Leading at Every Level: The Women Shaping Colonial Parking’s Future

Colonial Parking has operated across the DMV for decades, managing the systems that keep Washington, DC, Northern Virginia, and Maryland moving. Behind that infrastructure is a leadership team that rarely makes headlines and consistently delivers. This Women’s History Month, we want to change that.

 

Stability as a Leadership Outcome

In 2013, Colonial Parking brought on La Juana Jones-Scott to oversee Washington, D.C.’s Union Station. In the years since, LJ has been promoted most recently in 2022 to General Manager. It was the first time in the facility’s history that the position had been held by a woman. Union Station is one of the most operationally complex intermodal transportation hubs in the country, managing parking, bus operations, taxi stands, and the daily movement of thousands of people across multiple systems simultaneously.

Thirteen years later, Jones-Scott is still there.

In an environment where operational continuity is genuinely difficult to sustain, that tenure is not incidental. It is the result of a specific kind of leadership, one that combines the ability to manage complexity at scale with the judgment to know when to hold firm and when to adapt.

“Our ability to solve problems, juggle multiple priorities, lead with both strength and empathy, and adapt quickly makes us a force to be reckoned with,” Jones-Scott says.

Thirteen years is the proof.

 

Cultivating Culture

Growth strategies, technology investments, and market partnerships all matter. None of them can compound without a culture where people consistently do their best work and stay long enough to build the kind of expertise that cannot be hired in from outside.

Colonial Parking’s Colleen M. Niese, SPHR, CPP,  the only female CEO in the parking industry, who runs the largest private parking provider, is deliberate about this. When asked what she is most proud of, she does not point to a product launch or a market milestone. She points to the team.

“I share with each incoming set of new team members that they can have their best career yet at Colonial Parking. Everyone has access to the best resources and support they’ll ever find in the workplace. All they have to do is deliver the commitment. Those who get it are rock stars. Those that don’t, move on,” she says. “That’s what we built—and that’s the legacy I strive to leave for the next generation.”

What that looks like in practice shows up across the organization in specific, observable ways.

“I have found that acknowledging when a colleague has nailed an achievement, offered a brilliant thought, or simply saying thank you creates an infectious energy,” Niese says. “A culture of gratitude drives productivity and qualitative results—and what a great way to spend your time, day in and day out.”

That kind of culture does not sustain itself. It requires leaders at every level who regard accountability and recognition as equally important. Those leaders understand that both are expressions of the same thing: respect for the people doing the work.

 

Listening as an Operational Value

Mary Faith Lindner, Vice President of Business Development and Customer Care, runs one of Colonial’s most externally facing functions: managing relationships with partners, customers, and the communities the company serves across the DMV. Her view of effective leadership centers on something that is easy to undervalue until its absence becomes costly: authentic listening.

“One of the simplest and most meaningful ways to support your colleagues’ growth is by truly listening,” Lindner says. “I make a conscious effort to remind my team that their voices matter and that their perspectives carry real weight.”

In practice, organizations that create space for questions, dissent, and lateral thinking surface problems earlier and adapt faster. Lindner connects this directly to Colonial’s trajectory:

“Colonial has been around for generations, but we continue to learn and evolve every day. What has been done before can always be improved, and encouraging our teams to be part of that evolution is critical to our success.”

That growth orientation is embedded in daily behavior and is a significant competitive advantage.

LaToya Darmon, Director of Human Resources, reinforces the point from a team performance perspective. The qualities she has consistently observed women bring to organizations—emotional intelligence, resilience, adaptability, and a genuine investment in developing others—are not peripheral to strong performance. They are central to it.

“By showing up every day genuine and approachable,” she says, “women create safe environments that encourage open conversations.”