The IBJ Podcast: Recent Episodes
Indianapolis Business Journal
Donald Trump is headed for a second term in the White House. The pundits have had ample opportunity to dissect the political implications of his victory. For this week’s podcast, we wanted to explore the potential financial repercussions of a new Trump administration.
There’s no mystery about his fondness toward tariffs—the taxes applied by the government for imported or exported goods as a way to influence foreign trade. Trump has enthusiastically proposed a 10% to 20% tax on most foreign products, and a 60% tariff on goods from China. On the American front, he wants to lower corporate taxes and extend the tax cuts from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that are set to expire soon. His administration is widely expected to loosen corporate regulations and otherwise defang watchdog agencies. He is seen as devoted friend of the financial, defense and crypto sectors. Wall Street was thrilled with his election victory: The stock market almost literally jumped for joy on Nov. 6, posting some of the biggest gains seen in many months.
Trump’s policies will affect street-level consumers and investors in direct and indirect ways—some intentional and perhaps some unintentional. IBJ financial columnist Peter Dunn, aka Pete the Planner, is our guest this week to help us make sense of what could be in store for us, the stock market, the federal debt, the economy and inflation over the next four years. The tariffs in particular could be problematic for some American industries, including the automobile sector, and could have the effect of boosting inflation. Pete also suspects that the pharmaceutical industry could have a tough time, which might affect Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co.
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One way you can gauge the health of a city is the number of cranes on its skyline. One of the biggest contributors of cranes over downtown in the last two years has been the $4.3 billion IU Health hospital campus under construction just south of Methodist Hospital. It’s a generational development for that side of downtown, but IU Health officials want to make sure it doesn’t overshadow the many needs of historic neighborhoods to the north and to the west.
For several years the hospital system has been planning an initiative and nonprofit organization known as Indy Health District. It focuses on five neighborhoods with a total of about 9,000 residents who, due to a number of socioeconomic factors, have a much lower life expectancy than folks who live in other parts of the Indy metropolitan area. The district’s leaders want to find solutions for most, if not all, of the issues weighing on these neighbors, including housing, transportation, land use, safety and food deserts.
It’s an incredibly ambitious undertaking that’s a bit difficult to wrap your brain around. It also prompts a healthy amount of skepticism. So we’ve invited Jamal Smith to lay out the plans for us. He’s executive director of Indy Health District and executive director of government affairs and strategic partnerships for IU Health. And he grew up with some of the impediments to success and good health that the residents of the district face.
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Last week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast featured Chris Gahl, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Visit Indy, unpacking the strategy for promoting Indianapolis to a worldwide audience during Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. As promised, we have a follow-up interview with Gahl this week that is so different from last week’s that we needed to carve out a separate space for it.
Gahl is one of the most recognizable figures among those who promote Indianapolis—and one of the most important voices for the city’s brand of Midwestern hospitality and inclusive values. He’s known for his sunny disposition and easy way for expressing enthusiasm for almost any topic. But his adult life was shaped by childhood tragedy—the murder of his father.
Thomas E. Gahl, a U.S. probation officer for the Southern District of Indiana, was killed in 1986 by a parolee in Fountain Square. It of course was a catastrophic event for Gahl, his mother and his younger brother, Nick. Even today, he’s sorting through the repercussions of the loss of his father.
The tragedy reverberated in a different way in 2018 when Gahl was diagnosed with cancer. A father of two boys himself, Chris couldn’t help but see the potential for his sons to suffer a similar loss. Under the care of a legend in the Indianapolis medical community, he got a clean bill of health last year. And he generously agreed to talk about the lessons from his cancer journey and his father’s death for this week’s edition of the podcast.
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Does anyone need reminding that Indianapolis is less than two weeks away from hosting Taylor Swift and the last U.S. dates for the Eras Tour? There of course are three shows scheduled Nov. 1, 2 and 3 in Lucas Oil Stadium, and more than 50 related events planned across the city to entertain fans over what essentially will be a major holiday downtown.
