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Giving office furniture a lift: Pointman Organizer provides users two desks in one

It looks like an average, yet stylish, office desk. But press a button and a hutch automatically rises from the back, exposing a flat-panel monitor, speakers, a printer and storage areas. Press the button again and the hutch descends, providing wide-open work space. The desk is the first product available from upstart Arise Innovations Inc. Partners Tom Doane, 39, and Jeffrey Hallal, 48, have a patent pending on the design and have sold production rights to Jasper based Inwood Office…

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Economic developer for hire: Miller’s brain trust spreads advice from town to country

It’s about soybeans and high hopes. Clinton County has only 34,148 residents, nearly half of them living in the county seat of Frankfort. Most of the labor force works in either farming or auto-parts manufacturing. Neither is generally considered the field of the future. Enter economic development consultant Thomas P. Miller & Associates. Since Clinton County is the state’s fifth-largest soybean producer, TPMA counseled a strategy based on what it already does well. Starting next year, federal regulators will require…

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Bomar Industries: Metal fabricator builds on expertise Bomar Industries’ owners started without a business plan, but succeeded anyway

Bomar Industries’ owners started without a business plan, but succeeded anyway Brothers Bob and Mark Buchanan have parlayed their passion for drag racing and metal bending into a $3 million enterprise with only growth on the horizon. The brothers started Bomar Industries like a lot of entrepreneurs-with no business plan and their own money and equipment. The Buchanans already had lathes, mills, welders and other supplies for their work on dragsters and other hobby projects. Bob, 50, was an engineer…

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GERALD BEPKO Commentary: FFA is important to our future

What major, national, student-oriented not-for-profit organization with deep roots in Kansas City moved its headquarters to Indianapolis in the last decade and now has made commitments to bring a huge number of visitors to Indianapolis each year into the future? If you think the answer is the NCAA, you would be half right. The complete answer is that there are two such organizations: the NCAA and FFA. Both the NCAA and FFA brought economic benefits along with their headquarters. Through…

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ROUGH ROAD AHEAD?: Chrysler foundry’s closing a warning sign for other plants

Chrysler foundry’s closing a warning sign for other plants The closing of DaimlerChrysler Corp.’s foundry west of downtown at the end of this month signals more than the end of nearly 900 jobs there. “There’s a fundamental change occurring in the automotive industry right now,” said Matthew Will, director of the University of Indianapolis’ graduate business program and associate dean in the School of Business. “Unless local manufacturers in this sector don’t reposition, I would certainly expect to see more job…

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Basic utility vehicle rolling ahead-slowly: Assembly would happen in developing nations

A not-for-profit group developing vehicles for use in the Third World plans to open a “micro-factory” next month near 65th Street and Binford Boulevard. But the Institute for Affordable Transportation site won’t mass-produce its diminutive vehicles, powered by lawn tractor engines. Rather, the donated space will become a lab for working out methods to help those in developing countries assemble the so-called “basic utility vehicles.” The facility “is to basically prepare the way for this technology transfer package so it…

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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Efficient, tasteful design can help maximize productivity

Productivity. Comfort. Longevity. While the old saying about location applies to most commercial real estate decisions, the issues of promoting productivity, providing a comfortable working environment and choosing materials that last become preeminent after the lease is signed. current space-is not something you do everyday. If you’re part of a mid-sized or small business, then it’s highly likely that you’re juggling real estate decisions at the same time you’re trying to advance your business. As a result of this pressure,…

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Startup Web venture gives sales reps an edge: Internet forum allows anonymous contact exchange

In literature and on stage, Arthur Miller’s tragic salesman Willy Loman has come to symbolize the American dream gone sour. But for the founders of locally based WillyLoman.com, an online forum for anonymous exchange of business contacts, the moniker has a simpler meaning: Willy Loman is instantly recognizable. The title character from “Death of a Salesman” is still the best-known name in marketing. “Have you ever felt like Willy Loman?” asked WillyLoman.com cofounder and CEO Bill Johnson. “The idea is…

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Staffing agency seeks bankruptcy protection: Morley Group begins reorganizing $5.3 million debt

