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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: The world might be flat, but construction costs aren’t

For the most part, construction has been a local story, a story about local workers building buildings in our community. But the story isn’t so local anymore. Global economic forces have begun to intersect with local issues at the construction site. The result: a significant and ongoing increase in construction costs across central Indiana and the rest of the United States-an increase that shows no signs of slowing. Through the first quarter of 2004, construction costs increased at a calm…

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Architects from 3 states to showcase work at event: City welcomes AIA’s Ohio Valley Region convention

The convention kicks off with a shotgun golf outing Sept. 14 at Pebble Brook Golf Club. After golf, attendees can tour five downtown architectural firms. Workshops that begin the next day will follow three tracks of programs-design, community projects and professional development, Kunce said. They will cover a variety of topics including starting a practice, building code requirements, civic initiatives and design- About 250 architects from Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana will converge downtown Sept. 14-17 when Indianapolis hosts the American…

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Ethanol fuel pumps may debut here by ’06: Still no place for the masses to buy E85, despite interest in the alternative to gasoline

Even though Indiana is one of the nation’s biggest growers of corn-the key ingredient in cheaper-than-gasoline ethanol-not a single ethanol pump is available to the average motorist in the Indianapolis area. That twisted irony in a day of record gasoline prices may soon be no more, with a handful of central Indiana gas stations likely to start offering an ethanol alternative-known as E85-by yearend, according to proponents of the fuel. “I hope by Christmas to have a couple in the…

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Cleaner diesel fuels growth at southeast-side factory: Former International Harvester plant is a star for Chicago-based parent Navistar International Corp.

Workers at the once-beleaguered International Truck and Engine Corp. plant on the city’s southeast side are thinking expansion following a $300 million plant upgrade and word of an aggressive 2006 marketing campaign designed to clean up the public image of diesel engines. Improvements to the 1.1-million-squarefoot Brookville Road facility were necessary to meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency mandates for diesel engines set to take effect in 2007, but the plant’s future seems secure well beyond that. The local subsidiary of…

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Museum in for a fight: IMA one of at least 14 art institutions with top vacancies

Wanted: director of a major fine-art museum in the midst of a campaign to reposition itself in its market. Significant expansion recently completed, more to come. The ideal applicant will be part CEO, part art expert, part fund-raiser. That could be the ad placed by the Indianapolis Museum of Art for a new director. Unfortunately for IMA, it could also be an ad placed by at least 14 other art museums nationwide. With a $74 million expansion recently opened, IMA…

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INVESTING: Financial stocks lack allure as interest rates increase

Investors in the financial stocks arena are probably nervous that the record string of Federal Reserve interest rate increases will hurt bank earnings. I fall in the d o n ‘t – fi g h t – t h e – trend camp, but there are some interesting situations surfacing. If you are strictly a value investor and I threw this on your plate, you’d be running to buy the stock. A company consistently growing earnings at 12 percent a…

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Earlier start dates draw criticism: Schools like to get a jump on the schedule, but tourist sites say business is suffering; legislators take notice

A schoolyard brawl is beginning to brew over whether districts are cutting summers short and sending students back to class too soon. For most school districts, the era of starting school after Labor Day went the way of the typewriter in the 1980s. But some Indiana lawmakers and tourism advocates are beginning to clamor for a state academic calendar that would turn the clock back on early start dates. That’s because many school districts in Indiana resumed classes in mid-August….

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More business owners embracing economy: High fuel costs, personal debt dampen some optimism

Business owners are beginning to show signs of completely emerging from a recessional slumber, although some holdouts remain unconvinced an economic recovery is in full swing. The confidence exuded by the state’s massive manufacturing sector could be sending the most optimistic signal. From 2000 to 2003, manufacturers in Indiana were stung especially hard by the soft economy, shedding 75,000 jobs. While many of those positions may never return, employment levels have at least stabilized. That seems to have provided enough…

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Law could generate earnings for Cummins: States face deadline in completing standards for connecting generators to grid

Cummins Inc. and other makers of electric generators stand to gain under a provision an Indiana lawmaker plugged into the federal energy bill signed this month. The amendment by 4th District Republican congressman Steve Buyer forces state utility commissions to adopt standards within two years that will pave the way for businesses that generate their own electricity to sell excess power to the electric grid. That’s good news for firms that generate their own power and for Cummins, which makes…

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Centre Properties, state nearing agreement: Retail center at 96th and Allisonville closer to reality after years of legal wrangling

Indianapolis-based Centre Properties LLC is beginning to move dirt on 96th Street just west of Allisonville Road, a sign that a battle over developing part of a 220-acre site may be nearing an end. In late March, Centre dropped a lawsuit it had filed in mid-2004 against the Indiana Department of Natural Resources over the agency’s reversal of a permit granted to Centre. That permit would have allowed Centre to fill in 15 acres of White River floodway to build…

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SPORTS: Tiller rescued Purdue but isn’t immune to critics

