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Taking a 2-pronged approach: Indiana State Museum pushes for bigger internal and traveling shows

The Indiana State Museum is putting more emphasis on developing its own attractions, while still landing some high-profile visiting exhibits-all in an effort to keep visitors coming through the doors. This balancing act between highlighting its internal collection and hosting popular traveling exhibits can be seen through two current shows. One, “Footprints: Balancing Nature’s Diversity,” is already on display and features hundreds of specimens of taxidermied Indiana wildlife and fossils from the museum’s collection. The other, “Radical Lace & Subversive…

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NASCAR ponders following IRL’s lead with ethanol: Green marketing a major motivator for race series

The Indy Racing League was the first North American race series to use an alternative fuel to power its cars. Now it appears NASCAR might follow suit-news that has the attention of race fans and sponsors alike. “We’re looking at eight or nine different alternative fuels,” said Andrew Giangola, NASCAR director of business communication. “Ethanol is one of the alternatives we’re looking at.” NASCAR has put no timetable on adopting an alternative fuel. Because the league switched from leaded, petroleum-based…

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Talk of corporate greed falls flat with this economist

It is an election year again, and talk of corporate greed, that stalwart in the lexicon of electioneering, once again fills the airwaves. An economics columnist usually wouldn’t write about matters of sin. But attacks on greed always seem to have a policy message attached, and that is a big problem for all of us. Formally, corporations cannot be greedy. Corporations, not being human, cannot feel the weight of sin and so do not exhibit greed any more than they…

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Construction in the Fast Lane: Flush with Major Moves funding, INDOT streamlines its approach

Northern Indiana motorists and Democratic opponents of Gov. Mitch Daniels were screaming bloody murder. Daniels in 2006 convinced the Legislature to lease the vital highway and plum of political patronage-the Indiana Toll Road-to an Australian-Spanish consortium for nearly $4 billion. Some managers at the Indiana Department of Transportation also were screaming-with panic. Despite winning the departmental lottery of all time-an annual budget for new roads would now quadruple from $213 million a year to $874 million by 2015-Daniels wanted 200…

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New utility consumer counselor is no stranger: Former Ameritech lawyer may have to reach out and touch consumer watchdogs

Consumer groups didn’t get a ponytailed zealot to head the Office of Utility Consumer Counselor. No surprise there. Gov. Mitch Daniels has been fond of appointing ex-industry insiders to lead agencies charged with monitoring those same industries. What the OUCC gets in former Ameritech attorney David Stippler is, at the very least, a man who already knows the utility industry in Indiana. The Evansville native has argued before its regulatory agencies for many years. “They don’t have to forge a…

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Legislators tackle range of business-related measures:

Property tax reform took center stage during the just-completed session of the Indiana General Assembly. But lawmakers also grappled with a host of other measures with business implications. A roundup appears below. ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT One of the session’s most divisive issues-whether to penalize companies that hire illegal immigrants-died during the waning hours. Under the legislation, introduced by Sen. Mike Delph, R-Carmel, companies could have had their business licenses suspended, or revoked after three instances. The Senate and House passed…

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A&E: Seeing ‘Tosca’ from the terrace

I try to avoid leading this column with commentary on productions that have come and gone. While I steadfastly believe it’s valuable to keep such productions in the mix, I appreciate that many of you aren’t as interested in what happened as you are in what’s still happening. Still, I think there’s use in talking about some weekend-onlys and onenighters. If I share, for instance, that Indianapolis Opera’s production of “Tosca” (March 14, 16) offered a compelling, entertaining, and often…

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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: New tax break makes Indiana more attractive than ever

Rapid growth in the high-tech fields of biotechnology and life science has made Indiana a shining example of how promoting emerging industries can transform an agricultural and manufacturingbased economy into a national leader in innovation. It has done so by creating an environment in which knowledge-based businesses can thrive. Building on this success, Indiana continues to position itself as a leader in emerging technologies. A new tax law that took effect this year will present another major step toward this…

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INVESTING: Dear Fed boss Bernanke: Read this and take heed

I know you have a good heart. Evidence is beginning to mount, however, that we are sliding down a path we cannot easily climb back up. In the vernacular of my old hood, Ben you are killing us! The world is faced with two problems, massively slowing growth and accelerating inflation. You picked the slowing growth side to attack head on. You and your back-room cronies slashed interest rates from 5.25 percent in August to 3 percent now, with more…

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VIEWPOINT: Inspiring employees: It’s all in their heads

“How can we have greater influence on our employees? We hire good people, we spend lots of money to train them, we tell them specifically what we want, and we motivate them to comply. In spite of all of these efforts, too often we still don’t get the desired response.” As a psychologist, I’m often asked this type of question, and I know the answer is complicated. Sometimes the employee has personal, i.e. psychological, reasons for not performing. But as…

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Knauf plans state’s first ‘gold-certified’ building

in an uncommon move among Indiana manufacturers typically more preoccupied with foreign competition and deteriorating margins,
Knauf Insulation is rebuilding its research and development facility, destroyed in a fire last year, to make it 30 percent
more energy-efficient than a conventional office building of its size.

