After 25 years with the City of Jacksonville, building inspector Mark Williams is set to retire at the end of November.
Williams has been working since he was a kid, clocking in to buy produce, fix heating and air conditioning, manage apartment complexes and fix utilities before he joined the city staff in 1999. But his first job — working alongside his dad and brothers in 1975 to build the family home, a 4,000-square-foot house just outside the city — seems to have laid the foundation for Williams’ contributions to Jacksonville.
Now that he’s retiring, Williams said Tuesday, he plans to spend more time with his mother, who turns 90 in December and still lives in the house the family built.
“It’s the first time since I was 13 that I won’t have to call in and tell them I’m taking a day off, that I don’t have to punch a time clock,” Williams reflected. “I won’t have a responsibility to my job anymore, but I still have a responsibility to my family, and that’s what I want to concentrate on.”
There’s much to reflect on, Williams said; his main responsibility has been to visit buildings in the city and check whether they’re safe and meet city code, which regularly put him face to face with new and old residents and business owners. Working closely with people has given him perspective; he’s seen generations grow in Jacksonville, watched households add new rooms for newborns, properties change hands, businesses rise and decline, and witness the city itself changing over his quarter-century on the job.
When the tornado hit in March 2018 and turned life in Jacksonville upside-down, Williams said, his schedule was turned upside-down right alongside. Homes and businesses took all sorts of damage, some so badly they couldn’t be saved, while Williams joined rebuilding efforts that put him on 15-hour days, seven days a week, through the worst of it. The tornado’s dangerous winds yanked power services from houses and threw trees onto power lines, leaving homeowners in the dark.
Williams had to inspect all the rewiring work for safety, especially given how many out-of-town workers unfamiliar with Jacksonville code had arrived to join the effort to rebuild.
“When we would pull up, people would hug us and cry on our shoulders,” Williams said.
Now that his responsibilities with the city are coming to an end, Williams said he’s looking forward to acquiring his master plumber license, something he said he’ll earn by spending his newfound free time studying, adding to his encyclopedic knowledge of construction codes from the International Code Council and a lifetime of lived experience.
“It’s going to be my odd job,” Williams said of plumbing. “We’ll have to see where it goes. I’m not looking to go home and sit down and do nothing.”
His coworkers, meanwhile, are sad to see him go.
“He’s always gone above and beyond for all the employees and the citizens,” said Brenda Long, Jacksonville city clerk. “I’ve been here since 2011 and seen it myself.”
Even during his employee spotlight interview, Williams jumped to a resident’s aid; a roofer needed help renewing his state license, and Williams and assistant building inspector Robert Foster paused the interview to call the state office directly on his behalf.
Foster, who is the first person to have the assistant inspector job, said he’d learned a lot of Williams since he was hired earlier this year, and planned to follow in his footsteps, not only in terms of certifications and work knowledge, but with care for the people of Jacksonville, too.
“He’s a part of Jacksonville,” Foster reminded. “I’m going to try and model my work after Mark; he’s a part of the family out here.”
Williams wanted to specially thank his mentors from when he started working in Jacksonville, city planner Lynn Causey and city attorney Grant Paris, for guiding him through his early steps into the role, and his wife, Brandy, and daughters Christin and Lacey, for their constant support.
“It’s been good to work for the citizens of Jacksonville,” Williams said. “I’ve given it my all; now it’s time for a break.”
