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One of the nice things about modern car design is the gas light. You start running low, a light pops on to tell you to fill up. Ignoring this light can prove a little dangerous. As you get closer to empty, you know the car can keep going, but you don’t know for how long. And you don’t know where you will be when it runs out. The stock market acts a lot like your car, with one major difference….
A plan to merge the parent of Indiana’s largest HMO with an Ohio insurer has fallen through, but both companies continue to shop for other deals. Cleveland-based Medical Mutual of Ohio a month ago cut off negotiations to buy The HealthCare Group LLC of Indianapolis, which operates M-Plan Inc. But Medical Mutual “would never say never” to future overtures, said Michael Taddeo, the insurer’s vice president of national network development. “We’ve agreed to disagree,” he said, declining to elaborate on…
Our business Q: has grown to $5 million in annual revenues and 30 percent of our sales come from one customer. I feel captive to this revenue and our growth is limited because of the demands placed on us by this account. How do I balance the desire for this revenue with the impact this account has on our operations? Managing a company that is highly A:dependent on one client presents special challenges. It is a “love/hate” relationship. You love…
Indiana real estate agents and brokers need not venture outside the comforts of their homes to complete continuing-education requirements, thanks to a rule change allowing providers to offer courses online. Licenses expire every two years, and 16 hours of continuing education must be completed in that span for professionals to remain in good standing. The Indiana Real Estate Commission adopted the change that took effect April 1. “Rather than having to go to a hotel room or a physical classroom…
Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies has been named NASCAR’s first official provider of security products, a deal that could mean substantial growth for the company’s Carmel headquarters and an Indianapolis manufacturing plant, which together already employ 900. IRST is a division of Bermuda-based behemoth Ingersoll-Rand Co., which is better known for agricultural, construction and transportation equipment sold under names such as Bobcat and Thermo King. The link with the racing circuit is expected to drive home the point that Ingersoll-Rand is…
Rick Barretto started filling his basement with arcade games soon after graduating from Indiana University. An avid gamer since his youth, he loved to play, but to get the games he wanted, he had to buy fullsized arcade cabinets-12 of them. His basement was only so big, and his wife’s tolerance only so high. “My wife was saying, ‘There’s got to be a better way,'” said Barretto, 39. So he put his college computer-science classes to work and spent more…
Several downtown leasing agents doubt the storm damage incurred at One Indiana Square will have a significant impact on the tower owners’ ability to attract future office tenants. In fact, a few contend their quick response to containing the fallout from displaced occupants could even make the building more attractive. “There are a lot of people who never have this challenge put in front of them,” said Jeff Harris, president of locally based Meridian Real Estate and a former marketing…
Gene Simmons, the blood-spitting “demon of Kiss,” has been hired to make the Indy Racing League and the Indianapolis 500 a hot commodity again. Sounds like a stoner’s dream. Black T-shirts with the iconic Kiss logo were everywhere in the beersoaked, weed-perfumed infield of the 1970s and early 1980s. Some of those shirts were on people walking upright. Others were very publicly removed and some covered the limp bodies of those who’d overindulged. Mud, sweat, sun, booze, bongs and Coppertone….
