Layoffs announced last week by The Indianapolis Star violated a contract with the Indianapolis Newspaper Guild, the guild alleged in a grievance filed yesterday Five of the seven newsroom staff who were laid off lost their jobs without consideration of their seniority, the guild claimed. The other two were managers, thus were not covered by […]
(In deference to ’60s radical Abbie Hoffman and his 1971 cult paperback “Steal This Book,” I hereby relinquish our copyright to this column and give you permission to copy it. I’ll tell you what to do with it later.) Silly me, I thought Mitch Daniels had really shaken things up and done a great job in his first four years as governor. To hear his Democratic opponents in the upcoming election tell it, you’d think he had provided uninspired leadership…
A few months ago, after considerable cajoling, my friend Erik convinced me to join yet another online social network. This one’s called Smaller Indiana. It bills itself as “making people and ideas findable.” So now, in addition to being “LinkedIn” with a few hundred of my friends and colleagues past and present, and in addition to being what BusinessWeek calls a “fogey on Facebook,” I’m also a Smoosier-the moniker for Smaller Indiana members. No sooner had I become a Smoosier…
Construction of Pan Am Plaza in the mid-1980s was a major step in the evolution of Indianapolis into a sports town worthy
of hosting a Super Bowl. But the office building, parking garage, skating rinks and public gathering place came up short over
the years in other ways for both taxpayers and developer, the Indiana Sports Corp.
Barbara Henry abruptly resigned today as publisher and president of The Indianapolis Star, notifying the paper’s employees by e-mail shortly after 1 p.m. Even Star Editor Dennis Ryerson said he was caught off guard by the resignation. Her departure is effective Aug. 1. Henry, 55, did not indicate why she was resigning, but said in […]
Conseco Inc. has won another round in court against former Merchants National Bank CEO James D. Massey this month, ringing
up a $29 million judgment against him in a court in Illinois. But Massey shows no sign of throwing in the towel in the years-long
litigation over millions he borrowed to buy Conseco stock. Massey was a director of Conseco from 1994 to 2000.
The executive who would have become president of The Finish Line Inc. if the Indianapolis company had closed on its purchase of Genesco Inc. has been promoted to Genesco CEO. Robert J. Dennis, 54, will add the CEO title to his existing post of president of the Nashville, Tenn., retailer come Aug. 1. He replaces […]
Hendricks Regional Health will spend $60 million to add 205,000 square feet to its Danville hospital, the system announced today. The expansion will begin right away with a scheduled completion in January 2010. At that time, Hendricks Regional will boast 789,000 square feet at its Danville facility. The new three-story wing will house six operating […]
The war in Iraq is intolerable and interminable. We are struggling with a recession, a flawed energy policy, a weak dollar and an enormous government deficit. President Bush has earned a lower approval rating than Cinderella’s stepmother-and I’m sitting here thinking, “What if the election of 2000 had gone the other way?” Join me and pose that question to Ron Klain at the men’s edition of Mickey’s Camp this summer. Klain is arguably one of the most well-known national Democrats…
In 2000, gasoline cost 99 cents a gallon, you could barely give recyclable plastic away and the idea of manufacturers “going green” was a pioneering thought. Allegiant Global started that same year as Heritage Interactive Services, with one client and little market awareness of what industrial recycling and reuse initiatives meant. Heritage Interactive was started by principals of locally based Heritage Environmental Services, which was-and still is-involved in more traditional waste-disposal services. When one of Heritage Environmental’s clients, Michigan-based Lear…
HHGregg Inc. said today that a 24-percent increase in net profit in its fourth fiscal quarter was driven by rising sales of big flat-screen televisions, high-end washing machines and refrigerators, and notebook computers. The Indianapolis-based appliance and electronics retailer reported a $10.3 million profit in the quarter ended March 31 on sales of $324.2 million, […]
Shoot, if I’d known city leaders were going to resurrect Dennis Hopper-Shooter, from my alltime favorite flick, “Hoosiers”- for the Super Bowl bid video, I would have suggested they also use Hickory High player Merle and paraphrase his memorable line: “Let’s win it for all the smaller NFL-designated market areas that never had a chance to get here.” Yes, we are the nation’s 13th-largest city. Thank you, UniGov. But in terms of market size, we’re 26th or so. Certainly not…
For all the touting of higher television ratings, attendance and series Web site visits, there’s one glaring shortcoming that shows the Indy Racing League still has challenges.
Fourteen of the 33 cars that qualified…
ATLANTA – National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell came to the podium this afternoon to tell the 32 team owners that Indianapolis had won the right to host the 2012 Super Bowl. But at the last minute, an assistant pulled him back and told him Indy hadn’t received the three-fourths majority support from the owners […]
A group of motorsports journalists stood open-mouthed along the wall of the Texas Motor Speedway in 1999 as they watched 19-year-old
Sarah Fisher, fresh from the sprint car and dirt track circuits, zip past veteran open-wheel racers Buddy Lazier and Billy
Boat. What happened to Fisher over the next nine years is equally amazing–and mystifying–to those same motorsports experts
who watched her in Texas.
The topic of health care sparked the most spirited comments from business leaders interviewed by IBJ ahead of the May 6 presidential
primary. When asked whether they thought Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton would be better for business, executives in manufacturing,
exporting, computer technology, logistics and education largely demurred.
Since its founding 17 years ago, Indianapolis-based Harlan Bakeries LLC has built its reputation, and its fortune, on making
bagels. Untold millions of bagels. Considering the number of conventional treats Harlan turns out, it might be easy to overlook
its newest project: producing a non-medical “diet cookie” for Boca Raton, Fla.-based Smart For Life Weight Management Centers.
The Indianapolis Star has launched an armada of initiatives to bolster revenue as it reacts to seismic industry changes, many
driven by advertiser and reader flight to digital media. Daily newspapers–once one of the nation’s most stable, profitable
businesses–now face a rapidly changing marketplace that would make the most innovative business operator quiver.
Sales of specialty license plates benefiting colleges, not-for-profits and other Indiana organizations fell by nearly a third
last year after the state unveiled “In God We Trust” tags as a free alternative to the lime-green pastoral fields plates reviled
by many motorists.
The CEO of locally based Lauth Group Inc. says most people he knows in the business, even the steely types who always project
optimism, are privately nervous about the economic morass that began with a collapse in subprime mortgages.