About 200,000 people are expected to come downtown that weekend to either attend or simply celebrate the concerts. About 195,000 tickets have been sold, and about 80% of the ticket holders will come from outside Indiana. This is an immense marketing opportunity for Visit Indy, the agency in charge of promoting Indianapolis for conventions, entertainment and other tourism. Not only will the eyes of the world be trained on Indianapolis for an entire weekend, giving Visit Indy an unbeatable hook for hyping the city in its best light, but it will have days to make a lasting impression on tens of thousands of people just getting to know the city. The Eras Tour also will bring an untold number of corporate leaders and celebrities to the city, each with the potential to make a measurable impact on Indianapolis.
In this week’s episode of the IBJ Podcast, host Mason King talks strategy with Chris Gahl, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Visit Indy. He explains how Visit Indy plans to leverage this nearly unprecedented opportunity with a campaign that incorporates social media, geofencing, Indianapolis International Airport, hotel managers, an army of volunteers, curated tours for corporate and celebrity VIPs, the Visit Indy suite at Lucas Oil Stadium and even outreach to Lyft and Uber drivers.
Photo by Paolo Villanueva (@itspaolopv) via Flickr
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The LEAP Research and Innovation District under development near Lebanon represents a shift in the way economic development officials are working to attract companies to Indiana and create jobs. Its detractors have objected to the strategy by the Indiana Economic Development Corp. to corner thousands of acres of rural land for the project. Some are highly skeptical about the impact of channeling tens of millions of gallons of water per day to the site for its tenants. You could argue that the thing giving LEAP the most sizzle and credibility right now is its future anchor tenant: Indianapolis-based pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co.
In total, Lilly has committed to investing more than $13 billion in its facilities and activities at the district. It has revealed its plans over four announcements in the last two and a half years, with the most recent coming earlier this month: a $4.5 billion project called the Lilly Medicine Foundry. Where the previous investments were all about manufacturing, this latest announcement is more about research. The so-called foundry will focus on how to make new medicines better and faster, while also increasing capacity for clinical trial medicines. Other potential payoffs for Hoosiers include creating an anticipated 400 full-time jobs for highly skilled workers, who will include engineers, scientists and operations personnel.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, reporter John Russell puts it all in context and explores in greater depth the potential impact of the foundry as Lilly hovers near a milestone that would make it one of the most valuable companies in America.
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Sonja and Alex Overhiser are among the most influential chefs in Indiana, but you won’t find them working in any restaurant. From the kitchen in their home south of Broad Ripple, they have created, tested and posted more than 3,000 recipes to their 14-year-old food-influencer website, acouplecooks.com. It logs millions of pageviews per month, while the Overhisers also maintain a social media following that includes about 107,000 subscribers on Instagram and 96,000 followers on Pinterest.
For the last several years, they also have been working on a glossy cookbook for publisher Chronicle Books that leverages the punny hook in their brand: A Couple Cooks. They’re not just two relatives: Sonja and Alex are married, and the cookbook addresses the joys and challenges of people who work together to make the same dishes. Titled “A Couple Cooks: 100 Recipes to Cook Together,” it also includes step-by-step instructions for sharing the workload for each dish. It will be available online and on bookstore shelves on Oct. 15.
The “cook together” angle helped the Overhisers land their book deal with Chronicle, which has given the $40 final product a hard-cover heft and high-end sheen suitable for a holiday or newlywed gift. As the guests for this week’s IBJ Podcast, the Overhisers pull the curtain back on the process for finding a literary agent and getting a deal with a publisher, as well as the process for marketing a cookbook. They also take us back to the early days of establishing acouplecooks.com. They worked for seven years to develop a fan base and learn the ins-and-outs of internet creator commerce before quitting their day jobs and going all-in on their food-blogger platform.