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Finish Line escapes one crisis, but challenges abound: Indianapolis-based athletic-wear retailer now shifts its attention to reinvigorating sales after prolonged slump

Executives at locally based The Finish Line Inc. felt a weight lifted after escaping a potentially ruinous attempt to acquire Genesco Inc., a company more than twice its size. But there’s no time for rest: They now must focus on a core business that was floundering even before Finish Line bid $1.5 billion in June 2007 for the Tennessee-based parent company of mall chains Hat World, Lids and Journeys. Finish Line this month reported its eighth consecutive quarter with declining…

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Bill to help prosecution of environmental crimes dies: State continues to use fines as feds seek jail time

A bill that would have removed hurdles to state and local prosecution of environmental crimes has perished in committee, leaving the federal government virtually alone as the sole seeker of jail time for the worst offenders. With the demise of Senate Bill 199, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management will continue to resolve most pollution cases through civil penalties rather than bringing criminal charges. Last year, IDEM assessed $5.2 million in civil penalties, down from $7.75 million in 2006 but…

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Airport may pay $8.8 million for hotel: Deal pending; Westin won’t open until at least 2009

The Indianapolis Airport Authority board this month approved spending up to $8.8 million to help fund construction of a hotel connected to the midfield terminal set to debut Oct. 28. But delays in finalizing a deal with developer Mansur Real Estate Services means the $50-million-plus Westin will not be ready for guests until August 2009 at the earliest. The airport board picked Indianapolis-based Mansur to build the hotel nearly a year ago. “We’re still talking about what it’s going to…

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Against odds, AlGalCo pursues ‘Holy Grail’ of power cells

A small West Lafayette technology startup has quietly unveiled a product that might, just might, change the world. At the
TechAdvantage Conference and Expo in Anaheim, Calif., on Feb. 20, Kurt Koehler, CEO, co-founder (and, for the moment, sole
employee) of AlGalCo LLC, showed off a pre-production hydrogen-powered emergency generator.

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INVESTING: New Wall St. ‘product’ far from a sure thing

Financial securities often are called intangibles, since they lack physical attributes and thus are not easily described. That is why investment firms like to package investments into what they call “products.” Products lend themselves to more concise descriptions of what the investor is buying, and therefore a product is easier to sell. Mutual funds are probably the best example of an investment product. Now, products have entered the realm of hedge funds in the form of 130/30 funds. The numbers…

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BEHIND THE NEWS: How a smart businessman invested his way into prison

In 1994, Indianapolis real estate entrepreneur Mark Ristow read some investment advice that changed his life. In the book “Beating the Street,” Peter Lynch, the former star mutual fund manager, described a “can’t lose proposition (almost)” called bank-conversion investing. The game: Buying stock in mutual, depositor-owned banks when they convert into public companies. Depositors get in at the initial-public-offering price, often a discount. So “the next time you pass a mutual savings bank or an S&L that’s still cooperatively owned,”…

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Uphill battle ahead: State poses tough test for new enviro leader

By the time Jesse Kharbanda earned a Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford, the University of Chicago student already knew he wanted to advocate environmental policies in the developing world, someday. Eight years later, some might say Kharbanda has landed in the developing world, all right-Indiana, insofar as it’s considered the backwater of environmental stewardship. One might recall the state’s 49thplace ranking in a 2007 review of “greenest” states by Forbes magazine. Only West Virginia-a national leader in illiteracy-scored worse….

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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Green building should be the norm, not the anomaly

I cringed when I heard the news: Indiana is second to last when it comes to being green. We’re supposed to be America’s heartland. But instead of being known for the life sciences, economic initiatives or even our corn fields, we’re getting recognized for our dirty air and water. Last year, Forbes conducted a study to find the greenest states in the country. Vermont, Oregon and Washington topped the list. At the bottom: Alabama, Indiana and West Virginia. While Indiana…

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