By Brian Wolff

For nearly a decade, I’ve made parking my profession, and what was true the day I started is still true today: Parking operators are the nicest and grittiest people I’ve ever met, and truly the salt of the earth! They are also some of the most generous, humble people on the planet, who go about their jobs thanklessly cleaning stairwells and dutifully counting money, while the parking public at best ignores them or at worst berates them. And they often do this under the specter of losing a contract with 30 days’ notice.

Under pressure

I remember joining the parking industry from the technology and software as a service industry. In technology, contracts were measured in years. Although there were plenty of incentives to perform to keep the company happy, we weren’t subject to being out in 30 days, unless something was seriously going wrong to cause a breach of contract. Even then, we had an opportunity to cure the breach. Whereas in parking, operators must bring their best work every day, because competitors are always lurking to steal their cheese. How did that happen?

The story I’ve always told myself is that one of the early parking moguls shook hands with a new customer and told them, “If you’re not happy with my service, you can replace me with 30 days’ notice.” And so, an era of 30-day contracts was born. Add this to a long list of reasons operators are under pressure to provide a great customer experience every day for their clients.

Personal bonds define parking

Through it all, I’ve made some great friends along the way. Once again, I remember when I first entered the business, and I would hear prospects and customers talk fondly about other operators and their families. The industry was tight-knit, and everyone knew everyone else, including their spouses and children. 

Now 10 years in, I, too, have joined the ranks of parking people who know leaders and spouses and children. It’s a remarkable thing to have relationships with leaders and to be acquainted with their extended families. That didn’t happen in any other industry I’ve ever been involved in. It speaks to the humanity of the industry and to the genesis of the industry as well.

Even the largest private parking operators who have gone on acquisition sprees can trace their roots back to a single lot in a single town that served as ground zero for their parking empire. I’ve always appreciated that these companies have stood the test of time and survived through multiple generations, some for nearly 100 years. It’s a testament to their grit and to the need for this work to be done! Things that aren’t necessary don’t last.

Operators are here to stay

That brings me to the doomsayers who say that private parking operators will eventually go away. I wrote a column in these pages some years ago entitled “Parking Operators are Dead, Long Live Parking Operators.” No matter how much technology one pours into a parking operation, the human element will always be needed. And while technology is reshaping the way we find, pay, and exit facilities, private parking operators will always be a part of the picture. They serve a vital service, physically or financially, and as things get more technical, cars still need to be parked, and money still needs to be counted and reconciled.

I’ve learned through my decade in parking that the reconciliation piece is perhaps the most important. There are so many ways to park and pay, and as the number of choices grows, the ability to reconcile what happened becomes even more important. What’s even more amazing is the way operators count and protect money that’s not even theirs. They provide a valuable service to asset owners but protect the money as if it were their own.

Parking is complicated and getting more so every single day. Someone is going to have to deal with the complexity. Although companies are out there trying to find the silver bullet to bring all this disparity to heel, my money is on the value that private operators create by being the hub between all the spokes of complexity and ticking and tying the figures, all while keeping the facilities neat, clean, and well lit.

It is a thankless job that nobody grew up aspiring to. However, when you hear all the stories about how a parking professional got into the business, you can’t help but marvel at the stickiness of our industry. People come for the paycheck but stay for the community. Private operators are the backbone of an industry that makes America go, and for that, I would like to be first in line to say, “Thank you!”

BRIAN WOLFF is the president & CEO of Parker Technology. He can be reached at [email protected] or visit www.parkertechnology.com.