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Strap maker hits right chord with guitar players: Action Custom Straps’ products catch on thanks to attention from musicians like Jimmy Buffett, Keith Urban

The guitar straps Terry Misner creates for musicians worldwide are the canvas for his artwork. In his specialty, though, the tapestry is really soft leather he uses to combine comfort and custom designs for performers such as Jimmy Buffett and Keith Urban. “It’s like sewing silk rather than sewing canvas,” he said. “You can rip through canvas in a hurry, but what would you rather feel?” The 56-year-old Misner operates Action Custom Straps with wife, Dena, and daughter Nikki O’Neal….

BRIAN WILLIAMS Commentary: Is privatizing public services the answer?

Since being elected governor, Mitch Daniels has unveiled several big ideas, a common theme of which is the privatization of public assets. Privatization is not a new idea or a big idea. Indianapolis residents are familiar with privatization, specifically of the city’s wastewater treatment facility and Indianapolis International Airport. While these privatization efforts purportedly have generated significant savings, none of those savings have been remitted to Indianapolis citizens, whose utility rates and ticket and parking fees helped construct and maintain…

RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Web application is right gift for those who fear software

Got a businessperson on your list? We’re hard to buy for, so you have my sympathies. Most of us have specific preferences in software, handheld devices, cell phones and other toys we euphemistically call “tools.” Ties aren’t common in business settings anymore, cutting off yet another formerly fruitful buying channel. Few of us have any use for another desktop nameplate. And gift certificates are rather cold. Software is a particularly bad gift choice. Most of us dread getting new software…

Breaking up may be hard, but museum thrives anyway: Conner Prairie turning red ink to black as it embraces independence after years-long governance dispute

Nearly a year after its split from longtime trustee Earlham College, Conner Prairie is on the rebound. The Hamilton County living-history museum is poised to close out 2006 with more revenue than expenses-the first time in years it’s been in the black. “We feel very good about it,” said Berkley Duck, board chairman for both the museum and its affiliated foundation. “We’re coming in pretty well against what we estimated.” That’s impressive, considering the 32-member board didn’t have much time…

Stewart helping promote Indiana to racing companies

City and state officials are igniting a souped-up effort to draw motorsports-related companies here, and they’re enlisting
Hoosier-born NASCAR champ Tony Stewart to help drive their message home.

Carving a niche outside Louisville: Hoosier Bat Co. finds success with Major Leaguers, amateur baseball players

A three-piece wooden bat David Cook developed in 1989 became popular among professional baseball players, but ended up nearly devastating his upstart manufacturing company. Major League Baseball banned the bat just a year later after what Cook contends was a fierce lobbying effort from his largest rival, Louisville Slugger. The bat-made of ash, hickory and maple-is fused by finger jointing and remains in use at the amateur levels. The durability of the bat rivals that of an aluminum model, Cook…

CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: Colts lover gets a new hero

I was quarterback for the Colts once. I was about 9 years old and I was playing pee-wee football at Meridian Street Methodist Church. As all the kids gathered to be selected for a team on the first morning, I somehow finagled my way on to the Colts. I had to, because the Baltimore Colts were my favorite NFL team at the time. My hero was Johnny Unitas, thought by some even today to be the best quarterback ever to…

Standard Management continues perilous skid: Company reports more losses; stock value sinks

Standard Management Corp. stock peaked five days into 2006 at $1.55. It’s spent the rest of the year in a free fall that observers believe will culminate with the company’s filing for bankruptcy. The Carmel-based pharmaceuticals distributor reported a $10 million loss in the third quarter, bringing losses for the first nine months of 2006 to $14 million. The red ink, along with executive turnover and a string of failed acquisitions, has sapped investor confidence. The company’s shares, which traded…

NOTIONS: Looking in the mirror for Santa and Mrs. Claus

Bruce Hetrick has the week off. Before he left, he updated this column that was first published Dec. 20, 2004. Contrary to folklore perpetuated each December, Santa and Mrs. Claus don’t live at the North Pole. Their heads aren’t crowned with thick, white locks. Their clothes aren’t predominantly crimson. And there’s no sleigh in the garage, nor reindeer in the stable (in fact, there’s no stable at all.) The Clauses live, instead, on the north side of Indianapolis. As occasional…

