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Applied Engineering Services Inc.: Engineering firm builds clientele slowly

Starting a new company is a tricky business, even if you’ve done everything right. Applied Engineering Services had the funding, the contacts and the skills it needed when it started in 1998. Still, the first year or so was hardly easy. “We didn’t hit the ground running,” recalled Terry DeBoo, one of the principals in the company. “The first year was pretty tough.” Applied Engineering is a consulting engineering firm that focuses much of its business on the central utility…

Convention payoffs won’t be instant: New deals, development unlikely until construction begins

The much-ballyhooed battle about funding for a new stadium and expanded convention center downtown appears to be over, but it will be some time before the victors get the spoils. Although state lawmakers authorized a series of tax increases to pay for the $900 million project, plenty of work remains to realize the promised payoffs-increased convention business, additional development and a shot at hosting the Super Bowl. “I don’t expect to see any of that until construction starts,” said Indianapolis…

STATEHOUSE DISPATCH: With session behind him, Daniels readying for next one

At the beginning of the session, Gov. Mitch Daniels told Hoosiers to fasten their seat belts. We told you to expect the session to follow Mario Andretti’s philosophy: “If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” The session began like a heat at the U.S. Nationals drag races in Clermont-quickly out of the blocks. Things seemed to bog down midway, reminding us of the Brickyard 400. The finish held form, however, with the governor downing the legislative…

Many women have knack for meeting/event planning: Industry requires people who have good organizational and communication skills-traits females are known for

Like many women in the meeting and event-planning industry, Lois A. Vining entered the field by accident. Vining, president and owner of Event Planning Services in Indianapolis, developed an interest in meeting and event planning in 1983 when she was working as an administrative assistant for the Indiana chapter of the Dallas-based American Heart Association. Part of her responsibility was to coordinate three annual board meetings. “I loved the meeting-planning aspect so much that every job after that I wanted…

Stock options lose favor, but still fuel big pay totals:

The numbers boggle the mind and dominate the pay totals. Last year, Eli Lilly and Co. boss Sidney Taurel received stock options that could balloon in value to $18 million over the next decade, even if the company’s shares underperform the stock market’s historical average return. The grant of options to buy 400,000 shares of stock accounted for nearly 80 percent of the $23 million in compensation doled out last year to Lilly’s chairman, CEO and president. Options made up…

Airport goes batty on environmental mitigation: Cost of buying new land for bat habitat is triple estimates, on top of $21.6 million spent since early 1990s

The cost of replacing Indiana bat habitat bulldozed to build an Interstate 70 entrance to the midfield airport terminal has tripled from original estimates. The Indianapolis Airport Authority has spent $1.3 million buying new roosting land for the endangered bat, up from a $475,000 estimate published in the Authority’s justreleased annual report. That’s on top of $21.6 million in other environmental mitigation projects at Indianapolis International Airport involving bats and wetlands since the early 1990s. That amount is roughly equivalent…

Broadband gets power boost in Indiana: Utilities begin offering Internet access through electrical lines in rural areas

Electric utilities serving the state’s rural areas are warming to the prospect of delivering high-speed Internet over household power lines, as several are in various stages of exploring the technology. Offering broadband over power lines to rural areas is becoming a new front in the competition between cable, telephone and, now, electric companies. Power providers in Boone and Monroe counties, and Cincinnati-based Cinergy Corp., are testing the equipment, although Cinergy is not offering the service to Indiana customers yet. More…

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: By changing our clocks, Hoosiers show progress

The state of Indiana ended its isolation as a land of never-changing clocks when the Legislature gave its approval to a bill mandating the practice of daylight-saving time that has been the national standard for almost a quarter century. Next April, the question of what time it is in Indiana, from the point of view of the 98 percent of the domestic economy outside our borders, should finally be put to rest. That makes you either very happy or very…

Twilight fund fades away: Meanwhile, six BioCrossroads-backed VCs are just getting started

Its specialty is developing local life sciences startups. But its partners can’t raise any more money. So the sun is setting on Twilight Venture Partners. Meanwhile, the six venture capital firms BioCrossroads staked with its $73 million Indiana Future Fund have just three local investments to show among them. Venture investments take time, the six IFF recipients argue. And their first duty is to earn the high rate of return the IFF’s organizers demand. That means significant proof of concept…

Ex-Meridian CEO takes top talent to new firm: AHM Graves, Carmen fold into Resource

The sudden departure of Samuel F. Smith II from locally based Meridian Real Estate is proving to have a ripple effect in the local brokerage community. Smith’s new firm, Resource Commercial Real Estate, is up to six principals and 12 full-time brokers weeks after its official launch, and partners hint there may be more to come. Two small firms, Carmel-based AHM Graves Commercial Real Estate Services and Carmen Commercial Real Estate Services, have merged with Resource. The new company is…

