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Criminal charges possible in Premier blowup: Bankruptcy puts slew of creditors’ lawsuits on hold

Authorities are considering pursuing criminal charges against Christopher P. White and other executives at Premier Properties USA Inc. in connection with deepening troubles at the local development firm, sources familiar with the matter said. Possible charges include check fraud and criminal mischief stemming from a $500,000 bad check White deposited into an account with The National Bank of Indianapolis in January. Accusations also are flying over whether White and Premier paid payroll taxes and properly credited employee 401(k) and health…

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A life of hard work, from the farm to the House: Thompson, who has three business degrees, wants to give boost to economically disadvantaged counties

Nearly 30 years ago, former State Sen. Katie Wolf appeared at a “women in politics” conference in Gary. Afterward, Jill Long Thompson, then 25, marched up and asked for advice. Thompson had her sights set on joining the Valparaiso City Council. Wolf offered her phone number. She soon found Thompson waiting on her doorstep, bursting with questions about how a female Democrat should campaign in a conservative, rural area. “What struck me was her determination to win,” Wolf remembered. “After…

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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: Creating a safety culture can benefit the bottom line

When then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani hired David Gunn to direct the New York City subway system, he knew Gunn would be unorthodox in his approach to fighting crime. While many encouraged Gunn to use traditional lawenforcement tactics, he saw fit to clean up the subway’s crime problem by literally cleaning up the trains. Day after day for six years, the graffiti artists painted their “art” on the sides of the trains, and day after day Gunn had the graffiti cleaned off…

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Docs dip toes into computerized records: Electronic systems are the future, but high costs slow adoption rate

Ask Cathy Molchan the cost of installing the electronic medical record system in a doctor’s office she administers, and she gives a clear, quantified answer: $80,000. Ask her whether the system saves the practice any money, and her answer is less concrete. “It can definitely save money because of the time savings,” said Molchan, practice administrator for Dr. Leo Bonaventura, an infertility specialist at Clarian North Medical Center. “You can actually be focused more on what you need to do,…

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Federal survey of patients puts hospitals to the test: Satisfaction questionnaire ranks criteria ranging from room cleanliness to communication skills of providers

New patient satisfaction scores compiled by the federal government and posted online give consumers more feedback than ever regarding the care hospitals provide. The usefulness of that information is up for debate. On its Hospital Compare Web site, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services tracks technical measures that show how often hospitals provide certain types of care that is recommended for patients treated for various conditions-heart attacks or pneumonia, for instance. Starting late last month, the agency began including…

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One Indiana Square owner sues insurer over storm-damage repairs

The owners of a downtown skyscraper badly damaged in a 2006 storm are suing their insurance company after it halted payments
on a facade-replacement project. The suit, filed April 1, accuses the insurance company of a “bad faith” attempt to avoid
paying for repairs to the 36-story One Indiana Square building at the northeast corner of Pennsylvania and Ohio streets.

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St. V: ERs needed in suburbs: Traditionally unprofitable service could thrive in two growing areas

Building these facilities i n proven “growth markets” such as Boone and Hamilton counties, however, should prove more prosperous, insists St. Vincent CEO Vincent Caponi. A more upscale demographic is the telling factor. Yet, the network of hospitals is not about to abandon its purpose of serving the needy. “That doesn’t mean the poor and underserved aren’t going to be coming to our front door,” Caponi said. “That’s always been part of our mission. We will continue [to], and gladly,…

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Charter schools face long wait for county funding: State, local money based on outdated mechanism

The property tax reform plan recently signed into law by Gov. Mitch Daniels is expected to provide relief-eventually-for most homeowners. Unfortunately, the tax crisis wasn’t fixed fast enough for charter schools. Because property taxes haven’t been calculated yet this year, schools didn’t get funding advances from Marion County, something 15 of the county’s 21 charter schools needed last year. At least one school-Irvington Community Academy-has received help from the Greater Educational Opportunities Foundation in getting an emergency bridge loan of…

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VOICES FROM THE INDUSTRY: New architecture contracts bring interesting changes

Change. While it is a buzz word that some political candidates throw around like candy, the construction industry is bracing for an important and imminent change of their own. The American Institute of Architects has produced standard contract forms for the construction industry for more than 100 years. Regardless of your perspective on such forms, the AIA forms still are the most commonly used standard forms in the industry. The AIA released their updated and revised set of contract forms…

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Charities are feeling pain of gas price spike: Groups scrambling for volunteers, dollars to beef up transportation

