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Chris O'Malley

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New Citizens chief faces tough crowd: High gas prices, cranky industrial customers await Lykins

For seven days each July, Carey Lykins hikes a leg over his Trek touring bike in hopes of conquering Iowa. The [Des Moines] Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa is a grueling 471 miles between the Missouri and the Mississippi Rivers. “It can be brutally hot, but it’s a real adventure,” said the 53-year-old Lykins. The same could be said for the tour Lykins began Oct. 1 as president and CEO of Citizens Gas & Coke Utility. The 32-year…

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Digital TV crystal-clear, but ‘multicasting’ model blurry: Making a buck from spare digital TV channels is a challenge, though one firm is eyeing city for wireless cable

While Multicast Networks Group plans to offer TV stations a network of programs they can run on their digital channels, pioneers in so-called “multicasting” of digital signals have had other visions. And like many pioneers, they’ve taken arrows. Jeff Smulyan, president of Indianapolisbased radio and TV empire Emmis Communications Corp., last year proposed leasing unused digital bandwidth from TV stations. Once he gained enough of these unused channels in a given market, he planned to deliver a sort of over-the-air…

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Network takes aim at digital surplus: Firm to sell programs for unused TV channels

Multicast Networks Group LLC plans to launch the network in 2006, said industry veteran Michael Ruggiero, who heads the 22-year-old ALL TV Services communications consulting firm. “We know the industry needs more content. Broadcast groups we’ve talked with are very excited about the concept,” said Ruggiero, chairman of Multicast. Ruggiero also is vice president of distribution for The Tube Music Network, developed by MTV co-founder Les Garland. Ruggiero recently helped broker a deal to run The Tube on digital channels…

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Fly by security – for a price: ‘Registered traveler’ program to let passengers pay to avoid long lines

Business fliers accustomed to first-class seating will soon be eligible for privileged security screening at Indianapolis International Airport. Airport operator BAA Indianapolis is about to seek proposals from firms to operate a “registered traveler” program. It will entitle any frequent travelers who pass a government background check to use special security checkpoints-bypassing long lines and trouserloosening “secondary screening” passengers must sometimes endure. No more suffering in line behind bubble-gum-popping teens headed for Aruba. Show your registered traveler ID card and…

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Ambassadair likes suitor: Chicago-based Waveland Investments might have jobs for ATA execs if it lands travel club

Ambassadair Travel Club Inc. may chart a new destination with the help of a Chicago private equity firm whose holdings range from gas station chain Clark Brands to coffee-pot-maker West Bend. Waveland Investments LLC is the face behind Waveland Holdings LLC, an entity named in court records as signing a letter of intent to acquire Ambassadair from bankrupt parent ATA Holdings Corp. While Ambassadair said it remains profitable, despite ATA’s troubles, it has lost more than 20 percent of the…

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Pocket-protector crowd to preach quality: Group plans first conference to promote better practices in information technology

Because of them, people stocked basements with food, guns and ammo. Others fell prostrate on hilltops and sang Kumbaya. There was fear software developers would inadvertently destroy the world with the infamous Y2K computer glitch, in the opening hours of 2000. These days, however, it is the developers who are worried-about things like how a glitch can give hackers access to customer credit card and Social Security numbers. Or get companies in trouble when software doesn’t capture information required by…

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Proposed natural gas pipeline bogged down at IURC: Project would give customers access to lower-priced gas, blunting impact of Katrina and hike in delivery fee

A pipeline that would give residential and industrial customers access to cheaper wholesale natural gas from the West and Canada won’t be built this winter, when it could have blunted prices whipped skyward by Hurricane Katrina. The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission is still reviewing Citizens Gas & Coke Utility’s request to construct a nearly 20-mile pipeline that would connect its Greene County gas storage facility with the Midwest Gas Transmission System line in Sullivan County. That line ties into a…

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Basic utility vehicle rolling ahead-slowly: Assembly would happen in developing nations

A not-for-profit group developing vehicles for use in the Third World plans to open a “micro-factory” next month near 65th Street and Binford Boulevard. But the Institute for Affordable Transportation site won’t mass-produce its diminutive vehicles, powered by lawn tractor engines. Rather, the donated space will become a lab for working out methods to help those in developing countries assemble the so-called “basic utility vehicles.” The facility “is to basically prepare the way for this technology transfer package so it…

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Can ride sharing retain your distant workers?: Companies look to car- and van-pooling to counter high gas prices that may increase employee turnover

Most concerned about higher commuting costs are employers on the periphery of Indianapolis, where there is little or no bus transportation for workers who live in Marion County. “At some point, for an hourly worker, it becomes cost-prohibitive to drive to Plainfield for work,” said Kim Woodward, director of human resources for Brightpoint Inc. The wireless phone distributor has a warehouse in the Hendricks County town that employs 611, plus about 100 contract workers. “Public transportation is not readily available,”…

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Storm’s local impact mixed: Katrina’s aftermath will take toll on business, but rebuilding efforts might offer opportunities

