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Driving through adversity: First-time team owner uses business fundamentals to help reach the finish line

It’s been a bumpy ride for Michael Crawford this year. Scratch that-it’s been like driving into a concrete wall at 190 miles per hour. Repeatedly. The rookie race team owner put his financial livelihood on the line this year to buy two cars and run them in the Indy Pro Series, the open-wheel racing equivalent of AAA baseball, one step below the major leagues. IBJ is following Crawford’s progress in hopes of shedding light on the challenges startups face when…

HIRING AN ATTORNEY Try to find a partner:

Every business, large or small, should establish a relationship with an attorney. I always recommend that such a “partnership” be put in place before legal services are needed. Why do you really need an attorney? In a perfect world, you wouldn’t. Entrepreneurs can go to the Indiana Secretary of State’s Web site and find all of the forms necessary to form a business structure. They can review the laws that pertain to their businesses by surfing the Internet. They can…

Aquaculture industry set to cast bigger net: Ag officials hope Indiana spawns more fish farmers

Forrest Gump owned a shrimp boat. Tim and Julie Connor have a shrimp farm instead. The couple, who live on 22 acres near Monrovia, are in their third season raising prawn, or large shrimp, from a pond on their property. The $4,000 they earned last year from selling 350 pounds of the crustaceans to the public is hardly enough to cause Tim, 47, to retire from the job he’s held at Allison Transmission for 28 years. But if the sideline…

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Health care cost ‘solutions’ only worsen the problems

As an economic forecaster, I am almost always optimistic. But that’s not a personality trait. It’s the nature of the business. The economy around us is doing amazingly well. We’ve had much longer economic expansions, steady job and income growth, and less frequent recessions for more than two decades now. So when you deliver an optimistic forecast these days, you stand a pretty good chance of being right. But if there’s one area where my optimism vanishes, it is this-how…

EYE ON THE PIE: Tale of 2 bridges has deeper meaning

Two bridges at opposite ends of the state are of concern to neighboring citizens and all Hoosiers. Both are historic steel-truss bridges. One spans the Wabash River connecting New Harmony (Posey County) with White County, Ill. The second spans the Gibson rail yard in Hammond (Lake County) and carries the traffic of busy Indianapolis Boulevard. Both bridges are in poor condition. The Indiana Department of Transportation has recommendations for both bridges. Local officials are opposed to the INDOT plans. Whose…

INVESTING: Weakness in housing could have sweeping implications

In early May, I wrote this about home-builder stocks: “They failed to break out of their August highs, however, and they have been struggling ever since. This is a textbook example of when the best risk/reward ratio presents itself for shorting.” Using the home-builder exchange-traded fund XHB and selling it short yielded a one-month gain of 18.3 percent. Not bad! If home-building stocks are crushed, what does that say about the real estate market in general? Here are a few…

Car event ‘astonishing’: In 4th year, local show already one of nation’s largest

Economic development leaders and corporate executives thought Roger Brummett was spinning his wheels when he launched a classic car show in Indianapolis four years ago. But Brummett and partner Tim Durham find themselves at the wheel of such a fastgrowing enterprise that they hope to expand it into a multiday event, with an auction and classic-car race, that they believe would draw 100,000 attendees. The pair also plans to replicate the show in other markets, starting in Naples, Fla., in…

$20M overhaul for City Market?: Culinary school may replace east wing

City Market officials are trying to pull together an ambitious plan to transform the century-old downtown lunch spot into a virtual paradise for foodies, complete with an Ivy Tech culinary school campus. But they still have a couple of big hurdles to clear before giving the green light to the nearly $20 million project. Plans include razing the east wing and replacing it with a five-story, $18 million building that could house Ivy Tech State College’s culinary programs. A separate…

Ex-Chamber chief buys Daleville testing firm: Deal gives LaMothe one-third ownership, CEO post

Now, he’s an owner himself. This month, he teamed with two prominent executives to buy Dalevillebased Sherry Laboratories, a 180-employee company that does product testing for firms in such fields as aerospace and automotive. “I’ve been interested in Sherry for about 10 years,” LaMothe said. “I had approached them two or three different times … . I was intrigued with the company because I believed it was needed and necessary and adds value to society.” LaMothe will serve as chairman…

TOM HARTON Commentary: Don’t fear the young; e-mail them

You don’t always see it or hear it, but it’s there. The quiet panic that sets in after a theater company or a newspaper or any organization realizes it must begin appealing to a new breed of consumer if it wants to survive. Young consumers of news want it in bite-size portions delivered to their desktops. Young church-goers want dynamic worship services and activities to match, not tradition-bound church groups that require elections, officers, meetings and minutes. And young patrons…

FINDING the RIGHT FIT: Program to put execs in board seats, but will firms be willing to pay for it?