BEHIND THE NEWS: For Conseco, tough loan tactics yielding big results

Conseco Inc.’s scorched-earth legal tactics have sometimes infuriated the defendants in the company’s path. But they sure seem to be working. As of Sept. 30, the company’s legal assault on the 11 biggest borrowers under its disastrous directors-and-officers loan program was expected to yield $54 million, after expenses-and that was before the Dec. 6 settlement with Stephen Hilbert, 60, the biggest borrower of all. Attorneys declined to tell how much Hilbert will pay, saying the deal is confidential. But you…

Hoosier Tire still racing: For nearly a half-century, Lakeville company has competed with the big boys

When the rubber meets the road, auto racing experts say there are few-if any-companies that outperform Lakeville-based Hoosier Racing Tire. Hoosier tires, industry sources said, are equal to their better-known brethren in racing-related sales and on-track performance. “This company has gone head-to-head with Goodyear on the biggest of all racing circuits,” said Dick Berggren, editor of Speedway Illustrated and a retired racer. “I can’t think of a business where the costs of entry are steeper or the level of technology…

Does gender matter in politics?: Despite high-profile wins, politics still remains a male-dominated field

1992 was dubbed the “Year of the Woman,” when four women were elected to the U.S. Senate, but 2006 may be seen as the beginning of a new women’s political movement, says Marie Wilson, president of The White House Project, a Washington, D.C.-based group that’s working to advance women in political office. Indiana has made some strides, but 85 years after women won the hard-fought right to vote, the number of women in elected office at the national level hasn’t…

Old National slaps Durham with suit

Indianapolis entrepreneur Tim Durham has run into trouble with one of his lenders. Evansville-based Old National Bank says
in a Dec. 1 lawsuit that Durham’s Indianapolis-based holding company,Obsidian Enterprises Inc., is in default on $2.6 million
in loans that came due Nov. 1.

Mixing religion, business leads to risks, rewards

Navigating the intersection between creed and commerce can betricky. Fearing lawsuits, many companies prefer to avoid it whenever
possible. But others unabashedly intertwine religion and business.

Hamilton County officials splash cold water on RiverPlace: Upstream trouble on White River could result from adding fill, overflow channel

A government panel is echoing the concerns of the Hoosier Environmental Council that Centre Properties’ proposed RiverPlace development along White River at 96th Street could worsen the effects of a flood. The Hamilton County Drainage Board doesn’t carry the weight of the U.S. Geological Survey, but its opinion could influence the giant, mixed-use project’s chances of winning a rezoning case. A letter the drainage board sent recently to the Fishers planning commission comes just before the Fishers Town Council considers…

Little Crow Foods happy to fly solo: Family-owned maker of CoCo Wheats cereal has avoided industry consolidation

The northern Indiana city of Warsaw is best known as home to three of the largest prosthetic makers in the world. But the smaller Little Crow Foods might be just as influential. Now in its fourth generation of family ownership, the company is responsible for bringing the American public the iconic CoCo Wheats cereal and a handful of other food products that followed. “When we have companies that have been as successful and around as long as Little Crow, I…

EYE ON THE PIE: Time for progressive Indiana income tax?

There is growing agreement that the rich are getting richer faster than the poor are improving their lives. If you believe the trickle-down theorists, the poor will get the runoff as wealth is showered upon the few. If you look about, however, you will question this charming opinion held by the comfortable. At the same time, policies at the national and state levels continue to emphasize cutting the most important means we have of correcting this growing imbalance in America….

INVESTING: Drug stocks are out of favor-so snap up the bargains

One of the biggest companies in the world just dropped a bomb. Investors got scared. I am going to tell you why Wall Street took the news the wrong way, and what it means to one of the most important industries to consumers. In the 1990s, Pfizer made a series of acquisitions that transformed the company into the second-largest drug firm in the world. Pfizer is worth about three times Eli Lilly’s market value. Until now, Pfizer employed more than…

Residents say safety is a growing concern: Survey: Fewer feel comfortable downtown after dark

Most central Indiana residents feel safe in downtown Indianapolis when the sun is out, but remain leery of the city at night, according to a study by the IUPUI Department of Tourism, Conventions and Event Management. The annual study, which is designed to gauge the impact of cultural tourism on quality of life, gives the city high marks overall in areas ranging from cultural attractions to cleanliness, public transportation to parking. But it also shows the city has more work…