Technology Changes. Leadership Endures.

Clyde Wilson

August 2026

From Leigh: A Lesson from 2015 

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Next month, hundreds of parking professionals will gather in Las Vegas to celebrate the industry's newest leaders. The 40 Under 40 awards recognize a generation that is bringing fresh ideas, new technology, and a different way of thinking to parking. We should celebrate them well! TPN is celebrating our President, Krista Olien, as she will receive one of the awards. 

But before we get there, we'd like to pause for a moment and republish an article Clyde Wilson wrote in July 2015. At first glance, it may feel like opening a time capsule. Uber was still a question mark. EMV was just arriving. Mobile payments were new. Automated parking technology was accelerating. I hope as you read you will see that while countless layers of our industry have changed, the core of it has not. 

Clyde belongs to a generation that built this industry one facility, one audit, one customer, and one hard-earned lesson at a time. They didn't have dashboards, AI, or predictive analytics. What they had was grit, curiosity, and undaunted courage to challenge assumptions. This musing from Clyde showcases one of his superpowers, which is recognizing change way before it arrives. 

The next generation deserves our encouragement. Their education, creativity, and technical expertise will take this industry places we cannot yet imagine. But every generation needs mentors. Sometimes the best way to prepare for tomorrow is to sit at the feet of someone who has already walked a thousand miles and listen to some stories. Perhaps innovation is inventing something new while holding fast to what will never change. 

We hope you enjoy this look back. 

Industry in Transition 

Originally published in July 2015 with minor edits for clarity 

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What Does "Industry in Transition" Mean? 

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What does "industry in transition" mean? 

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For me, with 36 years in the business, it means I had to wait 31 years to see this. At least I can say I was behind it all the way, pushing it to this point as hard as I could. 

At about the 25-year mark, I was fairly sure (although we're always learning) that I pretty much had the industry figured out. As the owner of an audit company, new tricks came along from time to time, but basically, I understood what was happening and how it was happening. 

Then, five years ago, everything started changing. Along came ParkMe, ParkYou, ParkWhere... and maybeyoubewannapark. 3M purchased Federal and then dropped them overboard. PCI and EMV arrived. Suddenly, the industry was flooded with people telling me they knew more about parking than I did. How can we park cars without Central Parking founder Monroe Carell Jr.? Without Federal APD? That is an industry in transition. 

Looking for the Right Answer 

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As I look at this "new" industry that is slowly emerging before us, people often ask me where it is headed. Bob Harkins asked that question at the Temecula meeting in October. I don't think the answer I gave was what he was looking for, but it was a great question because it forced me to think hard about why my answer had fallen short. 

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At the time, there was plenty of discussion about Uber causing a decline in parking income. I wasn't one of the believers. There was also a lot of talk about driverless cars making parking irrelevant. Again, I wasn't convinced, at least not in the near term. 

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Thinking about Bob's question took me all the way back to my first days in the parking business. Monroe once told me, in essence, that all we do is rent a parking space for time. Our job is to accurately calculate the fee, charge the customer, and get the money into the bank. 

Funny thing is, that's still our job today. It hasn't changed, and I suspect it won't change for a long time. The real question isn't what we do. It's how we do it. 

Choosing the Right Tools 

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If our industry is doing the same thing we were doing 36 years ago but now has access to faster, smarter, and more efficient tools, how do we make sure we end up five years from now with the right ones? 

The answer is simple. Today's managers have to make today's technology decisions. 

As I said during the Boot Camp session at PIE, "Where the industry will be five years from now really depends on you—the parking manager at the University of Somewhere, the City of Overthere, MyAirport, YourHospital, and so on." You are the people making the purchasing decisions, and those decisions will determine the direction our industry takes. 

The technology you buy today shapes the technology vendors build tomorrow. The parking industry of five years from now is actually being created today, and it's moving so quickly that, before long, we'll probably have to stop and think to remember how difficult things once seemed. 

Lessons from the Airline Industry 

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Let's look at another industry. 

I'm absolutely certain someone in the airline business once said, "People aren't going to get on the Internet and make their own reservations. They want to talk to a person." 

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Last Thursday, while flying somewhere over Oklahoma, I booked the ticket for the flight I'm taking tomorrow. Even if I had wanted to speak with someone, there wasn't anyone available. Someone made the decision to move down the technology path and let customers complete the entire transaction online, from choosing the flight to paying for it.

The parking industry faces the same kind of decisions. 

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One Decision Changes Everything 

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Think about what happened after airlines embraced online reservations. 

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The reservation system had to be redesigned so inexperienced customers could find flights and complete transactions on their own. Call center representatives stopped acting as travel agents and instead became experts at helping customers navigate the website. New procedures had to be written for customers who accidentally booked January 14 instead of January 4. 

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Marketing departments had to learn digital communication. New positions were created to understand customer purchasing behavior and turn all that new data into a competitive advantage. 

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Airport ticket agents changed, too. They went from helping customers build itineraries, processing payments, and balancing large amounts of cash to primarily tagging luggage—while still helping the occasional traveler who needed personal assistance. 

The manager's job changed. The employees changed. The job descriptions changed. The technology changed. So the manager's skills had to change. 

Almost every industry has experienced this kind of transition. Parking is no different. 

Four Crossroads 

The technology facing parking today isn't unique. Most of it already exists in other customer-facing industries. The real question isn't whether the technology works. The real question is whether parking managers understand how today's purchasing decisions will shape tomorrow's industry. 

As managers, we have four major crossroads to navigate: 

• Human (customer) interface 

• Current staffing requirements 

• Information processing 

• Payment processing 

The Real Opportunity 

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I hear a lot of noise about technology: what it's doing to our industry, whether it's good or bad, and how much it's changing the way we operate. 

Technology isn't really the story. Leadership is. 

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If we continue giving managers the knowledge they need, especially around those four crossroads, the parking industry won't simply survive the technology curve. We'll move through it smiling. 

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And, if you know him, you know that Clyde Wilson smiles a lot.