Ruth Purcell Jones knows the statistics well. Nearly 1.8 million board seats at not-forprofit organizations turn over every year, presenting a challenge for charities already trying to fill the 1.2 million positions open at any given time. And anecdotal evidence backs up the national research. “If there’s one thing I hear over and over, it’s, ‘We can’t find board members,'” said Jones, president of Indianapolis-based governance consultant Trustee Leadership Development. “It’s really a ‘Who do you know?’ kind of thing….

FUNNY BUSINESS: Do you fake it? You’re not alone in the excuse biz

Being self-employed -a term I prefer to “being a guy who sits around the house in sloppy clothes, unshaven, making fun of things”-I worry that I might have trouble adjusting, were I to go back to an office job. Would I fit in? Would I be able to get along with people? And most important, would I be able to come up with convincing excuses when I am scamming a day off by calling in sick on a lovely day…

Lots of new office space planned along North Meridian: Some say corridor is beating out Keystone

When Walker Information Inc.’s lease was up on its Keystone-area offices, it looked citywide for new space. In February, the company signed a lease for space in a building along the North Meridian Street corridor because it got a good deal from Lauth Property Group Inc., according to Walker’s broker, Samuel F. Smith, of Resource Commercial Real Estate. Several area developers are betting that others will follow Indianapolis-based Walker’s lead, lured by the prestige of a North Meridian Street address….

BULLS & BEARS: Blunting market volatility is tougher than it sounds

In investing, the term “correlation” refers to how different types of assets move in relation to one another. Investment categories that tend to move in unison are “positively correlated.” Whereas, “non-correlated” or ” l ow – c o r r e l a t e d ” assets will tend to move in opposite directions or at least not in lockstep. This behavioral difference among various asset classes is the primary argument for diversification. By populating your portfolio with some…

SPORTS: High school hoops border war reduced to a scuffle

Often, when I’m asked to give talks reflecting on the success of the sports initiative in Indianapolis, I use summertime as an illustration. Back in the old days-and you know you’re getting old when “old days” refer to anything pre-1970-Indy’s June-July-August sports menu could pretty much be written on a single page and in large type. Once the Indianapolis 500 came and went on Memorial Day, about the only thing to do was wait for the start of college and…

Hospital plan gets chilly reception from neighbors: Homeowners worry about location of St. Vincent’s Seton Specialty Hospital

Concerns about oxygen tanks and noisy delivery trucks have cropped up since St. Vincent unveiled plans last winter for the long-term, acute-care hospital on Township Line Road. “They just kind of stomped in and said, ‘This is what we’re going to do,'” said Beth King, a resident of Spring Hill Place, a 40-home subdivision on the site’s northern border. However, hospital officials, who are preparing for a ground breaking on the $17 million project this month, say they made several…

VIEWPOINT: Parlez-vous work-force realignment?

When French young people took to the streets in March to protest a new hiring law that made firing youth workers easier, many companies in the United States watched the drama with indifference, failing to see the connection between the French problem and the U.S. employment dynamic. Here in the United States, our youth are eager to contribute to society and establish their place in the work force, right? The problem is, many Indiana companies haven’t learned how to take…

Land lease holds building hostage: Owners of parcel entangled in court fight

A scuffle for ownership of land under downtown’s landmark Illinois Building has spilled into court, possibly bogging down efforts to redevelop the vacant structure. Building owner HDG Mansur leases the land from its owners under a 99-year agreement it inherited when it bought the building. The pact, signed in 1919, stipulates that any improvements on the land revert to land owners when the lease expires in 2018. A Lebanese businessman appears to be working with HDG Mansur to break the…

Giving lifted by disasters: Donors generous to victims of catastrophies but didn’t forget usual causes, IU study finds

All told, individuals, corporations and foundations gave $260.3 billion to charity in 2005, 2.7 percent more than the year before even after adjusting for inflation, according to data compiled by researchers at Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy for the annual “Giving USA” report. The report, set to be released June 19 by the Illinois-based Giving USA Foundation, answers a question that has been lingering for more than a year: Would the nation’s outpouring of support for victims of an Asian…

BEHIND THE NEWS: Amid stock market’s slide, a high-flier gets grounded

In late April, Brightpoint Inc. investors had every reason to feel giddy. Shares of the wireless phone wholesaler were up 85 percent for the year, after advancing 113 percent in 2005. Today, those heady days seem like a distant memory. Since reaching a high of $28.50 April 27, Brightpoint’s shares have lost 50 percent of their value, lopping more than $700 million off the company’s market value. “Clearly, wireless is out of favor on Wall Street and has been for…