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1 8 4 H a r t f o r d LAZ Parking Formed in 1981 as a valet parking company servicing restaurants in Hartford and Boston, LAZ Parking has developed into one of the fastest growing parking companies in the United States. O perating 1,349 parking facilities in 21 states and 235 cities and towns, the company manages 503,391 park- ing spaces, 5,700 employees, and $508 million in parking receipts. Alan Lazowski, founder and CEO, built LAZ Parking in a unique and enviable manner — he teamed up with his two best friends and went into the parking business. Friends since middle school in Bloomfield, Lazowski, Jeff Karp and Michael Harth were trying to figure out a way to make money during col- lege, work together and be their own bosses. Lazowski started valet parking cars in Hartford, Harth got going in Southern California, and Karp started valet parking in Boston. The rest — as they say — is history. It was slow and steady growth for many years, until 1992, when LAZ began its expansion out of New England with the opening of a regional office in Atlanta. Today the company has regional offices in Hartford, Boston, New York, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., Miami, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. Early in 2007, LAZ Parking partnered with Morgan Stanley to become the operating partner of the largest underground parking operation in the United States — Chicago Downtown Parking System — encompassing 9,200 parking spaces at Millennium Park. Later that year, LAZ announced the formation of LAZ Parking Realty Investors with an initial equity com- mitment of $200 million from a major investment firm. The investment vehicle represented a new joint venture parking fund that leveraged the LAZ operating portfo- lio and provided LAZ with the ability to greatly expand its acquisitions of parking real estate across the country. "The formation of LAZ Parking Realty Investors LLC represents an opportunity to leverage our core compe- tency of maximizing parking cash flow into broader and more incentive fee ownership positions," Lazowski said. "We are looking at opportunities which include privatization of municipal parking systems, acquisition of condominium and stand-alone garages, as well as urban land purchases throughout the United States." In the fall of 2007, LAZ Parking formed a partner- ship with the largest parking operator in the world, VINCI Park, headquartered in Paris, France. The trans- action represented a mutual growth strategy by both parking leaders. VINCI Park built an extremely success- ful network of parking operations in countries through- out Western and Eastern Europe and Canada involving 1.3 million parking spaces in 1,800 locations across 16 countries. As part of the joint venture, LAZ Parking can support VINCI Park's growth by providing top-quality management backed by a successful track record of sig- nificant growth. LAZ's corporate culture is unique in that the found- ers of the company have created a family environment — no easy task when the company has grown to 5,700 employees. Michael Kuziak, chief operating officer, joined Lazowski shortly after the company's formation in 1981. He attributes the company's success to a true sense of caring about all employees. "Being able to hire someone at an hourly rate and move them up the lad- der through mentorship, coaching and training so that Above: From left to right is the LAZ Parking Shareholder's Group. Front row: Robert DeBurro, David Lerman, Michael Kuziak, Alan Lazowski, Andrew Tuchler, Marc Lutwack, Jeff Karp, Kynn Knight. Back row: Michael Harth, Ray Skoglund, Nathan Owen, Jim Marzi Below: Members of the LAZ Team are joined by Special Olympic Staff and Athletes at the 2011 LAZ Charitable Foundation Golf Tournament