Hurricane Katrina will be both a curse and a blessing to Indiana companies, which will cope with higher fuel costs and shipping problems but find themselves awash in opportunities to sell materials and machinery for rebuilding Gulf cities. Besides weathering the immediate impact of higher fuel prices, Hoosier firms will pay more for a range of goods, because of the trickle-down effect of higher shipping costs. “Our biggest concern continues to be on the ever-increasing cost of fuel. That’s s…

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Fuel hike might ground ATA plan: Fleet-cut savings nearly wiped out

On the expenses line of ATA Airlines Inc.’s battered books, the savings associated with a fleet reduction might have been accounted for as a tailwind that accelerated its flight to financial solvency. Paring 35 of its 82 aircraft in the first half of this year saved the Indianapolis carrier $49 million in jet fuel and oil expenses. That’s big money for the bankrupt airline: half of what it’s trying to raise from investors to pull out of Chapter 11 and…

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Chamber head could come from afar: Greater Indy Chamber taking more corporate than clubby approach to search

The No. 2 man at the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce isn’t necessarily a shoo-in to succeed retiring president John S. Myrland, according to directors of the city’s primary business advocacy group. It’s not that Executive Vice President Roland Dorson might not well be the best candidate and ultimately picked as president, as was Myrland when holding Dorson’s job 14 years ago. Some chamber directors say Dorson is the strongest internal candidate. But, in a departure from years past, the…

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Ethanol fuel pumps may debut here by ’06: Still no place for the masses to buy E85, despite interest in the alternative to gasoline

Even though Indiana is one of the nation’s biggest growers of corn-the key ingredient in cheaper-than-gasoline ethanol-not a single ethanol pump is available to the average motorist in the Indianapolis area. That twisted irony in a day of record gasoline prices may soon be no more, with a handful of central Indiana gas stations likely to start offering an ethanol alternative-known as E85-by yearend, according to proponents of the fuel. “I hope by Christmas to have a couple in the…

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Travel club members take wing: Ambassadair hoping to stop declining enrollment in wake of parent ATA’s bankruptcy

Ambassadair Travel Club Inc. has lost about 20 percent of its members since parent ATA Holdings Corp. filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy last October, a trend its president hopes to reverse after ATA sells the long-profitable club as early as next month. “After all the unfortunate attention surrounding ATA, we expected a modest decline in membership for a temporary time and look forward to obtaining new members once we make an a n n o u n c e m e…

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Used cars piling up: Record sales of new vehicles put damper on auction prices

Especially these days, used cars have gotten all the respect of Rodney Dangerfield. Like the late comic, they’ve been dissed-in this case by the incessant marketing of automakers’ “employee discounts” that drove new-car sales to record volumes in July. But with automakers expected to end those discounts in early September, local dealers and auction firms are bracing for used cars to be the next big wave of sales. Dealer lots are crammed with trade-ins, so many aren’t buying additional used…

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Museum deflects pork perceptions: Policy wonks decry grant of $12.5M in transportation funds

“Why are taxpayers in California and Texas and Massachusetts paying for a museum in Indianapolis?” David Boaz, executive vice president of the Washington-based Cato Institute, wrote on the think tank’s Web site in May as the bill was coalescing. The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis landed the grant under the $286 billion transportation bill signed by President Bush this month. The grant was included in the bill courtesy of Rep. Julia Carson, D-Indianapolis. “Congress constantly uses the Department of Transportation’s budget…

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Law could generate earnings for Cummins: States face deadline in completing standards for connecting generators to grid

Cummins Inc. and other makers of electric generators stand to gain under a provision an Indiana lawmaker plugged into the federal energy bill signed this month. The amendment by 4th District Republican congressman Steve Buyer forces state utility commissions to adopt standards within two years that will pave the way for businesses that generate their own electricity to sell excess power to the electric grid. That’s good news for firms that generate their own power and for Cummins, which makes…

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Deal giving edge to unions muddies midfield contracts: Non-union contractors question whether bidding on project is worth the trouble

A construction agreement that requires union wages, work rules-and union workers-at the midfield terminal project has big and small businesses alike concerned they’ll be shut out of all but the tiniest contracts on the $300 million building. Unless Janet South’s painting firm Deco Group agrees to accept those terms, she’d only qualify for projects of $75,000 or less-the threshold at which the agreement kicks in. That limitation, contained in the project labor agreement attached to the midfield terminal, contrasts with…

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Group wants energy czar: Coalition believes utilities slow to climb on efficiency bandwagon

Chris Maher’s crews at Thermo-Scan Inc. have been plenty busy inspecting for drafts and puny insulation in many of the 14,000 new homes built each year in the metro area. Even so, the principal at the Carmel firm can’t help wonder about the vast potential to make the hundreds of thousands of existing homes and businesses more energy efficient-if only homeowners had a little more incentive. Utility companies, he says, have relatively few dollars budgeted to coax customers to install…

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State firms pioneers in boosting electric efficiency:

Indiana already has a number of firms working on technology aimed at boosting energy efficiency and capacity. Early this month, Indianapolis-based Trexco LLC said the U.S. Patent Office awarded it two dozen patents for a cooling system it has developed for large electrical transformers, such as those used at utility substations. The “transformer extender” is designed to stretch the capacity and lifespan of the transformers, which typically cost $2 million to $5 million and are the size of a Mack…

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