Leadership

The story begins in Pittsburgh and leaps to Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, the San Francisco Bay Area, Charlotte, Metropolitan Washington DC, the New York Region, Salt Lake City, Portland, Denver, Seattle, San Juan, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Minneapolis and Chicago; and includes experiences in Bangkok, Sydney, Buenos Aires, Seoul, Mexico City and Zurich. Detours along the way involved initiatives to foster human capital as a focus for economic development and real estate development in conjunction with transit investment.  There were technology musings that pointed toward today’s remote work from home and multi-modal trip planning software, and an effort to introduce new finance and risk sharing frameworks to the U.S. transport sector based on the paradigm demonstrated by the Thames Tideway Tunnel (“TTT”).

I founded a consulting firm, Jeffrey A. Parker & Associates, Inc. (“JPA”) in the basement of my home in Northwest Washington, DC in 1981, pre-internet and at the dawn of the personal computer era.  The business grew as clients trusted me to find solutions for their high-risk “megaprojects.”  Our successes led to being awarded Global Transport Financial Advisor of the Year in 2009, numerous “Deal of the Year” honors, and my Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014 after the sale and successful transition of JPA to EY.

There were difficult losses too.  My late wife of 44 years, Susan Parker, was diagnosed with terminal cancer two months after our acquisition by EY and died in 2014.  Susan supported me throughout the difficult startup years and prioritized our culture of service to the public over profits.   

The following stories explore both the substance and the processes that led to success, as well as lessons learned along the way.