Readers of IBJ’s annual lists of fastest-growing Indianapolis-area companies might be familiar with GroundBreakers, formerly known as GroundBreakers Hydrovac Excavation. Between 2020 and 2022, its annual revenue grew 154.6% to $13.9 million in that third year. Between 2021 and 2023, its annual revenue grew 143.1% to $18.9 million in that third year, which was good for 10th place on our most recent list. All of that growth came under President Andrea Sloan, who was recruited in 2018 to become the chief executive and to buy the firm. She acquired it in chunks and became the outright owner in 2021.
So who is this genius Andrea Sloan? Is she one of those management ringers that private equity firms hire to take over companies? Nope. Did she have a resume full of experience in the construction and utility services fields? No. Did she at least have an MBA? No. Andrea Sloan’s rise is a testament to many of the less traditional paths to business leadership we’ve discussed over the years on the podcast, as well as some of the less measurable philosophies of career management. Sloan is a veteran of the U.S. Army Reserves, an entrepreneur and a jack of all trades with significant experience in a wide variety of fields. She also is a proponent of the “fake it til you make it” philosophy, enthusiastic networking and always saying “yes” to opportunities.
As our guest on this week’s episode of the IBJ podcast, Sloan discusses growing up on the east side of Indianapolis and attending Scecina Memorial High School. She shares what she learned from the reserves, co-founding a company and taking a side trip into state government. She extols the virtues of taking chances, finding mentors and hiring other veterans. And she recalls what she calls her “Pretty Woman” moment, when the banks that declined to loan Groundbreakers money started seeking out her business.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
The Indiana Fever's 2024 season has been transformational for the team on the court, in the box office and in the revenue column, in particular with the advent of two major difference-makers. One, of course, is all-star rookie Caitlin Clark, and the other is the rapidly advancing technology that the sales and marketing teams use to entertain—and retain—ticket holders from the Fever’s sold-out games in Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
Todd Taylor, president of business operations for Pacers Sports & Entertainment, joins the IBJ Podcast this week to detail how the Pacers and Fever are using artificial intelligence and customer data to make potent connections with fans, as well as how the teams expect to be able to use those elements in the future. They can gather data to build customer profiles about attendees and what they enjoy about the experience; customize the communication they receive and when they receive it; and provide personalized offers. In the future, the teams hope to be able recognize where fans are in the fieldhouse at any given time and interact with them digitally. Taylor also explains how PS&E adjusted to the explosion in demand for tickets, how his staff calibrates ticket pricing for a vastly expanded array of options, and how its content creators are feeding the marketing beast.
At the beginning of the conversation, Taylor takes us back to early 2024 as the sales and marketing teams began preparing for the very likely possibility that the Fever would draft Clark. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion, however, and the department needed to consider other scenarios. Of course, ticket demand eventually skyrocketed, leading to three straight weeks of fielding requests for ticket packages. Staffers must remain flexible as the playoffs progress. For example, they won’t know whether there will even be a first-round game in Indy until Wednesday night.
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Now in its 23rd year, the Orr Fellowship program has helped develop an astounding number of leaders in Indiana’s tech and entrepreneurial ecosystems. It now counts 624 alumni who have worked at—and in some cases founded—nearly 300 significant companies and organizations.
The program was established in 2001 to help develop the early careers of promising college graduates, in part by matching them with high-growth Indiana companies for two-year stays. In addition to employment, the fellowship offers vast networking opportunities, workshops, pitch competitions and stipends to learn new skills. The hope is that Orr Fellows will decide to stay in-state and form the foundation for new generations of leadership. Indeed, 84% of fellows remain in-state immediately after the program. If you take into account all of the alumni over 23 years, about 60% are still Hoosiers.
We can get a robust sense of the big picture by narrowing the focus to an Indianapolis-based startup named Malomo. It was co-founded by serial entrepreneur Yaw Aning, who was a member of Orr Fellowship’s Class of 2007. Malomo’s head of strategy and operations is Alicia Gaba, a member of the Fellowship’s Class of 2008 and who joined Malomo in 2021. Mariah Parsons, who currently is Malomo’s head of marketing, joined the firm as a fellow in 2021 and was promoted to the leadership team soon after the fellowship ended.