After growing its enrollment 75 percent the last decade, Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana is shifting its focus to student retention. A top administrator also wants to expand the number of training courses offered at businesses, as a way to supplement the system’s $253 million annual budget. Some who’ve studied the state’s educational system have recommended that Ivy Tech spend more to hire additional full-time faculty to strengthen its effectiveness. The school’s five-year student retention plan calls for doubling…
Small-business owners struggle every day to find adequate time to address key business issues. Not surprisingly, when a hiring need arises, whether from growth or turnover, a business owner’s time-or lack thereof-is a major factor in the success or failure of the initiative. Bad hires take a toll on an owner’s time and emotional energy, the company’s overall productivity, and customer/supplier relationships. It is better to invest adequate time in the hiring process to ensure a good hire than to…
Angry investors in James T. O’Neal Jr.’s failed auto mall company have waited nearly a decade for the Carmel native to get his comeuppance. They thought that day would come this spring, at his sentencing on two felony charges stemming from what investigators say was a scheme to swindle the rich and famous in Indianapolis and central Florida out of millions of dollars. But now a psychiatrist has concluded that “O’Neal is suffering from a mental disease rendering him unable…
As the new headquarters building for Simon Property Group Inc. was going up downtown last fall, a group of Indiana University students donned hard hats and toured the 13-story building. After riding the construction elevator to the top floor, students got a bird’s-eye view of the city and a firsthand account from the developers about the building’s cost, size and challenges in constructing it. The students were members of the IU Real Estate Club, and the tour of the 350,000-square-foot…
On April 14, as part of its Power Breakfast Series, the Indianapolis Business Journal gathered a panel of commercial real estate and construction experts to discuss industry conditions in the local market. In a discussion moderated by IBJ Editor Tom Harton, panelists took on a wide range of issues, including tax incentives and the status of downtown’s residential and retail markets. Power Breakfast guests were Mike Curless, executive vice president and principal with Lauth Property Group; Mike Wells, president of…
There’s finally visible progress on the city’s Central Library expansion project. But the litigation over who’s responsible for its construction problems still has no end in sight. City-County Councilor Isaac Randolph is frustrated. So he wrote a proposal to order all the players in the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library’s legal dispute to enter binding arbitration. “I’m trying to find a resolution to what’s clearly become an embarrassment to the citizens funding this,” Randolph said. “I’ve lost confidence in the leadership…
I’ve had quite a few odd things cross my desk recently, none of which require much attention individually, but taken together are worth a mention. They deserve some attention because at the heart of each is an idea-sometimes a great idea. The first is probably the greatest idea of the bunch, and it’s one of those things that cause me to ask myself why I didn’t think of it first. Last summer, a student in England named Alex Tew was…
Every buyer and seller of commercial property is familiar with Phase I environmental reports-the ubiquitous due-diligence requirement for commercial property transactions or financing. When they first began to be used, the work behind the reports-and often the reports themselves-varied greatly in thoroughness and completeness. With the advent of ASTM standards, more uniformity appeared, even if quality remained spotty. The front is about to change dramatically. Recent regulations by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which take effect in November, have a…
Every day, the financial press and market pundits provide us with the reason for the previous day’s stock market activity. Following a down day, we might read an article headlined, “Investors sell stocks on fears of rising inflation.” Perhaps the next day the market rises and we see, “Stocks climb as investors see end to Fed interest rate increases.” What exactly happened overnight that caused this apparent shift in sentiment? Did investors sleep on it and the next morning collectively…
The incident drove home the importance of disaster planning. When the storm struck at 10 p.m. that Sunday, who was prepared for the emergency? Employees were told not to come in the next morning, but how would they do their jobs? What files could be retrieved? Would computer systems work on Monday and later that week? What would happen to incoming and outgoing telephone and e-mail messages? The questions and potential problems were endless. Each owner of a family business…
Even after all these years, my bride still sometimes forgets that there really are three sure things in life: death, taxes and the fact that television rules, especially in sports. As a guy who spent most of his life in the newspaper business, the increasing influence of television became an everlarger burr in my behind. Everything from the length of games (those four-hour-plus University of Notre Dame football games were especially excruciating) to deadlinecrunching late starting times to preferential treatment…
Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau released 2004 data showing that Indiana had 264,936 persons of Hispanic origin among its 6,058,930 population. That would mean 4.37 percent of Hoosiers, themselves or their ancestors, came from Mexico, Cuba, Columbia, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Panama, Chile and other Spanish-speaking nations. Don’t you just love that precision? 264,936 and 6,058,930 are merely estimates, not census counts. Anyone who has worked with numbers should be embarrassed to be more specific than 265,000 and 6,060,000. The…
