At 9 p.m, the last classroom lights go dark, the doors click shut as faculty members depart and the echoes of the day fade away. The final cars pull out of the parking lot, beginning the trek back to the comforts of home. And as silence settles over the school in the midst of the night’s darkness, he clocks in for the start of his shift — at this time, while most are studying at home and beginning to wind down to end the day, his night of vigilance begins.
At 5 a.m, the morning breeze cuts through the campus, and he knows his shift is finally over. With his work done for the day, he gets in his car to go home to unwind. The typical traffic congestion that so many others dread after they get off their jobs isn’t there at this hour. For the most part, the roads are still empty. Much of the world still hasn’t quite woken up.
At 7 a.m, students and faculty members start to trickle onto campus. Laughter and footsteps soon fill the once silent halls that he had patrolled just a few hours before, and the Quad now buzzes with conversations and early morning activities. It’s a new day for them, but for him, his day is just about over — he’s getting ready to go to bed, as the school he had kept a vigilant watch over has come back to life.
At 2 p.m, while the campus hums with activity, he wakes up from his rest — he’s not there to witness any of it. His shift won’t start for another seven hours — for now, the free time is his own, a quiet pause before he returns once more to school at 9 p.m., when the cycle starts again.
Overnight Security Officer Daniel Mauch’s security career didn’t begin at the school. Before he was hired as an on-campus security guard in 1997, he had spent ten years working as a commission security guard, rotating between various locations across Dallas County.
“I worked many different accounts, for example, banks, different companies, armor services and money transfer, like liquor stores or cash deposits,” Mauch said.“Several years later around 1997, St. Mark’s wanted to go in-house, so they offered me a job and then I was able to work at one location,” Mauch said. “That motivated me to come here, and I’ve been here ever since.”
For him, making the change was a straightforward decision — the stability of working at a single location replaced the constant, inconvenient movement between sites, and working the overnight shift offered him a quieter, more consistent routine. And now, that decision has evolved into a decades-long commitment to the school.
The unique schedule of Mauch’s job doesn’t faze him. From his perspective, everything seems to flow naturally, as the regular rhythm of working the overnight shift perfectly suits his lifestyle. Each night consists of the same tasks — monitoring the entire campus infrastructure, setting up and charging the golf carts for the next day and checking all the utilities. This routine has allowed him to swiftly handle any problems that might suddenly occur.
“A few weeks ago in the new Zierk building, a fire alarm system went off, but I was able to reset the alarm system and call the assistant property manager. Then I went in to reset the pumps and made sure that no parts of the building had water damage,” Mauch said. “And that was at two two o’clock in the morning.”
The commitment to such a strict schedule has become second nature for Mauch. Accepting the overnight job’s unusual hours was a lifestyle change that he has lived by for nearly three decades, and although it was initially difficult to adapt to, he doesn’t regret it.
“It’s definitely a dedicated job, and I have to form my life around it,” Mauch said. “I can’t pretend to be a day person and be able to be awake all night long. I have to commit from seven to two for sleep, which is a period that most people are normally up and going, but I don’t have an issue with it. Choose a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
Overnight security coverage is just one part of the measures that the security team uses to protect the community. During the day, members of the team can be regularly seen managing carpools and riding around the campus in golf-carts, maintaining the perimeter of the school and constantly staying on the lookout — a visible and consistent presence that distinguishes the school’s methodical approach to campus safety.
“At St. Mark’s, the safety and wellbeing of this community is a high priority,” Director of Security Dale Hackbarth said. “We secure the campus using a multi-layered approach. This includes nine full-time in-house security officers. Six of the team are former DPD officers with cumulative 170 years of law enforcement experience. We also have a total 225 cameras with advanced analytics, as well as state of the art access control on all doors.”
In addition to these measures in place with the goal of deterring threats and allowing the security team to respond quickly to any situation that suddenly arises, they ensure that the school is secured 24/7, every single day of the year, with at least one member of the team present on the campus.
They also play a key role in maintaining the facilities on campus, working alongside the physical plant team to make sure that the campus is not only functional for the students and visitors, but also guaranteed to be safe at all times. From Hackbarth’s perspective, one of the major factors of how the security operates at school, their active visibility during the day and having someone on vigilant lookout during the night hours, is essential to giving people on campus the peace of mind that someone is always looking out for them.
“I want everybody to know that when they see khaki pants and a blue polo, there’s security here on campus,” Hackbarth said.
Having in-house security with years of experience on campus brings a distinct advantage. Officers know the ins and outs of the school’s layout, the routines and the community as a whole — and ideally, the community is familiar with them too. For Hackbarth, that level of familiarity builds trust and encourages openness, creating a campus culture where students and faculty feel comfortable reporting concerns and working with security to keep the environment safe.
“We balance the safety of our campus with creating a welcoming environment,” Hackbarth said. “We understand that security is not just about the technology or policies; it’s about creating awareness, respect and trust within our community. And I think the security department has a bright future here at St. Mark’s.”