All three are guests on this week’s podcast to talk about their experiences as fellows and a concept we call horizontal networking. In this case, it’s how Orr Fellows lean on their peers for mentoring, career support, job opportunities and even capital as they help grow central Indiana’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. We also take a side trip to talk about Indiana brain drain and whether that concern is less relevant in the age of remote work.
On Sept. 18, we will learn whether or not the Federal Reserve will lower its federal funds interest rate for the first time in four years. It could be one of the biggest financial events of the year, leading to lower interest rates for lending and quite possibly a big bump in spending in the U.S. economy. In this episode of the podcast, our concern lies in its effect on the interest rates banks pay consumers for parking their money in savings. That interest rate also would go down.
For the podcast, we’re defining savings as money you want to be able to get your hands on fairly quickly without disrupting your long-term investment strategy. But it’s not necessarily the money you keep in your checking account either. It’s relatively liquid—some people still call it “cash”. But you want to be able to watch it grow—at least a little bit. There are lots of options for savers, such as passbook savings accounts, high-yield-savings accounts, certificates of deposit and money market accounts. And you almost certainly know someone who wants to punt their savings to tangible assets like gold. Each option has advantages and drawbacks, depending on how quickly you want to access your money, how much interest you can get and the amount of exposure to risk. IBJ Podcast host Mason King always has been a money-under-the-mattress kind of guy, but he realizes now that this is tantamount to hiding your head in the sand while the dessert cart rolls by. This week, IBJ columnist Pete the Planner fills us in on the Fed’s impending interest rate decision and the best places to stash your cash.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
We are in the era of peak entertainment. Through our phones, computers and televisions, we have access to nearly every movie, album, TV show, book and video game ever created. You'd think many of us would decide it isn’t necessary to leave our homes. In the Indianapolis area, that apparently is not the case. IBJ just published its 2024-25 arts and entertainment calendar, and the number of music, dance, comedy, literary, film and theatrical events—not to mention art fairs and exhibits— to choose from is astonishing for an area that two generations ago was known as “India-no-place.”
IBJ arts reporter Dave Lindquist has curated a list of 125 artistically significant and culturally relevant offerings that our readers can trust will be worth their time. Looking at this list, we can learn a lot about how the arts and entertainment ecosystem in central Indiana has changed. Right off the bat, you’ll see that the 125 picks represent 60 venues, many of which only recently debuted as suburban communities engage in an arts amenities arms race. Not only is Indianapolis now a regular stop for Broadway performers like Leslie Odom Jr., it’s also a place that’s developing work for Broadway. Movies and musicians just beginning to sniff international recognition come to Indianapolis to help gain momentum. And then there’s the generation-defining cultural phenomenon, Taylor Swift, who has chosen Indianapolis for the climax of the Eras Tour in America. For this week’s IBJ Podcast, Dave has culled 10 events from his list for deeper discussion, and host Mason King adds a few more. And then they start examining the potential impact and import of “Swiftianapolis,” coming in early November.
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Indiana University demographers released projections last week that show the state's population growth cratering until it hits near-zero growth by the 2050s. In fact, more than two-thirds of Indiana’s 92 counties will see losses in population over the next 30 years, according to the estimates from the Indiana Business Research Center at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. This can be explained by a grim but relatively simple phenomenon: The number of deaths in the state will begin surpassing the number of births in the 2040s. At that point, migration from other areas will account for all of Indiana’s population growth. Meager population growth would have serious repercussions for our labor force and economy, putting pressure on officials across the state to make Indiana as appealing a place to live as possible.
