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Consumers drive away from HMOs: Despite declines, most plans in Indiana still have healthy reserves and profits

Most central Indiana HMOs lost customers again in 2006, with consumerdriven health care plans inflicting the latest cut. Eight out of 10 major health maintenance organizations lost members, some for a third straight year. The declines ranged from 4 percent to 48 percent, according to their annual reports filed with the Indiana Department of Insurance. Most HMOs are in no danger of going out of business. Many posted increased profit in 2006, and most have healthy cash reserves. But HMOs…

Changes flowing at Delta; is sale next?

Amid sagging profits, locally based Delta Faucet Co. has parted ways with two of its top executives. And some analysts think
Delta’s parent corporation–tiring of its sagging performance–is considering selling the faucet manufacturer.

Professor hits right note in guitar engineering class: Purdue course lets students build, test instruments

Playing guitar seems much more alluring than building one-unless you’re a member of the Instrument Manufacturing and Testing class at Purdue University. The course is the creation of Mark French, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering technology, who introduced it just last year. It is already striking a major chord with students. Eighteen are enrolled now, which is as many as the professor can handle, and the waiting list for next spring’s session is full. French is teaching the class…

Duke, Lauth, Mansur join MSA site fray

A who’s-who of local firms is planning bids to redevelop the Market Square Arena site with mixed-use projects that would depart
sharply from previous efforts focused on residential. New plans are expected to include retail , offices, apartment units
and condos backed by high-profile local developers that didn’t bid before.

PROFILE: UNIQUE WINDOW & DOOR: Hanging a business on happy customers Owner aims to improve home-improvement reputation

PROFILE UNIQUE WINDOW & DOOR Hanging a business on happy customers Owner aims to improve home-improvement reputation In an industry often lambasted for unethical practices, Unique Window & Door President Robert Dillon has tried to carve a niche in the local home-improvement market-combining aggressive marketing with a focus on customer and employee satisfaction. It seems to be making strides on both counts. Revenue has steadily increased over the 13 years Dillon has owned the company, and Unique is a four-time…

STATEHOUSE DISPATCH: Desperate for cash, lawmakers embrace gambling

We recently told you how revenue growth was lagging the December fiscal forecast. One prominent Republican senator tells his constituents that his colleagues are now planning for a growth rate in this fiscal year of only 2.5 percent, not the 4.2 percent to 4.5 percent they had planned on at the beginning of the session. While lawmakers will not have a new fiscal forecast for the biennium until the middle of April, they are clearly girding for a new fiscal…

WORTH SEEING: BORN AGAIN FLOOZIES: Floozies serious about music

WORTH SEEING BORN AGAIN FLOOZIES Floozies serious about music For a band that’s garnering international buzz, the Born Again Floozies are hard to find. The local sextet has only a handful of live shows scheduled, the next one May 20 at the Broad Ripple Art Fair. “We don’t play that often,” said Joe Welch, the band’s co-founder, guitarist, singer, songwriter, kickdrum player and spokesman. “When we do, we make sure it’s a good show and that it’s worthwhile.” All the…

BEHIND THE NEWS: Texas investment put Durham in middle of Brightpoint deal

I n d i a n a p o l i s businessman Tim Durham long has been dogged by speculation he had inside information when he scooped up shares five years ago in thenfoundering Brightpoint Inc.-a bet he figures made him more than $30 million when the company roared back. Here we go again. A new Securities and Exchange Commission filing shows that a Durham-led investment group was buying shares in Texas-based Cellstar Corp. in February 2006 just as…

VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: It’s time we change those modular-home stereotypes

Mention modular housing and the first image that comes to mind is probably a TV reporter standing in front of a devastated trailer park in Tornado Alley. The “double-wide” with the screened-in porch somewhere in Florida may offer a much more comforting image. Nonethe- Americans their first chance at homeownership by manufacturing houses in factories and shipping the prepackaged kits to home sites. The visionary homes featured open floor plans, modern appliances, lighting fixtures and mechanical equipment. Sears sold more…

Invoice-borrowing a growing credit option

Bank loans and credit cards are common solutions to small businesses’ cash-flow crunches, but small-business owners increasingly
have another option: using unpaid invoices as collateral to borrow money from investors.

