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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: A primer on understanding the mystery of gas prices

You usually don’t get a lot of space when you write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. So when I’ve read those despairing cries of outrage and mystification at the behavior of gas prices recently, I have managed to resist the urge to respond in kind. Explaining energy prices-or any price, for that matter-isn’t quite as hard as hitting a curve ball in baseball, but both explanations take more than the 3 or 4 inches of column…

BRIAN WILLIAMS Commentary: Should we invest in ethanol or education?

During times of high gasoline prices, the investment made by the Daniels administration in six ethanol plants would seem prudent. The touted benefits of ethanol plants are that they create jobs in rural communities, support Indiana corn growers, improve air quality, and lower dependence on foreign oil. As an Indianapolis resident with little exposure to our farm economy, my first question was, “How do you make ethanol?” Ethanol is made by fermenting and distilling simple sugars like those found in…

Refiner enjoys oil boom: Calumet Specialty Products sees stock price take off

Indianapolis is headquarters for Little Oil-Calumet Specialty Products Partners LP. Few locally have heard of the west-side refining and petroleum products company, let alone of its Jan. 25 initial public stock offering that raised $144 million. Calumet is controlled by an equally obscure group of families that still own the bulk of company shares. Yet shares of little Calumet-sales last year of $1.3 billion-are up 40 percent since the January IPO intended to fuel acquisitions. The appreciation is partly due…

Goulding & Wood Inc.: Bigger is not always better Organ maker emphasizes quality over quantity

Goulding set about learning every aspect of the business and when his father and partner Thomas Wood retired in 2003, he was ready to take over. He and longtime employee Brandon Woods bought the company. The transition was slow, though, because the founders had a backlog of clients still waiting for their instruments. The amicable changeover was a combination of the company being handed down and bought out, with capital taken out to reimburse the original owners, Mark Goulding said….

THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW: Judge not, lest ye have to fill out more surveys

When you voted in the primary May 2, and got to the judicial candidates, did you feel just a little … oh, what’s the right word … clueless? Uninformed? Ignorant about what any of these people actually thought about anything? Now some people might have felt that way about many of the candidates. But not you. Being the well-informed voter that you are, you’d already done your homework. Researched the issues. Asked the tough questions. And so you (and maybe…

Timing is everything in the fuel-savings game: INDOT to synchronize signals in more area brake zones

State transportation engineers, having just tweaked traffic-light timing to improve flow on U.S. 31 in Carmel, next plan to target three other busy corridors in the metro area. They include U.S. 31 on the south side, between Interstate 465 and County Road 750N, and the increasingly congested stretch of State Road 37 between State Road 238 and Cumberland Road in Noblesville. The improvements to be conducted over the next several months can’t come fast enough for motorists weary of the…

Opera in fight to avoid finale: Organization embraces co-productions as a way to keep the Fat Lady at bay

It might be facing a $350,000 deficit, a round of staff cuts and a scaled-back production schedule, but the Indianapolis Opera isn’t ready to cue the Fat Lady quite yet. Instead, the not-for-profit arts organization is employing a series of cost-saving measures intended to keep her off the stage indefinitely-including a greater emphasis on sharing production expenses with other opera companies. Co-producing is an increasingly popular strategy among performing arts groups looking to make the most of their limited resources….

Health care with privileges: Boutique medical practices buy time for doctors, patients

Membership definitely has its privileges at the new north-side medical practice launched by doctors Timothy Story and Kevin McCallum. An annual retainer of at least $2,500 gives patients around-the-clock doctor access, medical records they can carry on a key chain, unlimited office visits and refreshments when they arrive. FirstLine Personal Health Care represents the Indianapolis market’s latest foray into boutique medicine, a form of health care criticized for being exclusionary since it popped up in Seattle a decade ago. Story,…

Reebok should fit into Adidas’ global plan: Indianapolis facility finds an ally in NBA after 11-year apparel deal

Adidas-Salomon AG’s $3.8 billion acquisition of Reebok International is having ripple effects from Boston to Beijing. Those waves are likely to wash right through Reebok’s design and manufacturing plant on Indianapolis’ east side, which employs nearly 1,000. Reebok’s headquarters will remain in Canton, Mass., and Adidas will maintain its state-side headquarters in Portland, Ore., but officials for the German sporting goods giant have revealed little else about their plans for Reebok facilities. Adidas officials have said they project saving $212…

SPORTS: This is the time and place for an open-wheel marriage

It’s May, so here’s something we should want to see even more than the field of (we hope) 33 taking the green flag on Race Day, something we should want to hear even more than Tom Carnegie’s baritone, something we should believe would have an even more positive long-term impact on open-wheel racing than a victory by Danica Patrick. Indeed, the best news to come out of this May would be the great news for next May. And that would…

