Parking-tech company lands Bluelock co-founder as CEO

Parker Technology LLC, a local firm that sells software to parking garage and lot owners, named a Bluelock co-founder its CEO and got a $500,000 capital injection from existing investors.

Brian Wolff, 48, took the helm at Parker in late January, but the company announced the hire this week. He came aboard following a major strategy and branding revamp in 2015 for the company, which partially resulted in it selling its software through cloud-based servers as opposed to costly on-premise servers.

Brian Wolff

Parker's technology lets customers at parking garages or surface lots speak with a remote attendant via live video anytime of day, the company said. Wolff said the company's old business model restrained its growth, and it's now better positioned to attack a market where automation is abundant, but on-demand customer service is scarce.

"Millennials are good with technology and they're happy to help themselves. They prefer it," Wolff said. "But when something goes wrong, they want fast, friendly, prompt service."

Founded in 2010, Parker is backed by investors including the principals of Denison Parking, a local parking operator. The company has raised about $1.7 million to date, including the $500,000 investment earlier this year.

The company charges subscriptions based on its "end points"—the entry gates, exit gates and walk-up kiosks that use its software. It has about 200 endpoints across 40 garages, and expects its booked contracts to be worth $1.2 million annually by the end of 2016, twice the sum as at the end of 2015.

Wolff said he expects that figure to double again in 2017.

"The parking industry is a tremendous jewel that not too many people know about or understand," Wolff said.

Wolff is also a founding member of Gravity Ventures, which helped spawn local tech firms like TinderBox and Lesson.ly. He spent about eight years at Bluelock, an Indianapolis IT-infrastructure company that he co-founded in 2006. Bluelock first turned a profit in 2011 on $19 million in sales.

Wolff encountered Parker during his ensuing consulting stint and decided to join the company after writing a 23-page business plan for the company late last year.

"If we're successful and even get to a 10-percent penetration," Wolff said, the company could do well. "There are 150,000 potential end points that could be Parker end points."