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Chris Katterjohn

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Commentary: It’s all about managing diversity

“Diversity” is a word that gets thrown around a lot these days. The pair of words “diversity management” might be more to the point. Diversity really is a fact of life. In terms of humankind, the world is made up of different kinds of people. And those differences go way beyond race, gender and ethnicity. People come from different backgrounds, believe in different religions, and have different sexual preferences, for example. Some are physically handicapped or mentally impaired. Our differences…

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Commentary: HealthNet casts a wide one

Indianapolis is becoming a much more international city. Consider some of the facts: Central Indiana’s Latino population is now 100,000, fifth-fastest-growing in the United States; one in five scientists at Eli Lilly is Chinese; and 2,000 Burmese immigrants live here. These tidbits and mounds of other information about immigration in our community can be found in the International Center’s coffee-table book, “New Faces at the Crossroads: The World in Central Indiana.” The book also contains the stories and beautiful photographs…

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Commentary: Putting rush hour on ICE

Last week, after spending $71.83 to fill up my car, I said to myself, “Tomorrow, I’m taking the bus.” So I did. It wasn’t my first time on the new IndyGo commuter bus from Carmel; it was my fourth in the last five weeks. On that particular day, I was fed up. It was the first time that gassing up cost me more than $70, and it made an impression. I guess that’s what it’s going to take for all…

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Commentary: Making the segue to Segways

Have you seen Margot Eccles or Brian Payne cruising downtown sidewalks on their Segways? It’s quite the sight, and a still-novel one considering Eccles and Payne are the only two people I know who have the two-wheelers and use them regularly in the central business district, save the security people at Circle Centre mall. I went to a meeting Eccles attended on the 29th floor of One American Square and her Segway was parked in the corner of the conference…

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Commentary: Remember better days at ATA

On ATA, you’re on vacation. That catchy tag line from the past has taken on new meaning to the 600 or so Indianapolis employees who were abruptly and unceremoniously terminated April 3 when the airline shut down for good. The singsong melody that accompanied those words in ATA’s marketing is now a dissonant tune for them and the thousands of ticketed passengers who were left stranded. The airline whose name and jingle once evoked images of fun in the sun,…

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Commentary: Daniels, IEDC burning things up

My friends at Crain’s Chicago Business have published several stories about the state of Indiana’s economic development efforts since Gov. Mitch Daniels took office and launched the Indiana Economic Development Corp. in 2005. They never used to write much about Indiana. In June that year, an Illinois economic development official was quoted in Crain’s saying, “It seems like every time I turn around on a project along Interstate 80, there’s Indiana breathing down my neck.” A year later, a guest…

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Commentary: Morris: From hunger to hoops

How do you go from fighting world hunger to polishing the tarnished image of an NBA basketball team? That’s the task at hand for Jim Morris, who said to a recent breakfast gathering, “I reached a point in my life when I realized that nothing I would do going forward would be as important as what I just did.” I suppose a number of us reach a similar place in our careers when we realize we have “hit the peak”…

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Commentary: Isn’t a criminal record relevant?

I have a bit of a problem with the court system, and maybe one of you out there can help me with this. I wrote a column in December about my experience with jury duty. The case involved a daughter, a mother and a question of whether the defendant-the daughter-would be charged with auto theft (a felony) or criminal conversion (a misdemeanor). Briefly, here are the facts. The mother purchased a car and titled it in her name, but gave…

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Commentary: Good luck to Mayor Ballard

Mayor Greg Ballard has less than a week under his belt of taking on a city that is both on a roll and full of challenges. It’s an exciting time to be mayor. An unknown commodity, Ballard has some big shoes to fill with little experience in government to help him out. (Note to self: That’s not necessarily a bad thing.) Indianapolis has been blessed with strong leadership for the last 40 years, beginning in 1968 with Republican Richard Lugar,…

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Commentary: A funny thing happened in the jury box

I did my civic duty this month. I went to Hamilton Superior Court in Noblesville for jury duty. Like most people, I suspect, I sighed when I opened the envelope on the summons several weeks earlier. This will disrupt my life, I whined to myself. Even though I’d served on a Marion County jury for a criminal case several years before and enjoyed the experience, I wasn’t thrilled about being called. I’d been summoned earlier this year and had a…

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Commentary: New library ready for Digital Age

Dec. 9 was slated to be the Big Day for Indianapolis’ new Central Library. After five years and more than $150 million, the project-which seemed preposterous from the start-has finally come to fruition and sits ready for a grand opening. From the beginning, I wondered how you even move an entire library. What’s more, how do you set it up in a new location, then tear it down and move it back? Imagine moving hundreds of thousands of books, magazines…

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Commentary: Of Blue Cross and Blue Chip

WellPoint CEO Angela Braly must be thinking to herself, “Enough with the most powerful and influential stuff already!” In the course of the last several months, Braly has been named the 16th-most-powerful woman in the world-that’s in the world-by Forbes magazine, one of the 19 mostinfluential women in central Indiana by IBJ, and the top woman to watch by the Wall Street Journal. That’s heady stuff, to be sure, but I know for a fact that her two school-age daughters…

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Commentary: White River State Park a true gem

On the week we give our Michael A. Carroll Award to Brian Payne for his promotion of the Indianapolis Cultural Trail, I am thinking of White River State Park. The connection is easily made because Mike Carroll was killed in an airplane crash on his way to do research on-you guessed it-White River State Park. He, three other civic leaders and two pilots died when two planes collided in midair on Sept. 11, 1992. Fast forward: As I envision Payne’s…

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Commentary: Dungy’s book a real eye-opener

I watched the Indianapolis Colts’ Oct. 22 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars with a sense of calm I’d never experienced before while watching a Colts game. It wasn’t because I was certain they were going to win-far from it-or because I had been sedated. It was because I had just read Coach Tony Dungy’s best-seller, “Quiet Strength.” No, I wasn’t “born again” while reading. But I was given a much better idea of how Dungy works and how things are…

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Commentary: WIB-see moves to the FM dial

I noted the passing of WIBC-AM with more than just a little interest. Yes, my little interest-I don’t listen to commercial radio-was coupled with a heavy dose of nostalgia. This is the end of an era, for crying out loud. WIBC, which in my youth we referred to more often as “WIB-see,” was my parents’ favorite station in the morning. I equate the sound of Gary Todd’s voice with the smell of bacon and eggs on school days. I also…

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Commentary: Chasing after the younger crowd

A couple of weeks ago, I ate lunch with an attorney friend who was telling me about his eldest daughter-born, raised and now living in Indianapolis. A 27-year-old registered nurse, she was preparing to move to Chicago because she thinks “there is nothing to do here” for people her age. This really hit home for me because I have two daughters in the same age range living here, and both are starting to talk about moving away for a while,…

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Commentary Noblesville gets traction under mayor:

When it comes to the battle of the ‘burbs-at least those north of Indianapolis-Carmel seems to get all the glory. Not that it’s undeserved, considering the progress and growth that have taken place under Mayor Jim Brainard. But lest you haven’t noticed, Carmel’s rival to the northeast-Noblesville-has fired up its afterburners in the last few years and is making major strides on the development front. Some of the credit should go to that city’s first-term mayor, John Ditslear, who was…

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