BULLS & BEARS: Marsh, Suros deals a study in how to value businesses

Two recent Indianapolis business deals have provided local investors with excellent case studies in business valuation. What is truly instructive is that these acquisitions are polar opposites based on the valuation methods employed and in the future expectations the buyers have for these two businesses. They are the announced purchase of Marsh Supermarkets Inc. for $88 million by Florida-based Sun Capital Partners and the acquisition of Suros Surgical Systems for $240 million by Massachusetts-based Hologic Inc. In the Marsh acquisition,…

TAWN PARENT Commentary: Scattered images from abroad

We landed in the Marble City, nearly blinded by the light and the white and the reflection of it all. I think of Athens as the Marble City because of its many ruins, but also because of all the other marble buildings and the slippery marble sidewalks and, in our apartment, the marble walls and floors and marble countertops that make so much noise when you set your cup down. We felt compelled to bring some marble home with us….

Bloomington’s Cook tightens women’s health focus: New business unit plans summer product rollout

Privately held Cook Inc. has added a seventh business unit in a bid to strengthen its presence in the growing market for gender-specific health care products, a move that could bring jobs to southern Indiana. The Bloomington-based medicaldevice maker will unveil its Women’s Health unit May 8 in Spencer. The unit actually started operating last September, initially taking on a combination of products pulled from the company’s urological unit, also in Spencer. But Women’s Health leader Christina Anné said it…

PROFILE JENNIFER MCKINNEYSEET: Zoo manager sees the ‘bigger picture’Broken sewers, power outages just part of the job

PROFILE JENNIFER MCKINNEYSEET Zoo manager sees the ‘bigger picture’Broken sewers, power outages just part of the job Some people joke that their office is a zoo. When Jennifer McKinney-Seet says that, she isn’t kidding. As special events manager for the Indianapolis Zoo-a position she has held since 1999-McKinney-Seet oversees nearly 40 events a year, including the successful black-tie fund raiser Zoobilation. But it was her first special event at age 5-a neighborhood talent show that she helped organize-that stuck with…

Boutique high schools could bolster work force: Movement targets students who need extra help and otherwise might not pursue higher education

Two school districts have received pivotal funding for “early college high schools” to prepare secondary students for the rigors of college and give them the opportunity to earn college credits before setting foot on campus. The initiative also could be a plus for area employers to the extent it improves the pool of qualified workers locally. Indianapolis Public Schools’ Crispus Attucks Medical Magnet/Early College High School and the Metropolitan School District of Wayne Township’s Early College High School each received…

NOTIONS: A primary primer on the need for simpler government

Do you know the name Kelly Bentley or Derek Redelman? Michael Brown or Michael Rinebold? How ’bout Barbara C o l e m a n – K n i g h t , Barry Campbell, Judie Williams, Karon Williams, Maureen Jayne, Milton Baltimore Jr. or Olgen Williams? Even if you’ve heard these names, do you know these people’s backgrounds, what experience they bring to the table, what they preach and practice? Do you know who, if anyone, supports them financially…

New funds target life sciences: MidPoint concentrates on agricultural technology; Heron aims at broader market

Two new locally based venture capital funds believe Indiana is ripe with opportunity for biotech deals. With $20 million under management, Heron Capital LLC is broadly focused on the whole Hoosier life sciences market. Attempting to raise $30 million, the Mid-Point Food & Ag Fund LP has a narrower concentration: high-technology related to farming and nutrition. “We’re very excited about our prospects,” said Heron Managing Director Greg Maurer. “We have a number of deals in the hopper, some of which…

First-class parking: Airport freebie list includes former politicians, other VIPs

Scott Jones could probably afford to buy the 1,800-space parking garage at Indianapolis International Airport, as one who’s earned millions of dollars in patent income from voice mail technology he invented. But why buy the garage? The Indianapolis multimillionaire shows up on a list of nearly 400 politicians and other VIPs entitled to free parking at the airport, a review of airport records shows. Begun as a courtesy to a handful of elected officials decades ago, the free parking list…

CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: Textbook cases of entrepreneurism

You get an idea; you build a business; you sell it and make a bundle. So it was with the recent deals that took out IBJ’s No. 1 and No. 2 fastest-growing companies from 2005, Performance Assessment Network and Suros Surgical. We can bemoan the loss of headquarters, but let’s face it, these are the kinds of payoffs most entrepreneurs dream of. In just a little over five short years, PAN investors put up $7.5 million in capital and sold…

BEHIND THE NEWS: Former Brightpoint worker gets boost from defender

B r i g h t p o i n t Inc.’s former director of risk management, Timothy Harcharik, doesn’t have a high-powered legal defense team. His federal public defender, James McKinley, is accustomed to representing people accused of drug crimes, not those charged with participating in a multimillion-dollar accounting fraud. But McKinley has done right by Harcharik so far. On April 20, federal Judge Larry McKinney of Indianapolis dismissed the indictment against Harcharik, siding with McKinley in a months-long…