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Polishing the pitch: Business-plan competitions give student entrepreneurs experience, exposure

College entrepreneurs in Indiana are sharpening their business plans and practicing their pitches in hopes of convincing experts-the possibly funders-that they’ve come up with the next big idea. The venue: the increasingly highstakes competitions that universities here and elsewhere sponsor to give them practice selling themselves and their ideas. Success can come with more than bragging rights, since judges often include venture capitalists who can help transform finalists’ dreams into reality. “I can’t imagine a better way to train for…

Charities are feeling pain of gas price spike: Groups scrambling for volunteers, dollars to beef up transportation

With gas prices on the rise-and expected to reach $4 a gallon this summer-local not-for-profits are losing volunteers and throwing money at skyrocketing transportation budgets. Indianapolis Meals on Wheels Inc. Executive Director Barb Morris is used to fielding calls from reporters whenever gas prices fluctuate. In the past, she quashed their theory that high prices at the pump drove away volunteers. Not now, though. “If you’d asked me four or five months ago, I would have said, ‘Absolutely not,'” Morris…

RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Business isn’t losing any sleep over new technology

I’ve been looking over some business polls from 2007 and 2008, and I have to tell you I’m disappointed. As a technology columnist, I’d hoped that companies would be perpetually lathered over all sorts of thorny technical issues that only new purchases could solve and that I could critique. Silly me. But still, I went into the exercise with high hopes. After all, isn’t every aspect of a business permeated by breakable, worrisome technology of all kinds? And doesn’t every…

Free-lancing turns into big-time marketing: Mom-and-pop ExaroMed now growing fat with large drug and device clients from across the country

Most free-lance writers eke out a living. The most fortunate live comfortable lives. But Mindy Mascaro turned her freelance writing business into a thriving company. Carmel-based ExaroMed LLC is now producing sales and marketing content for the like of Roche Diagnostics, Eli Lilly and Co. and Amgen Inc. It has also served smaller life sciences companies such as Indigo BioSciences Inc. and Cheetah Medical Inc. The company has zoomed from six employees to 20 in the last year. It’s already…

VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Security takes on new importance in building design

The growing threat of terrorism-both foreign and domestic -has alerted building owners to be much more concerned about security these days in the design of new and remodeled buildings. The recent murderous university rampages at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois, for example, have become troubling reminders that developers and other building managers must carefully examine whether their structures make it easy or hard for would-be killers. It’s impossible to design a building that is completely safe under any and all…

Real-world experience-for real: IUPUI’s Global Design Studio lets students tackle projects around the planet

New Orleans and Indonesia are worlds apart, yet linked by devastation from catastrophic floodwaters and by the outpouring of empathy that has ensued. An effort launched four years ago on the campus of IUPUI to involve design students in actual construction projects is responsible for a portion of the good will. The Global Design Studio is helping to rebuild areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and, to a lesser extent, the tsunami. Its projects also include renovating a boarding house in…

SPORTS: Anyone glad to see Walsh go has a short memory

Twenty wins in 1982-1983. Twenty-six wins in ’83-’84. Twenty-two wins in ’84-’85. Twenty-six wins in ’85-’86. You think the Pacers are having a tough time putting butts in seats today? Today’s problems aren’t even close to those curtained-off Market Square Arena days of the early ’80s when the average crowds dipped to as low as 4,800 in the ’82-’83 season. It began to rebound only after Walsh took a chance on a marketing whiz-and exsportswriter-named Ray Compton and adeptly began…

EYE ON THE PIE: Many Hoosier counties losing people

The phone rang. It was Bella Coase, outraged again. She said, “The Census Bureau’s county population estimates were mistreated by most Hoosier newspapers. They emphasized their counties as if population change were a sporting event. “They didn’t bother to examine the larger view,” Bella went on. “Only 56 of Indiana’s 92 counties grew in population between 2006 and 2007. Spencer County had no change and the remaining 35 lost population. Doesn’t it trouble you that nearly 40 percent of Hoosier…

Simons won’t discuss succession plans for Pacers ownership

Recently announced changes to the Indiana Pacers’ front office leave questions about the team’s long-term ownership unanswered.
While Larry Bird, Pacers director of basketball operations, is set to take over for CEO Donnie Walsh at season’s end, there
is no indication what succession strategy, if any, exists for replacing team owners Mel Simon, 81, and Herb Simon, 73.