The counties with large cities will be the exceptions. The 11-county Indianapolis metro area is expected to add residents at a relatively robust clip over several decades. In fact, the metro area is projected to hit about 2,497,000 residents by 2050—an increase of nearly 405,000 from 2020. And the state’s five fastest-growing counties will be suburban Indianapolis counties. The question now is, “What should public officials on the city, county and state level do with this information?” Matt Kinghorn, the principal researcher on the IBRC study, is our guest this week to break down the numbers, explain what’s behind these expected trends, dig into the challenges facing the state and provide a preview for a tale of two different Indianas.
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You easily could argue that the biggest business newsmaker of the year so far in Indianapolis is the Indiana Fever. It started with drafting Caitlin Clark in April, leading to an explosion of interest in women’s professional basketball with sold-out stadiums and best-ever TV ratings for the spor—and now the news that the Fever will host the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game. Olivia West has had a front row seat for the Fever phenomenon (not that she ever sits down) as one of the in-arena emcees for Fever games—one of the folks who hype up the crowd, host games for fans during breaks in play and feature Fever sponsors. This is her second season in the role after essentially talking the Fever into giving her the job. Pacers Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Fever, then was quick to give her the same role for Indiana Pacers games last season. What’s even more impressive is that her work for the Pacers and Fever is a side gig. Her full-time day job is with Eli Lilly and Co. as a DEI program consultant.
Olivia West is a classic up-and-comer, having cut her teeth as an entrepreneur as a 4-H member in La Porte Indiana before attending Purdue University for agricultural economics and then branching into marketing. She’s a big proponent of finding and leveraging your particular gifts, which for her means excelling in personal communication, networking and refusing to accept “no” as an answer. She is among the young leaders IBJ chose for its “20 In Their Twenties” Class of 2024 last week, and she’s our guest this week on the IBJ Podcast in a happy coincidence, given the news about the WNBA All-Star Game. Her mindset of opportunity meeting persistence is perhaps best captured in her story of how she became an emcee for the Fever. She also shares the many practical lessons she learned showing and selling pigs in La Porte, as well as playing basketball. And she discusses the evolution of the Fever this season and the importance of believing in your own greatness.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
One easily could argue that the most significant real estate development in central Indiana from the last 15 years was the JW Marriott Indianapolis, which opened in February 2011. With more than 1,000 rooms over 34 glass-encased floors, it instantly became the tallest and largest hotel in central Indiana. It also played an outsized role in the city’s strategy to attract more convention and event business. You’ll recall that Lucas Oil Stadium was completed in 2008. The new Indianapolis International Airport terminal debuted in 2008. Also in 2008, the Indiana Convention Center started a major expansion, which was completed in 2011. With the JW Marriott added to the mix, the city could go a long way to realizing its ambitions of hosting a larger variety of meetings and prominent events. It remains the Big Kahuna of downtown hotels while also serving as the city’s largest billboard—a canvas for hundred-foot graphics commemorating special events.
Phil Ray has been general manager of the JW Marriott for the last decade and had leadership roles in other major local hotels going back to 2003. He has a 34-story perspective on how the city’s status as a convention and tourism destination has evolved, as well as the latest efforts to attract more convention business. Ray and IBJ Podcast host Mason King have a wide-ranging discussion this week on topics such as the new taxing district the city is considering for beautification and public safety efforts downtown, and the city-funded construction of an 800-room hotel that would become the JW Marriott’s biggest competitor. They also discuss how the JW Marriott weathered the first year of pandemic and then became a key player in the audacious effort in 2021 to host all of March Madness in the Indianapolis area.
The footprint of the Indiana Pacers on the southeast side of downtown Indianapolis would roughly correspond with a size 6,329 athletic shoe. Gainbridge Fieldhouse actually is owned by the Marion County’s Capital Improvement Board, which owns most of downtown’s major sports and convention facilities. But there’s no doubt that its primary occupants are the Indiana Pacers and Indiana Fever, both owned to a large degree by real estate developer Herb Simon and his family. (FYI: Billionaire businessman Steve Rales has a minority stake in the Pacers.) But in recent years, the Simon family’s real estate holdings near and immediately adjacent to the fieldhouse have grown by leaps and bounds.
