September Parking Professional Spotlight

You may know this month’s spotlighted parking professional, either from a parking event or if you’ve read Parking Today magazine. John Van Horn worked in and wrote about the parking industry for 47 years before he retired in the spring of 2024. He has been a driving force in Our Industry for decades! TPN recently released the premier Grumpy Garage podcast, starring John & Clyde, which you can listen to wherever you consume podcasts.  

John was kind enough to share some more of his story and some advice with me in a recent interview. While you take in that second cup of coffee, enjoy our conversation. My favorite part of the conversation is the advice John gives – it’s spot on! 

How did you find your way into the parking industry?

I was selling card access systems and came across a spec that I thought was impossible. I called the guy who wrote it, and he invited me over to see what he had done. He showed me his product. His name was Ted Burton, and the company was Secom. He hired me a few months later, and the rest, as they say… 

Although it also made technology for building systems, Secom focused on parking control. Burton felt there was a lot that wasn’t being done in the parking arena. Although my job was sales, I spent quite a bit of time in parking garages talking to owners and operators and learning about their problems and how we might solve them. It was a perfect school for the parking business. 

I worked on loan to operators, sitting in booths, taking tickets, and computing parking fees in my head. I was cursed out by parkers who felt they shouldn’t pay and began to understand just how parking worked. And it didn’t work very well. It needed a lot of help. I asked questions and found the people who could give me straight answers. 

Seventeen years later, I felt I had done all I could do at Secom and left to start my true love, Parking Today. 

What was your favorite job during your career? 

Editor at Parking Today. No comparison.  

Would you briefly describe Parking Today, and maybe share a fun memory of that time you were its editor? 

Our goal when we started PT was to provide a venue where information about the industry could be shared without those involved feeling like they needed to answer to someone else, like a CEO, board of directors, or whomever. We often printed articles we disagreed with and would occasionally respond to them.  

The 30 years with PT were virtually all fun. Financially, it was a disaster, but the rest was great. I knew I was doing something right when Clyde told me that a friend called him and said, “What’s he going to say this month?” 

I printed an article where the writer, an auditor, said he had never audited a garage that he didn’t find at least 30% of the revenue missing. That caused a furor! An operator wrote me and told me that that wasn’t true in his garages. I challenged him: we would audit one of his garages, and if we didn’t find 30% of the cash missing, we would pay for the audit; if we did, he would pay. Strangely, we never heard from him again. 

In another case, an auditor called the operator and told him that his garage was missing 17% of the tickets issued. “Wow,” the operator said, “we finally got the place under control.” 

What advice do you have for young parking professionals? 

Get out of the office and onto the street and into the garage.  You won’t learn anything sitting behind a desk. If you work on-street, ride with enforcement officers, talk to people who have received tickets, examine the systems in use, and poke holes in them.  

If your focus is garage parking, spend a few hours each day in the garage. Watch the activity during rush hours. Talk to the monthlies and listen to their complaints. Watch how the dailies go about entering the garage, paying, and exiting. Is the garage clean, well-lit, and safe? Would you feel comfortable parking there? Audit the garage frequently. Count the cars as they enter and exit. Compute how much should have been collected vs how much was turned in. It can be an eye-opening experience. 

Do you see a future for yourself in podcasting?  

Oh, it's fun chatting with Clyde, but I’m not sure it’s a future for me. I have not been a fan of podcasts. It always seemed to me to be something that people waste their time listening to. I’m sure there are interesting podcasts, and if you have an interest in the topic, they may be attractive. I’m not sure how you find them, but then I’m an internet luddite.  

What has been the best part of retired life?  

Not having to make a payroll. The pressure is off. Of course, that is part of the problem. You become complacent. You lose perspective. I often don’t know what day it is, and don’t care. As you age, parts of your body don’t work as well, and you spend inordinate amounts of time at doctors. Retirement gives you time to do that.  

Retirement also offers many organ recitals. Are you familiar?  A guy goes into a retirement home to visit a friend. The receptionist tells him that his friend is at the organ recital just down the hall. He heads in that direction, expecting to hear music. Instead, there are conversations that go something like “Yeah. I have that back pain, too – I think it’s my kidney acting up.” or “My cardiologist says I have to up my blood pressure meds” or “My stomach is acting up again, I have to keep off that spicy food” Organ recitals… 

I’ve been retired for a little over a year and have gone with the flow. It's time to reorient and give myself some purpose. I’m not a golfer or hobbyist, so perhaps something creative. I like to write…  Who knows. 

What are you reading right now? 

At this moment, I am reading one of the Spenser series by Robert B. Parker. I love mysteries. I have read every Dallas mystery J D Robb has written, the Gabriel Allon books by Daniel Silva, plus the thrillers by Brad Thor, James Patterson, Steve Berry, Eric Van Lustbader, J.A. Jance, David Baldacci, and John Sanford. I also like historical mysteries set in different venues such as Elizabethan England, Ancient Rome, and China. I do read biographies from time to time, as long as I like the subject. My favorite is about Winston Churchill.  

What sort of things did you like to do when you were a young man?  

It’s been so long, who can remember? I did ski a bit until I blew out my ACL. I loved to travel and spent a lot of time in the UK, Europe, Israel, Japan, China, and Australia. I played golf for a time and enjoyed it, but it's been a decade since I picked up a club.