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.
But can a movie to be released March 9, “The Ultimate Gift,” inspire the masses to give money to charitable groups? Not-for-profits hope so, although the idea that an emotion-driven Hollywood film can translate into a thoughtful and deliberate giving plan remains to be seen. “Donor education is a very difficult thing to get done. This may be a good start,” said Gene Tempel, executive director of the IU Center on Philanthropy. The movie is based on the book of…
Utility ratepayer groups say House Bill 1496, which is stuck in committee, is typical of what they see as a disturbing trend:
allowing utilities to pass the cost of mandates directly to consumers. HB 1496 would require Indiana’s coal-reliant electric
utilities to generate at least 10 percent of their power from renewable energy sources like wind and landfill gas.
DTE Energy, the Detroit-based parent of Detroit Edison, is a key contender to buy Citizens Gas & Coke Utility’s east-side coke plant, according to a source familiar with the talks. DTE also owns MichCon, is a natural gas utility that serves 1.3 million customers in Michigan and has a diverse portfolio of energy operations. The […]
The Time Factory founder and CEO Jim Purcell wants to erect a 150-foot-tall wind turbine above his calendar factory near 62nd
Street and Georgetown Road. Purcell figures the $200,000 contraption could power 60 percent–if he’s lucky, maybe 80 percent–of
his 22,000-square-foot facility.
Indianapolis airport officials are considering building a smaller version of FedEx’s 2-million-square-foot hub here, one
that could accommodate several cargo carriers from around the globe. The “international air cargo facility” could be up to
several hundred thousand square feet large and could cost tens of millions of dollars to build.
Only road contractors, Ruth Reiman and the Devil himself are welcoming interstate reconstruction that could cause mass chaos for east-side commuters this year. For Reiman and her team at Central Indiana Commuter Services, the $175 million Interstate 70 project starting Feb. 25 might be the best recruiting tool since stratospheric gasoline prices a year ago. “I’m just waiting for them to hit the first lane closure,” said Reiman, executive director of federally funded CICS. CICS-rhymes with kicks-hopes to lure lone…
The ethanol gold rush sweeping Indiana and other states that grow its prime ingredient, corn, is threatening profit margins for livestock producers and portends higher prices at the supermarket. Perhaps no sector is more nervous these days than pork, where Indiana ranks fifth in production nationally. “Much higher feed costs are likely to eliminate the profit potential for pork production in 2007,” Chris Hurt, a Purdue University agriculture economics professor, said in his recent market outlook report. Corn, the primary…
Indiana recyclers concerned that waste-burning firms could gain status as recyclers–and vie for state grants and loans they’ve
relied on for years–now have a potential competitor on the radar.
I Power Energy Systems, which makes natural-gas-powered electric generators that are the primary power source of corporate
and college campuses, is a novelty in Indiana. After all, coal is still a cheaper source of electricity than is natural gas.
But I Power is developing applications for electric generators that burn biogas from sources ranging from garbage to ground-up
corn.
An Illinois firm wants to destroy Indianapolis trash with a device more fearsome than Marvin the Martian’s ACME disintegration pistol. Northbrook-based PEAT International Inc. would argue its 1,500-degree “plasma arc” treatment device, in which “molecules are disassociated into their basic elemental atomic constituents,” is anything but Looney Tunes, however. PEAT, which already operates plasma plants to destroy solid waste in Taiwan, confirms that it is looking at building a plant locally. “We are still interested in the Indianapolis area. We’re…
World War II could have been fought seven times over since Ralph Reed and sons first tried to build Mallard Lake Landfill
outside of Anderson. The Reeds’ dream of big cash from trash has
upset hundreds of residents in subdivision-dotted fields since the family asked Madison County to rezone their 254-acre farm
in the 1970s.
One of the nation’s most prominent aviation schools is giving Indianapolis another chance. After withstanding a plunge in enrollment, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is adding five degree programs at its center here, with most of them aimed at careers outside the turbulent commercial aviation sector. It also plans to expand beyond its local student base of mostly working adults to court recent high school grads. Though in Indianapolis for 13 years, Embry-Riddle has had all the profile here of a stealth…
The Indiana Department of Transportation may yet allow a partial opening of one or two Interstate 70 interchanges on the east side during a 10-month reconstruction of the main artery between downtown and Interstate 465. City-County Councilor Mary Moriarty Adams said she’s been talking with INDOT officials and with Mayor Bart Peterson in recent days about the potential harm to businesses of having all the interchanges closed. “We’re hopeful that we can have some exit and/or on ramps open at…
Ivy Tech Community College this month launched a pilot program that allows high school dropouts to earn their diplomas while simultaneously working toward a certificate or associate’s degree in college. Intended to improve the state’s labor pool, and as a lifeline to dropouts facing a dismal life in the earnings underclass, it will first be rolled out in Bloomington, Lafayette and Terre Haute. The Indianapolis campus also will offer the program aimed at those 19 or older, although a date…
Every other month, it seems, someone announces another promising alternative to the city’s public schools and their low achievement levels and high dropout rates. If it isn’t Indianapolis Public Schools announcing another specialty school within a high school, it’s a new charter school anointed by Mayor Bart Peterson-a number now approaching 20. So one could be forgiven for being a bit cynical about these schools, as parents who can afford to continue to leave the city for better schools. But…
Fortville-based Genesis Manufacturing makes helmet pads for U.S. troops through Colorado-based Skydex Technologies, which
won a contract this fall with the U.S. Air Force for 120,000 helmet pad kits. Most of the helmets have wound up in Iraq, where
the military has discovered soldiers need something more than Kevlar-lined helmets to survive roadside mines and exploding
Toyotas.
The cost of a pollution-control project at Indianapolis Power & Light’s Harding Street generating station has soared over
budget by $60 million, or 38 percent, and the utility wants its 465,000 customers in Marion County and nine others to help
foot the bill.
Lawmakers last spring made it easier for AT&T, Verizon and big phone companies to get into the video business now ruled by cable TV operators. By summer, video providers were able to obtain a single, statewide video franchise instead of having to negotiate agreements with each municipality they serve. Opponents said reform was all about helping AT&T, the state’s largest phone provider and one of the most powerful lobbying and campaign contributors. AT&T didn’t want to have to negotiate individual…
Gov. Mitch Daniels created a firestorm in 2006 with his solution: Privatize the Indiana Toll Road. The 75-year lease of the 175-mile road in northern Indiana, to an Australian-Spanish consortium, closed June 29. The deal that gave the state a $3.8 billion check to finance other highway projects under Daniels’ Major Moves program not only lives on in controversy, but also could be the defining legacy of his administration. Daniels recently proposed privatizing the Indiana Lottery. And his team already…
