To refine your search through our archives use our Advanced Search
I am a huge fan of the Discovery Channel TV show “Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe.” I don’t get to watch if often. “SpongeBob SquarePants” dominates the Hicks household. But when I do, I revel in the host’s exploits in some of the nastiest jobs imaginable. But I think there’s one job I am more afraid of than anything I’ve seen on his show. There’s no amount of money that could make me a state legislator during a fiscal crisis….
Apparently, teen-agers driving around with 5,000-decibel subwoofers in their trunks are not the only ones who don’t get this: Many of us are slowly going deaf. Ten percent of Americans under 70 suffer from noise-induced hearing loss, according to the National Institutes of Health. It’s bad enough that the average 25-year-old carpenter has “50-yearold ears” thanks to noise on the job, and that noise-induced hearing loss is the most common work-related medical problem. But we’re not just talking about adults….
Thanks to a series of major economic development wins, Indianapolis is enjoying a pharmaceutical distribution business hot streak. Life sciences industry leaders hope to keep the sizzle burning in 2008 and beyond. “It’s not something we’re hoping we can do someday. It’s something we’re already doing now,” said BioCrossroads CEO David Johnson. “We’re simply trying to expand the footprint of what we’re doing.” Pharmaceutical logistics has become a big business. According to the Arlington, Va.-based Healthcare Distribution Management Association, U.S….
When Chris Gibson and Mike Leppert headed for the golf course in the late 1990s, it was strictly business. Walking from tee to tee, the men talked about lobbying, the law and regulatory agencies. After 18 months of playing 18 holes, they decided to form The Corydon Group, a government relations firm founded in 2000 in Indianapolis. The firm monitors bills and amendments proposed in the Indiana General Assembly, prepares reports on key legislation, attends meetings and hearings, and lobbies…
For the last two months, two academics at Indiana University and Purdue University have been discussing how the institutions
can work together to rev up research in medicine and life sciences and, in the process, boost Indiana’s economy.
-Joni Mitchell, “Big Yellow Taxi” I’m dumbstruck by what I’m hearing and reading. (Probably more dumb than struck, you’re thinking.) Still, I have to ask: When did the Indianapolis Colts’ Tony Dungy become such a mediocre coach? When did he become a coach that, as some are expressing to owner Jim Irsay, is not worth fighting for, or at least making accommodations to retain? When did he become such a poor leader of a team that we should accept his…
As I waited in line at the cafeteria just into the new year, I watched the man in front of me. It would be easy to assume the salad and wrap station would provide patrons with a healthful lunch option. Yet I saw a generous portion of fried chicken in a spinach tortilla topped with a pile of cheese and several servings of salad dressing. The man might have started with good intentions, but in a matter of seconds a…
Good news for fans of Julian Opie’s pop-art-inspired exhibit that ended a year-long run on city streets in September-Indianapolis is getting a permanent piece by the London artist to add to its growing public art collection. The work created for Indianapolis is called “Ann Dancing.” It’s reminiscent of the four-sided LCD display dubbed “Sara Dancing” that made its home at the northwest corner of Illinois and Maryland streets. But this female stick figure has a bit more juice in her…
Life sciences firm Seradyn Inc. on Georgetown Road has endured a revolving door of owners in the 30-some years since its inception. But what hasn’t changed is its dedication to developing immunoassays for medical purposes. Immunoassays are chemical tests used to detect or quantify a specific substance-the analyte-in a blood or body fluid sample. Seradyn develops and manufactures assays that use antibodies to measure drug concentrations in the bloodstream. In the past 10 years, Seradyn has developed 15 such products…
A Bloomington company that revived a former Thomson Consumer Electronics/RCA plant in that city is taking a shot at redeveloping
one of the largest industrial eyesores in Indianapolis, also a former RCA complex. Pinnacle Properties plans to spend $20
million redeveloping the 13-building property northwest of Sherman Drive and East Michigan Street.
Two bills in the Indiana Legislature would require utilities that operate here to supply up to 25 percent of their electricity from renewable resources such as wind, landfill gas, and plant and animal waste. Backers say utilities need more incentive to diversify from coal-based power generation.
The governor’s State of the State address on Jan. 15 served up no surprises. His priority, a conceptual consensus shared by virtually all lawmakers, continues to be long-lasting property tax reform framed in the context of an overall tax cut for owner-occupied residential property. Beyond that major task, Gov. Mitch Daniels offered nothing in the way of innovative programs for this year. That, of course, is not because he lacks vision or boldness, qualities for which he has been both…
It’s like a recurring nightmare. Quarter after quarter, three of Indianapolis’ most prominent companies report weak results, and their stocks slide lower and lower. How can Emmis Communications Corp., The Finish Line Inc. and The Steak n Shake Co. reverse their downward swoon? It’s a question of great urgency, given that the stocks of all three have slid deep into the cellar. Emmis now fetches $2.79 a share, 96 percent below its 1999 high. Finish Line goes for $1.66, 93…
I hate to be the bearer of news like t h i s – e s p e c i a l l y when the legislators are in town and looking for ways to distract themselves from having to make real decisions-but Our Beloved Indiana is falling behind at least one other state. We don’t have a state meal. We have a state bird (cardinal, same as 35 or 40 other states). We have a state rock (limestone-what else?)….
Northwest Airlines flight 1829–stranded on a Detroit taxiway for seven hours with lavatories overflowing and the 198 souls
aboard without food or water–has now landed at the Indiana General Assembly. Two Republican lawmakers have proposed creating
an “airline consumer advocate” to resolve disputes on behalf of passengers who’ve endured poor service.
Local restaurateur Neal Brown is entering new culinary territory this month, launching a baby food business from his upscale Broad Ripple eatery. The 37-year-old first forged new ground in the Indianapolis food scene in May 2006, when he opened L’explorateur, a hip restaurant that builds its avantgarde menu around locally grown food. His kid cuisine won’t be quite as cutting-edge as the grown-up grub-think elk tartar: raw ground elk meat seasoned and topped with herbs, capers, greens and braised, pickled…
Back when they arrived in 1996, there were lots of open spaces and taxes were low, Jones said. “Overall, it was a good place to live,” he said. Jones said he still loves living in Westfield, which is 20 miles north of Indianapolis. But he admits things are changing, which is a double-edged sword. Eight years ago, according to the U.S. census, Westfield had just 9,300 people. Now, it’s a rapidly growing city with a population of 24,000, an increase…
Has your cell phone exploded lately? A cell phone battery literally blows up, shattering the phone and spraying hot components like shrapnel. Detonating phones haven’t killed anyone that I could determine, but they’ve caused several trips to the hospital for lacerations, burns and broken eardrums. When it happens, manufacturers understandably scramble to find out why, and the answer today is often that the battery was actually a knockoff, a counterfeit that looks just like the real thing, but might be…
The Pan Am Plaza building, constructed to provide office space for amateur sports organizations, may soon be losing three of its highest-profile tenants. USA Gymnastics, USA Diving and U.S. Synchronized Swimming are contemplating moving out of the building at 201 S. Capitol Ave., sources close to the organizations said. A fourth group, USA Track & Field, which is preparing to move from the RCA Dome, is considering joining the other three sports-governing bodies in shared office space-preferably downtown. USATF will…
Lured to America in 1967 by brothers who owned restaurants in Cincinnati and Indianapolis, Dieter Puska has spent the past
32 years–nearly half his life–as owner and chef of the elegant Glass Chimney restaurant in Carmel. So it was a bittersweet
moment when he told his employees this month that he is hanging up his chef’s coat and giving up his 70-hour workweeks to
retire.
