Members of the Red Hat Society get together monthly to celebrate life after 50, a demographic marketers often overlook. But
these women-and their spending habits-are attracting attention as the California-based club gains traction.
Entering her third year as Ball State University’s president, Jo Ann Gora has earned a reputation in business and political
circles as a shrewd, aggressive ambassador for the 19,500-student university. And by all measures, she’s just gotten started.
The news of a potential merger between New York-based Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. and Washington, D.C.-based XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. comes at a critical time for local radio station operators. If the merger draws more listeners, that clearly would be bad news for terrestrial radio stations already dealing with the Internet and Ipod, and could imperil their fledgling high-definition initiative. Already, the proposed $11.4 billion merger is getting lots of media attention, and that’s bound to raise satellite radio’s…
Recently, I attended a Stanley K. Lacy Leadership Seminar at the Downtown Marriott. Members of the socalled “City Committee”-a group that convened three decades ago to brainstorm and map the future of India n a p o l i s – w e r e addressing younger professionals who well could be involved in determining the direction for our city over the next 30 years. Louis Mahern, who was then a leading state Democratic senator helping to push bipartisan support…
Despite moving their headquarters from Tulsa to Indianapolis last year, the organizers of the NFL Scouting Combine said the event could move following 2008. “We’re still in the midst of data collection, so it’s difficult to evaluate this year’s event,” said Jeffrey Foster, president of National Invitational Camp, which runs the Combine from its office at Pan Am Plaza. While the primary concern of agents and players-the speed of the 40-yard dash track-was worked out, a new set of concerns…
Small public companies yet to comply with the stringent accounting provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act could receive a reprieve from federal regulators weighing a one-year extension. Section 404 of the act requires public corporations to assess their internal accounting controls to ensure their financial reporting is accurate-and requires accounting firms to vouch for those controls. To comply with the act, which was enacted in the wake of financial scandals at Enron Corp. and MCI WorldCom, public companies have devoted thousands…
ATMs are still convenient, but not much of a novelty anymore. That distinction now belongs to remote-deposit capture-a high-tech advancement that guarantees a big payoff for banks and their customers alike. “From a technological standpoint, it’s the biggest thing happening in banking in 2007,” said Lee Wetherington, senior vice president at Brentwood, Tenn.-based software maker Goldleaf Financial Inc. Remote-deposit capture eliminates the need for businesses to physically deposit checks at their bank branch. Using the new technology, checks are scanned…
I notice that my home county, LaGrange, did not make Progressive Farmer magazine’s 2007 list of Top 10 Rural Counties in America. Then again, “progressive” is not a word that leaps to mind for a county that is about 40-percent Amish. Actually, none of Indiana’s 92 counties made the Top 10. According to the magazine, the best rural places to live in America are (in reverse order): 10. Polk County, N.C.; 9. Amador County, Calif.; 8. Garfield County, Okla.; 7….
As a hearing-impaired, diabetic, migraine-suffering cancer survivor, father of a cancer survivor and widower of a cancer victim, I’ve followed my share of doctor’s orders. So I’ve taken two of Monroe’s tenaciousness pills, and I’m calling (well, writing) you in the morning. Since my late wife the non-smoker was diagnosed with a smoker’s cancer, I’ve shared our sad story to educate government officials and citizens about the dangers of secondhand smoke. But let’s skip the emotions this time, abandon impatience…
The team leading Indianapolis’ bid to host the 2011 Super Bowl is calling on the corporate community to get in the game fast.
More than a dozen business leaders are rushing to raise $25 million before May 23, when NFL owners are expected to select
a host city from hopefuls Indianapolis; Dallas; and Glendale, Ariz.
I was watching a business program the other day, and one of the guests was an independent-thinking fellow who summarily dismissed the old saw, “They don’t ring a bell at the top.” He went on to say, “They do ring bells; it is just that nobody listens.” Remember the glory days for venture capital? It doesn’t seem that long ago when an idea was worth a billion-dollar initial public offering. Back in the 1990s, the wizards of Silicon Valley were…
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…
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.
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…
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.
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….
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…
When Dr. Jack Farr II saw his grandfather’s knees become bowed out, then saw his father get a knee replacement, he knew he
was next. So he spent his career trying to develop new techniques to replace–and now even regrow–the cartilage around knees.
His labors are part of an international effort to develop alternatives to joint replacements.
As the Final Four approaches, it seems fitting to relive in basketball terms how Ratio Architects Inc. came off the bench in dramatic fashion to save a high-profile downtown project after the star had fouled out. The Indianapolis-based architectural firm played that role in 2004 after sketches from the original out-of-town architect designing the downtown headquarters of Simon Property Group Inc. failed to impress corporate executives. Ratio had one week to deliver, and did. But while the firm’s portfolio is…
After almost 60 profitable years that saw Elliott-Williams Co. install walk-in refrigerators and freezers in almost every
Indiana school, hospital and hotel, the venerable firm was brought to its knees last year. But an unlikely savior, a new locally
based venture capital firm, bought EW out of bankruptcy for $507,000, about the cost of 10 EW walk-ins.
