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Hammering away at his own business: After 18 years working for others, contractor strikes out on his own

Built to Last Construction Hammering away at his own business After 18 years working for others, contractor strikes out on his own Bradley Ford is a true, hands-on owner. “I really like working with my hands. I couldn’t stand working behind a desk,” said Ford, 40, who founded Built To Last Construction in 2000. Starting the business was the culmination of a career path he started in 1982 as a 16-year-old student at Perry Meridian High School and the building…

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Working with the numbers: Using math, local actuaries help companies’ bottom line by analyzing risk to reduce expenses

Expanding opportunities Women make up an increasing number of the 18,000 actuaries who work in the field nationwide, but that wasn’t always the case. Kirk recalls a distinct imbalance of men and women in the actuarial field in the late 1970s. “When I first started, I was quite often the only female in professional meetings,” she said. During annual actuary conferences, “the women would kind of clump together because there were so few of us,” but that has changed. At…

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PAN founder focuses on another IT venture: BubbleUp aims to standardize musicians’ Web sites

It didn’t take David Pfenninger long to get back into the game. Just months after selling Carmel-based Internet-test provider Performance Assessment Network Inc. in April for $75 million to St. Louis-based TALX Corp., Pfenninger is betting on another Internet venture: an online music marketing and management startup called BubbleUp. Pfenninger initially remained part of PAN’s local management team after the acquisition, but stepped down this summer, retaining a role as a consultant. “I thought it was time to make a…

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Firm sees opportunity where banks see risk: Oak Street has big hopes for insurance agency loans

Bankers like to see plenty of collateral when they underwrite loans. Insurance agents don’t have many hard assets to show them. Free toasters won’t smooth over this credit dilemma. But the leaders of the Carmel-based Oak Street companies boast they can. And they’re poised to capitalize with a fast-growing specialty lending firm. “The first line of our vision statement says we’ll build a long-term sustainable financial-services firm,” said Oak Street Chairman Steven Alonso. “It’s our strategy to diversify.” Founded in…

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Lilly decides to self-insure for product liability

Eli Lilly and Co. has picked an insurer it knows extremely well to cover future problems in the high-stakes world of product liability litigation–itself. The Indianapolis drugmaker opted for self-insurance after struggling to find coverage in what it terms a “very restrictive insurance market.”

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ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: Strong economy draws out plethora of spending plans

If you ever want to satisfy your curiosity about recessions and business cycles, travel over to the Web site of the National Bureau of Economic Research. It has recorded and documented every downturn and uptick in the U.S. economy since 1857. And over that century and a half, the bureau has noticed certain regularities to the boom and bust of the economy around us. In the first stages of recovery from a recession, for example, it is quite common for…

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FUNNY BUSINESS: Planetary restructuring hits Pluto where it hurts

Poor Pluto. One day it was spinning through the galaxy, meandering around the sun at a stately 248.54 Earth years per lap, rotating in the wrong direction as compared to the other planets, minding its own business, and then-Bam! It got downsized, reclassified as a planetelle or planetina or planette, whatever they’ve decided to call it. Reminds me of some businesses I know. One day everything’s A-OK, to use space parlance. Next thing you know, Pluto is putting all the…

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St. Vincent makes bigger investment in charity care: Need drives construction of Primary Care Center set to open in mid-2007

Here’s a lesson they don’t teach in business school: Take an entity that loses $4 million annually and expand it 50 percent. That’s the plan St. Vincent Indianapolis Hospital unveiled earlier this month when it broke ground on a new, larger Primary Care Center serving indigent, underinsured and uninsured patients. That population of poor, mostly Spanish-speaking patients has more than doubled its annual visits since 2000. St. Vincent officials say the new $4 million center is 10 years overdue. Their…

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25A-32A All in the family: Good relationships key to living and working together

25A-32A All in the family Good relationships key to living and working together The family that plays together stays together, as the old adage goes. But what about the family that works together? Many-if not most-of the estimated 450,000 small businesses in Indiana employ more than one family member, local smallbusiness experts say. In some cases, family involvement might be limited to a spouse who helps out with the books part-time or a child who comes into the office occasionally…

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BEHIND THE NEWS: After CFO’s jump to rival, Emmis opts to fight back

When Emmis Communications Corp. Chief Financial Officer Walter Berger bolted in January for the same post at CBS Radio in New York, the Indianapolis company said little publicly. But it’s now apparent Emmis officials were more than a little peeved. In recent weeks, they’ve filed an arbitration case against Berger in hopes of recouping some of his compensation, and they’ve sued CBS alleging tortuous interference with his contract. “I think this case is very clear-cut,” said David Barrett, vice president…

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Top Conseco executives opt to live in Chicago

Jim Prieur makes a great choice for Conseco Inc. CEO, analysts say. But whether his hiring bodes well for the company’s Carmel headquarters is a different question. Conseco Chairman Glenn Hilliard said last week that Prieur will live in Chicago when he joins the company next month.

