By Victor Hill, CAPP, MPA

A running theme in our industry is just how tight knit we are, whether we compete for customers or work together to solve common problems.

And then there was the time I reconnected with an old friend I hadn’t seen in more than 20 years. I recently attended the Carolinas Parking and Mobility Association conference in Cherokee, N.C. We received the attendee list and a name stuck out. It had to be my childhood friend because he was still in the area we grew up and his name is unique enough that I could reasonably throw coincidence out the window. I called his office, got an expectedly bemused reaction from the employee who took my message, and got a text from him while I was on the road.

I was right. We ran into each other the first day sessions began, caught up on our lives, and talked lots of business over the following days. It was a wild, emotional ride to relive memories from what seems like another life and meld them into the parking and mobility world we share, to connect those dots into shared concerns for success. Stories about our families blended seamlessly into shared anecdotes about enforcement, how our careers pivoted to parking, facility maintenance challenges, our hobbies, how to leverage analytics to be more effective, and so many more things I’m still processing.

Our industry truly is tight knit and I am grateful that I found my old friend because of it.

Victor Hill, CAPP, MPA, is an account manager at T2 Systems, a self-anointed LPR evangelist, and a Gen 1 Transformers geek.