Cialis teeing off marketing efforts with PGA Tour: Spending could rival Viagra’s NASCAR, MLB deals

Cialis, Eli Lilly and Co.’s erectile dysfunction drug, is teeing off its second season as a sponsor of the PGA Tour with several major marketing initiatives. The increased spending levels, sports marketers said, rival Viagra’s commitments in NASCAR and Major League Baseball. Lilly officials said a 24-plus-percent market share for the drug just 18 months after its debut proves the marketing strategy is working. Lilly makes the drug in partnership with Bothell, Wash.-based Icos Corp. In addition to serving as…

Shepard for the U.S. Supreme Court GERALD BEPKO Commentary:

Acrimony and the politics of personal destruction in our nation’s capital seem to be at a seasonally adjusted high point, owing in significant part to the divisive issue of federal judicial appointments. Much of this is based on the belief that courts have arrogantly ventured beyond the interpretation of law, envisioned by the founders of our government as the role for the judicial branch. These perceptions make the Senate’s advise-and-consent role in judicial appointments much more fractious. The prospect that…

SPORTS Bill Benner: Stadium proves dreams sometimes come true

In subsequent columns, I also stated that we needed a regional solution to the funding problem, and proposed a regional tax for the counties contiguous to Marion in which they could keep a share of the proceeds for their own capital projects. Finally, within days of last November’s election, I observed that it would require a bipartisan effort led by both Republican Governor Mitch Daniels and Democratic Mayor Bart Peterson to work this thing through the Legislature. I’m glad-overjoyed-everyone took…

Hoosier Park raises prize money:

Hoosier Park, the pari-mutuel horse race track in Anderson, has announced a 10-percent purse increase for its standardbred racing program. The increase took effect April 23. The purse increase, Hoosier Park officials said, is the result of positive business factors as well as conservative purseaccount management at the beginning of this year’s early-season meet. The standardbred season will continue through June 25. “Thanks in large part to full fields and competitive racing, we have had an increase in our simulcast…

INVESTING Keenan Hauke: Changing times mean faster, more efficient markets

I grew up 12 miles from Manhattan. By walking a quartermile up the hill from my house and looking east, I could clearly see the entire skyline. At night, when the World Trade Center was all lit up, it felt close enough to reach with a small jump. Lost in all the gleaming skyscrapers is an institution that is almost as old as our nation. And there are changes going on right now that spell the endgame for that institution…

Rose-Hulman aims for education, not incubation: Michigan-based EDF Ventures takes lead of Indiana Future Fund-backed partnership REI Ventures

The name is unchanged, but under Jack Midgley education comes first at Rose-Hulman Ventures. Business incubation is a distant second. And speculation on high-tech startups is outside the university’s core mission. “The function of Ventures is education, because the function of Rose-Hulman is the education of engineers,” said Midgley, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology’s embattled president. “Ventures is not a separate entity. It’s part of the undergraduate program at Rose-Hulman, like the math department or the mechanical engineering department.” Named president…

Organizers have turned pro: It’s a hot field where most practitioners are women

You know who they are-the “neatniks” who always have everything so well organized. You can practically see a thought bubble hovering over them that says: “A place for everything and everything in its place.” Now they’ve discovered they can capitalize on their natural tendencies by becoming professional organizers. It’s a hot field that’s growing as fast as the paper piles in you-know-who’s office. Membership in the National Association of Professional Organizers has soared from 2,100 in February 2004 to 3,300…

STATEHOUSE DISPATCH: Budget process smoother, but effect uncertain

As legislative veterans well know, there is nothing like a deadline to force action. The April 29 date for final adjournment of the Indiana General Assembly’s 2005 session did just that-helped along by new House rules requiring a proposed budget to be available to lawmakers at least 24 hours before a final vote. After some four months of sorting through philosophical issues, fiscal issues, political issues and sometimes even personal issues, lawmakers finally reached agreement on a biennial budget. At…

Deaf School building independent-living house: Students will practice skills they need to make it solo

Beginning this fall, high school students at the state-run school will get that boost at a new facility intended to help them learn how to make it on their own. The so-called Independent Living House-which may have a catchier name by the time it opens-will be able to accommodate as many as 10 students at a time, giving them a safe environment to practice cooking, cleaning and caring for themselves. “A large number of students need this kind of program,”…

Local company launches technical think tank: Wolf Technical Services seeks broader customer base

A low-profile Indianapolis research firm is emerging from the shadows to raise its profile and grab more business. Wolf Technical Services Inc., which until earlier this year had focused on forensic studies and accident re-creation, enlisted former University of Indianapolis President Ben Lantz last year to launch a new division that is winning contracts that focus on the future rather than re-creating the past. Already, Wolf’s new division to develop problem-solving technology has done work for IndyGo, Riley Hospital for…