Bill challenges WellPoint’s ‘favored’ status

A bill moving through the Indiana General Assembly could remove one of the major weapons Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield
has used to preserve its market dominion. Senate Bill 114 would forbid health care providers from granting Anthem–or any
other health insurer–so-called “most favored nation” clauses.

Airport expects art to make big impression: Array of visuals should grab attention of city visitors

Since the mid-1990s, cities have been trying to take advantage of a captive audience by incorporating major public art installations into airport expansion projects. Long before Indianapolis began forging an ambitious public arts plan for its midfield terminal project, airports in Miami, Denver and Washington, D.C., commissioned millions of dollars’ worth of statues, mosaics and fountains. Smaller airports, such as Austin-Bergstrom International in Texas, which is on par with Indianapolis in terms of passenger counts, also have latched onto the…

Carmel unveils plans for $80M performing arts center: Designs include major orchestra hall laden with state-of-art acoustical design features, plus 500-seat theater

The seats in the new Carmel Performing Arts Center will be designed so music will be acoustically unaffected whether people are sitting in them or not. The walls and jutting upper-level balconies will be curved so sound waves wrap around the hall, preventing sound from becoming focused in a single spot. A suspended reflective canopy will be raised or lowered depending on the number and types of instruments being played so reverberation time stays perfect at all times, thus doing…

EYE ON THE PIE: Indiana less entrepreneurial than nation

For many people, owning a business is a dream. As a nation, we idolize such people as “entrepreneurs.” We assemble data that show “small business” as the heart of the economy (even though the definition of “small” is fewer than 500 employees). Let’s look at this segment of the economy. Oops. The data we have are not as good as we want. We do not know how many proprietors or business operators are full-time and how many are part-time. It…

SPORTS: A tribute to the sportswriter who took a chance on me

Most of us have those “who-knows” people in our lives. Meaning, “who knows” what might have become of us had these people not come into our lives. P r o f e s s i o n a l l y, right at the top of my list is Cyrus W. “Cy” McBride. Cy died last week in Montgomery, Ala. He was 78. I would be remiss if I let his passing go without sharing the profound impact he had….

Concrete price-fixing case might not be wrapped up: Undisclosed state investigation delaying civil lawsuit

The U.S. Department of Justice’s highprofile, three-year investigation into price fixing in Indiana’s concrete industry resulted in one of the largest antitrust fines in history: $29.2 million against Greenfield-based Irving Materials Inc. The investigation might not be over yet. The DOJ seemed to conclude its Indianapolis inquiry last month, finally closing the criminal case. But a recent filing in a pending civil suit against IMI and its four former top executives hints the probe is continuing elsewhere. This time, IMI…

SBDC network gets new chief

After about seven months without a leader, the Indiana Small Business Development Center network has found one in Jeff Heinzmann. An attorney by training, the 39-year-old is charged with getting the statewide system of 11 regional centers on track in their efforts to help entrepreneurs get started and grow. Despite their connection, the Indiana centers for the most part have operated independently, and some-like the central Indiana office serving Marion and the surrounding counties-have struggled for stability. Heinzmann aims to…

University takes advantage of new design-build law: IU finishes its first building under construction process

What do the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal have in common? Each project was both designed and built by the same people. Basically, they were among the first design-build projects in history. What seemed like a good idea hundreds and thousands of years ago has been slower to take hold in modern times. These days, most construction projects are still completed by separate entities-one that draws up the plans and another that brings those plans…

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: How Hoosiers who smoke are hurting state economy

For those who have gone through life shying away from anything involving numbers, the demonstration of the principle of compound interest is usually an eye-opening revelation. It’s quite simple, actually. Money set aside today accrues interest, if it is wisely invested. But so does the interest on what you set aside yesterday. Over a long time span, this snowballing of interest on interest can build up to a sizable nest egg. That’s why financial advisers always tell you to start…

SURF THIS: Is charity legit? Here is where you can find out

Just when I think I’m coming around to liking people, something like this happens. The phone rang at the office and a woman announced that she was calling on behalf of the “Committee for Missing Children.” She gruffly explained that, while I may not recognize the organization’s name, I would likely recall one of the 2 billion images of missing children they’ve distributed on milk cartons and posters. Our policy here is to avoid giving to telephone solicitations. So I…