CAPP Curriculum
Once an individual has submitted their application for review and has been accepted into the program as a candidate, all are required to attend the five (5) courses specifically designed for the certification program and are offered during each two-year period. The instructors and content of these courses are approved and recognized by the University of Virginia. During a given two-year period, two (2) five-day conference sessions and three (3) two-day seminars are held in conjunction with the IPI Conference & Expo and educational seminars. At the end of the two-year period, all of the courses will be repeated and updated.
The five-day sessions run concurrently with the IPI Conference & Expo and are offered only to approved CAPP candidates. Even numbered years feature management topics and are instructed by UVA professors. In other years, sessions focus on industry-specific issues such as transportation/TDM issues, safety and security, risk management and sustainability and are instructed by industry professionals and experts in the parking and transportation fields.
Although these special certification courses are operated exclusive of most conference activities, candidates also have access to the exhibit hall so they can take advantage of the exposition and meet with exhibitors.
Listed below is an overview of the current required courses and topics offered in IPI's CAPP Program:
Five Day Conference Courses
Management (even numbered years)
Topics include:
- The Leadership Challenge: Creating Productive Workplaces
- Managing for Service Excellence
- Situational Leadership: A Model for Coaching and Inspiring Performance in Others
- MBTI and the Art of Communication
- The Ethics of Leadership
- High Performance Teams and Work Groups
- Leadership Excellence: Personal Action Planning
Parking Industry Specific (odd numbered years)
Topics include:
- How Parking is Financed in America's Cities
- Inclusion of Parking Management Tactics in the Development of TDM Plans
- TDM Strategies: A Closer Look
- Shuttle Services and Their Effect on Your Organization
- Sustainability in Parking Facilities
- Intermodal: The Parking Perspective
- Revenue Control Equipment
- Revenue Control Policies and Procedures
- Security: Parking Issues & Risk Management From The Legal Point of View
- Lighting for Safety
- Emergency Preparedness
- Interoperability in Parking
- Parking Management
Two Day Seminars
The two-day seminars on industry-specific material cover a wide variety of subjects. They include design, maintenance and rehabilitation of facilities; dealing with the media and enforcement and adjudication. These courses are available to anyone interested, but a person must be a candidate in the program for attendance to be assigned a higher point value. Many of these courses are repeated and new subjects are added regularly.
Parking Facility Design, Rehabilitation and
Maintenance
Topics include planning, evaluating and assessing the need for
your enforcement program (including how to establish a policies and
procedures manual, evaluating your enforcement officers), parking
enforcement vehicles, booting, towing and abandoned vehicles,
promotion, quality service and constituency building, how to make
regulations work, improve your collection rate, conquering handicap
placard abuse, Criminal vs. Civil, administrative adjudication, how
to develop a procedures manual, etc.
Media Relations-You're On! How the Media Gets
Your Message
Includes representatives from the print and broadcast media and is
designed to teach the parking professional the do's and don'ts of
handling "hard news" stories. You learn how reporters find
their sources, when to contact reporters, tips on dealing with
reporters and how technology and social media is changing the news
media industry. Attendees will also learn how to deal with
radio interview situations by hearing how the business community
can reach the public through radio talk shows. Attention will
be given to techniques regarding how to get booked on talk shows
and be given hands-on experience regarding how to handle a radio
talk show situation. The seminar ends with the attendees
finding themselves in television interview situations.
Participants will be videotaped and their interviews will be played
back and critiqued by the professionals. Through this
process, participants learn how to effectively respond to
television interviews.
Parking Facility Enforcement: On-Street &
Off-Street
Topics include Planning, Evaluating and Assessing the Need for
Your Enforcement Program; Enforcement, Regulations & Rates;
Program Promotion; Quality Service and Constituency Building; The
DMV: How it Can Work With You!; and, Enforcement Programs:
Administrative Adjudication & Procedures Manuals.
These sessions, along with specific outside reading, are designed to cover the materials to be tested and help candidates identify areas in which they need to increase their knowledge. Courses include materials which become the property of the candidate, and additional materials (audio from any given CAPP course) are available from IPI's library. Furthermore, instructors are available for consultation throughout the program.
Each five-day conference session has a point value of 20, with a maximum of 40. For certification candidates, the two-day sessions each have a point value of 15, for a maximum accumulation of 45 points. Therefore, for candidates, this portion of the program has a point value of 85.
"My involvement in the Certified Administrator
of Public Parking (CAPP) Program was a very good decision for me
after 15 years working as a Director of Parking. The program
challenged me to learn aspects of the industry that my day-to-day
work could not have provided me. Learning from other
colleagues gave me an instant network of friends that I now
collaborate with often. Do not wait as long as I did to get
your CAPP. This accomplishment will bring immense value to
you and those you work with. Remember… "It is never too late
to be what you might have been"…George Eliot"
J. Diane Hale, CAPP
