I was honored by the NPA be being invited to the Chairman’s Reception. It was a small gathering — about 30 or so people. Chairman Jed Hatfield is most gracious and I chatted with him and the two keynote speakers for the presentations tomorrow.
I was taken with Mark Muglich, head honcho over at Ampco System Parking. This is the second or third largest parking company in the US, and I thought I was talking to the owner of a small, regional company. While many who rise to this level have become administrators, or investment bankers, or as the late Monroe Carell once told me “I take care of the stock price on Wall Street,” Mark has kept to his roots. “My bosses take care of all that.”
He talked about his “clients” like he worked with them every day and my guess is he does. He spoke of service, and operations, and how the people in his organization make the difference. He is a parking guy, and a nice one, too.
He loves his home city of Cleveland, and says that he will be there until he retires, and maybe longer. He has moved back into the downtown area, and says that Cleveland has become a wonderful area with more than 20,000 people moving back into the downtown core, where onlly 2,000 were there just a few years ago.
We agreed to meet again when we could talk. I’m looking forward to it.
JVH