This year the NCAA mandated that Division I-A football media guides be reduced to a uniform 212 pages. Keep in mind that these fonts of information intended for inkstained wretches had morphed into voluminous pitch-tools for recruits and brag books for boosters. The cutback didn’t prevent Purdue’s sports information office from devoting a copious 11 pages of copy in its 2005 guide to Joltin’ Joe Tiller. Perhaps I (or you, dear reader) should read nothing more into that other than…

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Group wants energy czar: Coalition believes utilities slow to climb on efficiency bandwagon

Chris Maher’s crews at Thermo-Scan Inc. have been plenty busy inspecting for drafts and puny insulation in many of the 14,000 new homes built each year in the metro area. Even so, the principal at the Carmel firm can’t help wonder about the vast potential to make the hundreds of thousands of existing homes and businesses more energy efficient-if only homeowners had a little more incentive. Utility companies, he says, have relatively few dollars budgeted to coax customers to install…

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State firms pioneers in boosting electric efficiency:

Indiana already has a number of firms working on technology aimed at boosting energy efficiency and capacity. Early this month, Indianapolis-based Trexco LLC said the U.S. Patent Office awarded it two dozen patents for a cooling system it has developed for large electrical transformers, such as those used at utility substations. The “transformer extender” is designed to stretch the capacity and lifespan of the transformers, which typically cost $2 million to $5 million and are the size of a Mack…

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Industry groups spar over audit proposal: Using parts of Sarbanes-Oxley Act to toughen financial reporting would be costly, unnecessary, NAMIC says

Insurance groups are choosing sides in a brewing battle over whether private insurance companies should be forced to adopt elements of the controversial Sarbanes-Oxley Act. The Kansas City-based National Association of Insurance Commissioners has proposed adding parts of the 2002 federal legislation to its audit rules. Public companies are already required to follow the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which imposes stricter financial disclosure rules. The NAIC represents insurance regulators from all 50 states and is working jointly on the amendment with the…

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Defining success: Those who’ve tasted it share their thoughts on just exactly what ‘it’ is

How do you define career success? We posed that question to a variety of high-profile women and men in the Indianapolis business community. While the responses did confirm some of our preconceived notions-such as that men would mention financial rewards more often than women-there are far more similarities than differences, regardless of gender or profession. Still, “Career success is defined differently by each individual,” as Alex Slabosky, president and CEO of The Healthcare Group, so wisely put it; and as…

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Rising star in GOP recasts job agency: New chief uses secret shoppers, dress code to shake up state’s work force development

Indiana Department of Workforce Development Commissioner Ronald Stiver says the world is flat, with the United States no longer having mountainous advantages over other nations. And Stiver knows Hoosiers must prepare for it to get even flatter. “You’re talking to the converted,” Stiver said. “I believe in the 21st century, the major lever for economic development will be work-force development.” Stiver, 31, is reorganizing DWD with the new flat world in mind. He envisions an agency that moves beyond doling…

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Event targets greener vehicles: Fleet operators to discuss emission-reduction methods at downtown conference

More sparks have been flying from city garbage trucks lately than a City-County Council meeting over police and sheriff’s department consolidation. Mechanics have been cutting out sections of garbage truck exhaust pipes and splicing in tubes filled with precious metals. When the “diesel oxidation catalyst” heats up, combustion gases blowing through it are cleansed before coming out the tailpipe. So simple and quick is this approach to curbing air pollution that John Chavez hopes the humble trash truck project will…

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Reviving a legacy: Grandson of Best Access Systems founder builds security firm that plans to go national

In some ways, Richard Best has never gotten over his departure from his family’s business, Best Access Systems. Some memories he’d rather forget. But others he carries with him like treasures carefully secured under lock and key. “That was a very difficult time,” Best said in halting tones, referring to 1995, when his youngest brother, Russell, acquired control of the company and used his leverage to buy out him, his father, Walter, and brothers Robert and Marshall. “It was our…

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Manufacturers struggle with China’s risk, opportunity: Currency valuation one of many competitive issues

Eighteen months ago, 110 people worked for Swiss Plywood Co., a Tell City-based cabinet-maker in business since 1945. The average tenure was 17 years. Today, only 65 employees are left at the controls of Swiss Plywood’s machines. Chairman Bill Borders blames China. “We’ve weathered storms over the years,” Borders said. “But nothing approaching this.” Manufacturers in Indiana and across the nation have long complained about what they call Chinese currency manipulation. It’s one of a litany of grumbles about Chinese…

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Bias claimed at Citizens Gas: Black workers: Test limited advancement

Citizens Gas & Coke Utility is battling allegations that a test used to screen employees and outside job applicants was biased against blacks, hindering their chances of getting hired or advancing. The city-owned utility last year reached a confidential settlement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of applicants who weren’t hired because the test “has an adverse impact on black employees and applicants for promotion, transfers and hire,” according to EEOC documents. Now, that settlement-which included cash payouts…

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