Gill Barnett liked parking cars so much he dropped out of college, gave up becoming an engineer and spent the next 40 years in the unglamorous profession.
“We’re usually a step below the janitors,” Barnett joked after accepting an Excellence in Entrepreneurship Award at the Business Journal’s annual luncheon in Irvine last week.
Barnett heads and owns Irvine-based Parking Concepts Inc., which runs parking lots for businesses and government agencies. Last year, the company had $73 million in revenue, which he said has been growing at a 20% annual clip.
Barnett also runs Transportation Concepts, a division of his company that operates and maintains buses for public agencies, such as Los Angeles County’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
His story begins at 17, when he got hired as a parking attendant for the Los Angeles International Airport. Barnett said he wanted to work at the airport to get a lot of hours. At $1.50 an hour, the airport paid pretty well for the 1950s, he said.
The work was mundane: sweeping up lots, handing out tickets. But Barnett said he was eager and liked the people he worked with. By 22, he became general manager of parking at the airport, overseeing 40 workers.
“I was making pretty good money,” Barnett said. “I kept doing well and managing people.”
The job was good enough that Barnett gave up studying at a community college. His original idea of a more cerebral career in engineering gave way to a focus on parking.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, Barnett said he helped develop a parking services division for San Francisco-based ABM Industries Inc., which then was a janitorial company.
In 1974, Barnett and partner Marshall McMurray left ABM to start their own company. They each borrowed $5,000 from a bank and put in some of their own money, he said.
They knew the business and had some good contacts, according to Barnett. But the duo still had to hustle for clients, he said.
Parking Concepts now handles most parking for Orange County, including for the Civic Center and courts as well as at John Wayne Airport. The bald and goateed Barnett, 65, said he still sometimes parks cars in the morning at the airport.
Getting work with the county took Barnett 18 years.
“We kept bidding and losing,” he said.
There have been tough times. Barnett’s partner died in 1986, for one. Most difficulty comes from the operation’s slim profit margins of 2% to 3%, Barnett said.
A labor-intensive business, Parking Concepts has been hit hard each time workers’ compensation insurance costs have spiked, he said.
Between 2001 and 2002, Barnett said his workers’ compensation premiums rose 50% to $3.6 million, threatening his business.
“Workers’ comp scared the hell out of us,” he said.
Bank financing helped him ride out the spike, Barnett said.
Insurance premiums have leveled off and may dip 5% or so this year, Barnett said. Higher premiums can be passed on to clients but only in time, he said.
Parking Concepts employs 1,300 workers and manages 100 parking facilities in all. Barnett said he finds growth in niches.
Valet parking at John Wayne Airport is booming, after struggling amid a drop in air travel following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
But parking contracts usually are short, which means the company constantly has to prove itself and defend its wins. National parking firms, such as Nashville-based Central Parking Corp., compete here and are competitive on costs.
Despite being in his 60s, Barnett said he’s not ready to give up the parking grind for a life of golf and tennis.
“I hope to do this for as long as my health holds up,” Barnett said. “This is my hobby.”
