weeks, Hector Looy, 30, of Northridge, will graduate. He is eager to get started.

Last summer, Looy was helping remodel the home of an FBI agent who overheard him complaining about his income.

“So this FBI agent says if I want to make some easy money I should become a private investigator,” Looy recalled. “It sounded interesting, but I had no idea there was a school for it.”

Then three months ago, while driving down Oxnard Street, Looy noticed the Harris academy’s sign on the side of a building.

A week later, he enrolled.

“I’m happy to be here,” he said. “I can’t wait to get out and start being a real private investigator.”