Gary Thacker is in trouble again.

Thacker, 50, who took over the Thacker Operating Co. in 1989, following the death of his father from heart trouble and his mother in an accident, was charged with bribing Houston's building services director to get an energy services contract there. The charges have been under investigation since at least last May, when they were profiled by the AJC. Given that the final charges came in the form of "criminal information" rather than an indictment, it is believed Thacker is cooperating with authorities.

Back in 2001 Thacker Operating was caught up in the Atlanta Airport scandals surrounding former mayor Bill Campbell. (The AJC reported Thacker gave Campbell a Lexus after he left office.) Thacker Operating is also a major contractor on the $3 billion Atlanta sewer project (which is why its logo is at the top of this item)., as well as the fifth runway project at Hartsfield-Jackson, and Thacker was listed as a contributor to Shirley Franklin's 2001 campaign.

The company, in other words, has been this way before.

Thacker has always been a political construction firm, although you can argue all construction contracts are in part political. Founder Floyd O. Thacker rose to prominence in the 1970s, getting big contracts for the construction of Hartsfield Airport from then-Mayor Maynard Jackson, whose name is now also on the airport. By the early 1980s the company was in the Black Enterprise Top 100, with annual sales of over $80 million.

Then Floyd died, in 1987, from complications of heart surgery. Then his wife Sandra, who succeeded him, died in a swimming pool accident. Gary wound up with a very wounded company -- falling sales, depleted cash flow. He cut costs, he invested heavily in marketing, and he positioned the group as a management firm, as opposed to a "hard construction" outfit. Since then, he has cut the marketing profile. There are no pictures of Gary Thacker on the Web, according to Google, and Google does not know of a Thacker Construction Web site.

The short version of the story, however, is that Gary's strategy worked. Floyd Gary Thacker is now as prominent as his father, Floyd O. Thacker, was back in the day. He's a member of the board of visitors at Howard University in Washington. He's a player.

But playing the game may now mean greasing some palms.