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Database to offer new health stats:

WellPoint Inc. is helping to launch Blue Health Intelligence, a resource it bills as the largest private database of health care information. The Indianapolis-based insurer is providing data culled from 14 insurance units-including Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Indiana-to a claims database of 79 million people. That database then will provide “the most detailed view available of health care trends, best practices and comparative costs,” according to a statement from the company. The data collection, which will contain…

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PROFILE FIRST JURY INC.: Practice makes perfect Local trial consultants aim to help lawyers prepare for litigation

PROFILE FIRST JURY INC. Practice makes perfect Local trial consultants aim to help lawyers prepare for litigation Blame the name. Attorneys could be forgiven if they thought hiring Indianapolis-based First Jury Inc. would get them advice on choosing a jury sympathetic to their clients’ cause. But its staff won’t tell them to avoid the woman with her arms crossed or the man who won’t make eye contact. Instead, they’ll assemble a jury of their own and stage a mock trial,…

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Woman sets sights on freedom: Disability isn’t keeping shop owner from goal

Two doors opened for Pam Evans on Aug. 5-one to her own clothing store and the other to her independence. The Cherry Shop represents both to Evans, who lost most of her sight over the course of a weekend in 1998 to a genetic eye disease called angioid streaks. Left with only her peripheral vision, she also lost her career in real estate and corporate sales. After a period of depression, Evans decided she wouldn’t lose it all. “I felt…

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State’s Medicaid goal: better, cheaper care: FSSA says new approach will boost efficiency

Better care through better management. That’s the mantra behind the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration’s push to limit Medicaid’s cost growth to 5 percent annually. The state entity announced this month that it awarded $4.4 billion in contracts to three managed care organizations to provide coverage for pregnant women and children under its Hoosier Healthwise program. Next, Indiana wants to hire care managers to monitor the well-being of every Medicaid recipient in its aged, blind and disabled category. That…

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Strengthened safety net eases strain on insurers: Companies see more manageable contributions under new format to pay ICHIA’s losses

Indiana’s health insurance safety net has pared enrollment and trimmed the industry support it needs by $18 million a year, thanks to reform efforts that started a few years ago. But M-Plan Inc. CEO Alex Slabosky sees an even greater benefit behind the transformation of the Indiana Comprehensive Health Insurance Association: It allowed his company to remain in business. In 2003, M-Plan had to pay $5.9 million to help support ICHIA, a big chunk of change for a company that…

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NOTIONS: A taste of political cynicism served at minimum wage

I eat out a lot. Heck, I eat out more than I eat in. So I’m something of a restaurant whiz. From locals to chains, fast food to fancy fare, I can tell you who serves what, how well and for how much. But until my friend Cheri read a book called “Nickel and Dimed,” in which author Barbara Ehrenreich recounts a first-person social experiment working low-wage jobs, I never asked a waiter or waitress about the going rate for…

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Create-a-job program serving disabled threatened: Federal funding cuts could mean early end for options available through customized employment initiative

Bryan Ballard and Cody Feldman never dreamed they’d end up here, soaking up the sun along Indianapolis’ downtown canal, peddling frozen treats from their very own ice cream cart. They certainly never planned to become business partners when they met as adolescents playing Special Olympics basketball. But it happened anyway, thanks to a federally funded program intended to help significantly disabled individuals find work that fits their interests and skills. What makes the so-called customizedemployment effort unusual is its emphasis…

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Gateway shuts the door on benefits enhancement: Indianapolis company will cease operations Aug. 30; CEO hopes to reopen

Gateway Medical Resource Alliance, a niche health care benefits company, will shut down Aug. 30, more than a month after losing the lone Indianapolis hospital in its network. The company, which has shrunk to six workers, provides employers discounts for certain cardiology, orthopedics and oncology care. In return for fees from the employers, Gateway offers flat, all-inclusive prices for procedures. It also offers prescription and wellness services. CEO Terry Kopp said he still hopes to find another hospital to resuscitate…

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Insurers still dealing with deluge of claims: Good Friday storms among costliest in state history

Property and casualty insurers are taking a financial beating over the spring hailstorm that pounded homes and vehicles in central Indiana. Damage from the Good Friday deluge resulted in a flood of Hoosier insurance claims: 177,000 so far totaling $560 million, making it one of the costliest weather catastrophes in state history, according to the New Jerseybased Insurance Services Office. Overall, Indiana topped the nation in the total amount of insured losses-$658.5 million-during the second quarter, according to the ISO….

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