INVESTING: Don’t turn bullish too fast on ravaged market sectors

British investor Joe Lewis (who is still a billionaire, although after you find out what happened to him, you will wonder how he has any money left) started buying stock in Bear Stearns back in August when it fell to $120 a share. When the stock fell to $110 in October, he bought more, to the tune of $300 million. In November, Bear fell to about $90, and Joe was at it again. All told, he bought $1 billion of…

Construction in the Fast Lane: Flush with Major Moves funding, INDOT streamlines its approach

Northern Indiana motorists and Democratic opponents of Gov. Mitch Daniels were screaming bloody murder. Daniels in 2006 convinced the Legislature to lease the vital highway and plum of political patronage-the Indiana Toll Road-to an Australian-Spanish consortium for nearly $4 billion. Some managers at the Indiana Department of Transportation also were screaming-with panic. Despite winning the departmental lottery of all time-an annual budget for new roads would now quadruple from $213 million a year to $874 million by 2015-Daniels wanted 200…

New utility consumer counselor is no stranger: Former Ameritech lawyer may have to reach out and touch consumer watchdogs

Consumer groups didn’t get a ponytailed zealot to head the Office of Utility Consumer Counselor. No surprise there. Gov. Mitch Daniels has been fond of appointing ex-industry insiders to lead agencies charged with monitoring those same industries. What the OUCC gets in former Ameritech attorney David Stippler is, at the very least, a man who already knows the utility industry in Indiana. The Evansville native has argued before its regulatory agencies for many years. “They don’t have to forge a…

Tank car maker to close plant, lay off 420

A Chicago-based manufacturer of railroad tank cars plans to shutter its plant in East Chicago and send production to newer, non-union plants in the South, according to The Times of Munster. Union Tank Car Co. said it is consolidating production to cope with a downturn in the market, but International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Local 524, […]

Former Sagamore chief lands at St. Francis

Greg Yust, formerly president and CEO of Sagamore Health Network Inc., has joined St. Francis Hospital & Health Centers as vice president of managed care contracting. Yust left Carmel-based Sagamore in January after a short stint. Sagamore was the state’s third-largest managed care organization when it was acquired in August 2007 by Philadelphia-based Cigna Corp. […]

Manufacturing still rules state, study shows

Despite challenges to the sector, durable goods manufacturing remained the largest portion of the state’s gross state product in 2006, according to analysis published recently in Indiana Business Review. Not only that, but the combination of durable goods – cars and other products designed to last at least three years – along with pharmaceuticals and […]

Pacers’ O’Brien: Stay in school

Indiana Pacers Coach Jim O’Brien said yesterday during his show on WFNI-1070 AM that he thinks players interested in entering the National Basketball Association draft should be required to wait two years after…

UPDATE: Finish Line to shuffle stores

Finish Line Inc. plans to close as many as 20 of its roughly 700 stores this year, but also hopes to open about 15 stores based on a smaller prototype aimed at generating more sales per square foot. A day after the Indianapolis retailer reported a $38.6 million loss in its fourth quarter, CEO Alan […]

Chase cuts 100 workers from downtown location

JPMorgan Chase has cut 100 workers from its downtown operations in Chase Tower, according to spokeswoman Nancy Norris. All of the workers are in Chase’s home-equity lending processing area, Norris said. Chase eliminated another 350 workers in other cities, primarily in Rochester, N.Y. The cuts are “due to the slowdown in home-equity lending,” Norris said. […]

Ralphie’s got a gun … & tap shoes

Playbill.com reports that “A Christmas Story,” the Jean Shepherd-based film that put Hoosier holidays on the pop-culture radar, is being developed as a stage musical. Already in my head, I’m hearing the song “Lick the Pole” sung to the “Little…

Terre Haute projects changed to meet rising costs

Rising material costs have caused Thompson Thrift Construction Inc. to alter plans for a children’s museum and hotel it is building in Terre Haute, reports The Tribune-Star. Costs for the children’s museum, which is next to a Candlewood Suites that Thompson Thrift also is building, have gone over estimates by 12 percent. The Terre Haute-based […]