It doesn’t hurt if you are competent with a handgun and can handle yourself in a fight. If you have all that going for you, you have only a few of the essential qualifications necessary to be a bodyguard.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics does not provide a job description or future outlook for “bodyguard.” To find out what the job is all about, you have to speak to professional bodyguards such as Walter Masterson and David LaManno.

Masterson, 52, is president and CEO of Protection Investigation Services Corp. in Stuart. And LaManno, 35, is director of Bodyguard Training International (BTI) in Los Angeles.

Masterson’s experience in the personal protection business dates back to his days in the military, where he was assigned to protect generals. He was a police officer for seven years before he launched his company.

Before opening BTI in 1999, LaManno worked as a bodyguard for high-ranking executives, actor Bruce Willis, basketball stars Magic Johnson and Dennis Rodman, rapper Dr. Dre and the Saudi Royal family.

Masterson’s clients also include high-ranking corporate executives, plus Latin American singers, wealthy families and the yearly Winter Equestrian Festival held at the Thomas Equestrian Center in Tampa, where he is part of a team that protects the horses and their owners.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, the demand for bodyguards has increased enormously. As the economy continues to get better, “security has become a top priority in government and industry,” says LaManno. “There are more jobs than there are trained bodyguards to fill them.”

Better than 90 percent of BTI’s grads find jobs after graduation. Masterson receives about 150 résumés a week — and fewer than 25 are from qualified candidates.

During the past three years, there has been a marked increase in the demand for women bodyguards.

“There is at least one woman in all of our programs,” says LaManno, “who has the luxury of choosing between a handful of job offers.” Wealthy women prefer a woman bodyguard because she melds right in with the family and is likely to be taken for a nanny or a relative.

LaManno says BTI draws students ranging in age from 20 to 50 from all over the United States. Small classes of about 15 students are taught by LaManno and a staff of 12 former bodyguards.

BTI teaches a five-day certificate-bearing course for $3,000, which promises to train almost anyone to be a bodyguard. It includes food and lodging and runs from 8 a.m. until midnight. There also is an advanced 10-day course for professional bodyguards, which costs $6,500.

Entry-level bodyguard jobs are found watching monitors in an estate’s security room and doing perimeter walks at $12 to $25 an hour. The next step is a position as a member of a company’s security team at a modest hourly pay increase.

With experience, you’re likely to be hired as personal bodyguard to an executive, politician, celebrity or an eccentric rich person who just likes having a personal bodyguard by his or her side.

Depending upon the client, personal bodyguards can earn $40 to $75 an hour, according to LaManno. He’s earned as much as $750 to $1,000 a day.

Their hourly or daily pay is usually determined by what Masterson calls the “threat or danger level” of the assignment. In plain English, the more likely you are to be killed while protecting your client, the more money you’ll earn. He’s earned as much as $500 an hour putting his life on the line protecting for high- visibility CEOs. In fact, he just got back from seven months in Kuwait protecting a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. The pay was $10,000 a month.

Not bad. But when you consider that there were constant attempts on the CEO’s life, Masterson earned every penny of it.

Masterson says the average bodyguard lacks experience and training. LaManno dittoes that. “Seventy-five percent of the bodyguards working today have literally no training,” he says, and are little more than bouncers. In fact, Masterson doesn’t like the term “bodyguard”; he prefers “personal protection specialist” because it accurately describes the job.

While famous actors and rock stars purposely hire former wrestlers and football players whose mere presence is a deterrent, executives and government officials prefer to hire bodyguards who blend in and look like executives themselves. “They go out of the way to deflect attention from themselves,” says Masterson.

What does it take to be a bodyguard? To start, good instincts and quick reflexes so clients can be whisked from dangerous situations. The idea is not to stick around and fight, but to remove the client instantly.

“I prefer not to hire martial-arts experts,” says Masterson, “because most of them want to stick around and fight. That’s not what personal protection is all about.”

LaManno: “You have to be the kind of person who enjoys helping people and be willing to risk your life to protect them.”

Masterson: “You have to have a mindset that accepts the risks and dangers of the job and understands that you may not come home tonight.”

Want to know more?