With gas prices on the rise-and expected to reach $4 a gallon this summer-local not-for-profits are losing volunteers and throwing money at skyrocketing transportation budgets. Indianapolis Meals on Wheels Inc. Executive Director Barb Morris is used to fielding calls from reporters whenever gas prices fluctuate. In the past, she quashed their theory that high prices at the pump drove away volunteers. Not now, though. “If you’d asked me four or five months ago, I would have said, ‘Absolutely not,'” Morris…

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Free-lancing turns into big-time marketing: Mom-and-pop ExaroMed now growing fat with large drug and device clients from across the country

Most free-lance writers eke out a living. The most fortunate live comfortable lives. But Mindy Mascaro turned her freelance writing business into a thriving company. Carmel-based ExaroMed LLC is now producing sales and marketing content for the like of Roche Diagnostics, Eli Lilly and Co. and Amgen Inc. It has also served smaller life sciences companies such as Indigo BioSciences Inc. and Cheetah Medical Inc. The company has zoomed from six employees to 20 in the last year. It’s already…

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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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STATEHOUSE DISPATCH: Lawmakers left lots of touchy issues for waning days

As we prepared this column at midweek, there still was no certainty about a property tax relief and reform package resulting from the regular session, set to adjourn sine die March 14. While some lawmakers were proclaiming no hope of enacting a package before time expired in the regular session, others were seeing movement toward a plan that was structured largely along the lines of the original package offered by Gov. Mitch Daniels. Democrats altered strategy as the scheduled adjournment…

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Anthem pitching new wellness program to employers: Insurer rolls out 360* Health program in Indiana

* Health program in Indiana To Randy Reichmann, warning workers about unhealthy lifestyles was nothing new. But it took just four words for a new wellness program from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield to grab his attention: free gym membership-citywide. “You can’t just say, that’s bad for you. You have to say what you’re going to do that’s good for you,” said Reichmann, president of the Indianapolis region for Old National Bank. The Evansville-based bank is the first Indiana employer…

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BEHIND THE NEWS: With benefit of hindsight, some sales look savvy

S o m e t i m e s , being a good businessperson means knowing when to get out of the business. That truism comes to mind because of the recent carnage in banking. Shareholders in First Indiana Corp., it turns out, cashed in at the right time, as did investors in privately held Union Federal Bank and its parent, Waterfield Mortgage Corp. Last July, just before the subprime mortgage crisis threw credit markets into disarray, the board of…

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Local dentists cut their teeth on wellness: Larger office extends efforts to address total health

When dentists Harold Smith and Ted Brauer built their new office, they constructed more than a third more space than they needed for patients. With the rest, Smith and Brauer started a health and wellness center that local not-for-profits can use free of charge. So in addition to the whir of drill motors, their Castleton office frequently resonates with sounds of cooking classes, “gymborees” for kids, health screenings and health-related seminars. “Excellence in dentistry is who we are. But we…

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Insurance insecurities: Data-breach policies touted as way to protect businesses from cyber-related losses

Several local entities, ranging from St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital to the state of Indiana to Indianapolis Public Schools, last year experienced wellpublicized electronic security breaches involving confidential data. While the victims of the lapses and those at fault emerged relatively unscathed, such incidents underscore the ease in which personal information can be lost or stolen in today’s computerized world. With roughly 165 million people tapping into to the Internet nationally, the opportunities for security breaches are plentiful. Throw in the…

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City doles out incentives to Defender Direct:

The city plans to designate part of an office park near 96th Street and Keystone Avenue as an “economic revitalization area” to provide tax abatements for a local company that sells ADT security systems and Dish Network subscriptions. The company, Defender Security Co., has pledged to more than triple its Indiana work force-adding more than 1,100 new jobs-over the next 10 years. The state offered the company up to $6 million in tax credits and $345,000 in training grants to…

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Conseco retains manager appeal: Amid ongoing struggles, insurer landing top talent

Ten years ago, Dan Bardin was exactly where he wanted to be. He was running insurance operations for behemoth American International Group in Thailand, as Asian financial markets collapsed. “I was there right in the middle of the crisis. And that’s what I like,” Bardin said. Today, Bardin has found his way to another crisis of sorts. He’s the new president of the Conseco Insurance Group. During the year leading up to Bardin’s arrival in December, the subsidiary of Carmel-based…

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State goes from first to last in catastrophes: Indiana sails through 2007 without a single large weather event, rebounding from hailstorm of claims in 2006

Indiana weather is notorious for the volatile swings it can produce from one day to the next. Just this month, high temperatures in Indianapolis fluctuated about 40 degrees within 48 hours. The disparity in major storm damage that befell the state the past two years is quite unusual, though, even by Hoosier standards. Statewide property losses totaled $1.5 billion in 2006, the most in the nation, due in large part to what’s become known as the Good Friday hailstorm. Last…

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