Meet Alex Haynes! Alex has lived in Hall County for a little over two years and is a Bail Recovery Agent with Fenrir Recovery in Gainesville! If that isn’t cool enough, her partner, John, is a former Green Beret.
“There’s always an element of danger because you literally have no idea what is going to happen,” she said. “I would say for us, it’s less dangerous than people would expect it to be because we use good tactics and we try to put ourselves in as few dangerous situations as we can.”
Alex, grew up in Habersham County and was home schooled through middle and high school. She is the oldest of five girls and graduated high school at 17 and became a professional photographer. About four years ago she began in the bail recovery industry.
“The thing that always surprises people, especially law abiding citizens who aren’t really familiar with the bail bond process, is that when people bond out they sign crazy privacy waivers…like Fourth Amendment rights, everything, they sign away all rights to privacy,” said Alex, who loves being her own boss. “We work for 14 different offices in Georgia, from a number of different counties. We work for three different companies in Hall County and Habersham, White, Forsyth and Gwinnett. It’s always something different. When people ask me what I like best about this job, I always say there’s never, ever, ever a boring day…we are kind of inherently dealing with people that are sort of on the fringes of society so to speak, not living within the rules of society like most people do. So their lives are always interesting…when you spend that much time out and on the road, in different cities and different places; just statistically you are going to see some crazy things.”
We want to thank Alex for recently sitting down with us to talk about her life and love of Hall County.
Question: What led you to your current career?
Answer: “Bail Recovery Agent, in the code section that governs bail bondsmen in Georgia, officially it’s Bail Recovery Agent but most people just say bounty hunter. As a kid I always wanted to be a detective or investigator and I was always obsessed with Laura Croft and Sherlock Holmes and James Bond; that whole genre of investigative work and spies and all of that. When I became a photographer straight out of high school, around 2013 after I had been doing photography full time for a number of years, I reached a point where I was wondering why I never pursued an investigative career that I wanted as a kid.  I think maybe I didn’t think it was something that people did in real life…so I started looking into private investigation work and just went from there and started reading about skip tracing, which is basically just finding people who don’t want to be found.  I was led into studying about bail recovery.  I started taking a krav maga classes over at the East Hall Community Center where I met my current business partner, who is an ex-Green Beret.  He was doing a lot of private security, private military work at the time and was doing a ton of stuff overseas with Maritime Security in Somalia.  I learned he has a 13 year old son and he said, ‘I’m missing huge chunks of time by going overseas’ and so he started looking for a similar, high speed career in the States.  He also came upon bail recovery and started doing it full time but had no idea how to find anyone.  He knew that I was interested in investigations, so he called me one day and said ‘I’ve got these files and I can’t find these people, do you want to see if you can find them?’ It was the opportunity that I had been crossing my fingers for.  He gave the files to me and I was able to find three of the people from the first files he gave me (Oct. 2014).”
Q: What is your favorite restaurant in Hall County?
A: “I would say over on Atlanta Highway, El Caraton the little taco stand.  I love that place. My partner (John), who is also my boyfriend, is a Californian.  He has very high standard for tacos.
Q: Who is the most interesting person that you have met in Hall County?
A: “I’ve met some interesting people in this county! I’ll say, two really interesting people that I have met in Hall County is Ann Farmer Hood, who owns Easy Out Bail Bonds.  She is awesome. She is just a tough, strong willed, female business owner and I think she is really cool as a person. And, Maggie Griffin from Maggie Griffin Designs. She was one of my photography clients before I started doing bail recovery and one of the only clients I still shoot for, she is just fantastic and I love her.”
Q: What is the first movie you remember seeing in the theater?
A: “I think it was probably ‘Toy Story.'”
Q: What advice would you give a crowd of people?
A: “Don’t ever co-sign for anyone on a bail bond…people’s decisions dictate where their lives end up. It’s completely true what they say about your inner circle and the people you surround yourself with.  The people we are going after aren’t necessarily bad people.  They are just, sort of, chronically irresponsible…and don’t really take control over their lives.”
Q: What three bands would you want see, dead or alive? 
A: “I think I would have loved to see The Who and the Stones, but in their heyday. I think it would be really great to see Johnny Cash, he would probably be my No. 1.”
Q: What is your favorite thing about Hall County?
A: “I think my favorite thing about Hall County is just how much effort everyone is putting into bringing new businesses here. I know Elizabeth Higgins with Vision 2030 is doing great things, I love the growth that we are seeing in Hall County…I’m just proud of everyone working together on the growth.
Q: Where do you see yourself in five or 10 years?
A: “I can’t say for sure because a lot is going on politically with the bail industry…I am an investigator at heart and I always want to be doing some kind of investigative work. If I wasn’t doing this job I would love to do full time private investigations or cyber security.”
Q: What three words mean “HOME” to you?
A: “Sisters, art, coffee.”
The Faces of Hall County is a project to showcase the amazing people that live or work in our community. If you would like to nominate an interesting person to be featured please email babernathy@gonorton.com.