/ STATE AND REGIONAL SPOTLIGHT/MID SOUTH TRANSPORTATION & PARKING ASSOCIATION
Q & A with Mike Tudor President of Mid South Transportation & Parking Association (MSTPA) by Cindy Campbell
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HE MID SOUTH TRANSPORTATION & PARKING ASSOCIATION (MSTPA),
led by President Mike Tudor, CAPP and a dynamic board of directors, will be hosting an annual conference March 15-16 in Birmingham, Alabama. Cindy Campbell, senior training and development specialist for IPMI, recently sat down with Mike to discuss their conference and ongoing success of MSTPA. CINDY CAMPBELL: With MSTPA
having hosted a successful conference in September, what was the thought process behind this conference in March? MIKE TUDOR: The March conference this
We pride ourselves on great southern hospitality, and these events are opportunities for us to come together like family. Because really, that’s what the parking community is, one big family.
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year is designed as a smaller, more focused 1 ½ day conference. While we typically hold our large conference in March, we had to postpone last year’s conference to September due to COVID. As a board, we recognize that hosting another large event only six months later could be challenging to many organizations that have had to tighten their budgets for these types of training opportunities. Therefore, we decided to make it a shorter conference structured with offerings that are very unique. We are excited about what we have to offer.
What has you the most excited about it? To begin with, the conference will be held in Birmingham, Alabama. We have never had a conference in Birmingham since I have been on the board, so we are excited to be able to take our attendees to this area. There is a lot of growth that is taking place in Birmingham right now. We are thrilled to go there and work with the local community to be able to see what they have done for parking and development in that area.
PARKING & MOBILITY / MARCH 2022 / PARKING-MOBILITY.ORG
What are some of the things that the conference is offering in support of that growth in the parking industry? We are offering a couple different ways to feed the parking community with relevant knowledge from the industry. We will be presenting Frontline training with you, Cindy, and we know that will be extremely valuable to those in the area. Other soft-skills sessions include the return to work after COVID and emotional intelligence. There are technical sessions on technology implementation, curbside management, and EV charging. We are also going to take our members out for two different tours.
Yes, I am excited about what I have heard about these tours! They are not the standard observational tours we have come to expect, correct? What are the goals of the tours, and what can the attendees expect to take away from them? During COVID, budgets have been tight. Getting the funds to perform capital improvements on facilities is difficult. To help our attendees with this challenge, we will be looking at a local parking facility, the Boutwell Auditorium Parking Deck, and reviewing it from several angles of operations and maintenance. We will then come back