The 13-year-old staffing agency already owes the bank $1.94 million-a $1.17 million loan used to construct its headquarters and about $768,000 for operating expenses. President Michael Morley blamed poor economic conditions for the filing. He said the company hopes to emerge from bankruptcy quickly. “Our business is just now starting to come back and increase,” he said. “We’re going to be able to straighten this out. We’re not taking this lightly.” Other debts listed in the bankruptcy filing include a…

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Computer Renditions: Technology firm building from plateau Computer Renditions on target to grow revenue in 2005

Being robbed in broad daylight on your first day as a small-business owner is not exactly a good omen, but it didn’t stop Computer Renditions Inc. founder Christopher Stater. Stater was headed to a meeting with IT consulting client Anheuser-Busch one morning 11 years ago when he was accosted in a Columbus, Ohio, hotel parking lot. A robber sprayed his face with a chemical fire extinguisher and stole his briefcase. “They made me go to a hospital,” Stater remembered, “but…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: Is Google everything it’s cracked up to be?

It’s often hard to tell what’s a gimmick, and what’s a real business tool. As I sit staring thoughtfully at Google’s stripped-down, Zenlike home page, I can’t decide whether it’s another Clippy (the annoying animated paperclip character introduced in Microsoft Word 97), or another paperclip (which is so ubiquitous and essential in business that we don’t even think of it as technology anymore). It could be either, or even both. Google has left the desktop in Microsoft’s grasp, but staked…

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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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INVESTING: Powerhouse tech stocks may have more room to run

Technology is cool, especially when you can profit from it in the stock market. There have been all kinds of breakouts in the technology sector the last eight weeks, and with the pullback occurring now, opportunities abound. Let’s start with the big guy, Microsoft. (My fund owns Microsoft.) This stock had been lagging the market this year until it went bananas Aug. 2. The stock broke out that day on almost triple the average volume. It then climbed near $28…

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RETURN ON TECHNOLOGY: If tired of browsing for news, why not try an aggregator?

The bane of the Information Age is information. At least when my father went to work in the factory he ably kept running for many years, he knew the aisles would still be in the same places, the machinery still exhibiting the same behaviors, and that the number of unknowns in his life would be manageable. I’m better situated in life than he was, but I pay for it with uncertainty. The content of my job isn’t machinery, but information,…

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EYE ON THE PIE: Prison reform is off state’s radar

What do the following cities have in common? Auburn, C r aw f o r d s v i l l e , Greenfield, Griffith, Huntington, Logansport, New Castle, Seymour and Shelbyville. Each has a smaller population than the number of people in Indiana prisons. The Indiana Department of Correction reports we have more than 19,600 adults in our prisons at an annual cost in excess of $21,500 per prisoner per year, for a total of $420 million. According to…

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NOTIONS: The faulty presumption of perpetual accessibility

I was in pain. I lost lots of blood. My blood sugar skyrocketed (I’m diabetic). In the wee hours that Friday morning, nurses pumped me full of morphine, injected me with insulin and watched my vital signs while doctors pressed and squeezed, pushed and prodded, and talked it all over in hushed tones. An hour before surgery, an anesthesiologist visited. He asked lots of questions about allergies and dental work. Then he warned me of potential doom-perhaps even death on…

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Former Chamber of Commerce CEO launches firm: Christopher LaMothe leaves Oxford Financial Group

For a decade as Indiana Chamber of Commerce CEO, Christopher LaMothe pressed to enhance Indiana’s business climate. Then he spent several years leading Oxford Financial Group Ltd.’s team of advisers for wealthy clients. But the whole time, LaMothe aspired to be a dealmaker. Now, he’s done something about it. This summer, he founded the one-man Ascendanci Ventures LLC and is on the hunt for prospects. “I’m doing what I have dreamed about for the last 10 or 15 years,” LaMothe…

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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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Eli Lilly spawns start-up: Maaguzi plans rapid growth selling software to manage clinical research trials

Eli Lilly and Co. has sold clinical-research software it created to a veteran Indianapolis entrepreneur who plans to market it globally, potentially growing his startup company into one of the area’s largest technology firms. Joe Huffine, best known as co-founder of the technology consultancy Onex Inc., said his new firm, Maaguzi LLC, should benefit as the market for research software grows explosively. Maaguzi’s software allows researchers and patients to record data electronically instead of on paper. The software is geared…

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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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