We’re beginning to see the outlines of a critical mass of hospitality and entertainment properties controlled by the Simons that could balloon to even greater size if the Simons are involved—as they are widely believed to be—in plans to bring a Major League Soccer team to Indianapolis. It would play in an arena to be built just a couple of blocks east of Gainbridge Fieldhouse, and almost certainly would use a large parcel of land recently purchased by the Simons.
IBJ reporter Mickey Shuey has been on top of these developments for several years and is the man who can help connect the dots. In his latest reporting, he has details on plans from the Simons to create a $300 million luxury hotel and concert venue complex directly across Pennsylvania Street from the fieldhouse. Shuey joins us for this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast to take stock of the Simons’ current and planned investments and how they could form a cohesive entertainment and hospitality ecosystem on downtown’s southeast side.
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The debut of the Speedway eatery Borage in June was one of the hottest local restaurant launches in recent memory, covered by most of the major media outlets in the Indianapolis market—including IBJ. Its co-creators—Josh Kline and Zoe Taylor—had won considerable acclaim as chefs for nationally lauded Milktooth in Fletcher Place. The concept for Borage was unique, combining a restaurant, a bakery and a market in one L-shaped building. And Taylor and Kline wanted to make a point of providing fair compensation for employees, guaranteeing at least $20 an hour.
IBJ’s Dave Lindquist outlined their plans—and the investment from a local real estate developer that made the project possible—in a story that ran on June 7. This edition of the IBJ Podcast follows up on how the business is shaking out after the June 12 grand opening. Zoe Taylor brings us up to date on what she and Kline have learned in the last six weeks about what’s working and what has needed tweaking.
As Taylor readily admits, running the financial side of a restaurant doesn’t come easy to them, so perhaps their biggest challenge has been learning how to budget and make the business sustainable. Borage hasn’t been profitable right out of the gate, and Taylor and Kline realize the timeline for profitability for a small independent restaurant typically stretches many months. For the time being, they're opting not to take salaries.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
The Federal Reserve has indicated interest rate cuts are coming after policy makers spent the past two years using higher rates to try to tamp down inflation. IBJ personal finance columnist Peter Dunn, known to many readers as Pete the Planner, talks in this week's podcast about how reduced rates will stoke the economy as businesses and consumers start spending and investing.
Dunn explains why "people make really dumb decisions" when interest rates fall and consumer confidence rises. And he explains what might be a better option.
Dunn also references his "power percentage" calculation, which he has written about in the past. You can read a column about the power percentage here.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
More than 50,000 Catholics from across the United States are set to arrive in Indianapolis this week for the church’s first national gathering in more than 80 years, marking one of the most significant religious events the city has ever hosted. The National Eucharistic Congress, scheduled for Wednesday through Sunday at the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium, will feature church services, speakers, presentations, religious sacraments, exhibitions, concerts and live podcasts. As mainstream religions continue to lose followers, this event will be laser-focused on one of Christianity’s foundational sacraments—the Eucharist, otherwise known as Holy Communion or the Lord’s Supper. It also will stage one of the most conspicuous outdoor public gatherings in Indianapolis’ recent history, outside of the Speedway: a mile-long procession through downtown that could be attended by as many as 50,000 people.
Our guest this week is Ken Ogorek of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, who discusses the revival and purpose of the Eucharistic Congress after an 83-year absence. We also hit on the ways this event is different from many of the religion conferences and annual meetings that Indianapolis hosts and how local organizers are providing accommodations for participants with a variety of needs. And we delve into how church leaders will evaluate the impact of the congress once the attendees are gone.
Our guest this week is Ben Rose, a longtime creative force in the Indianapolis arts community who recently was named the inaugural artistic director of the fledgling Indianapolis Black Theatre Co. If you want to think about it as a startup, the theater has a long runway thanks to a campaign that raised $1.5 million dollars. Part of Rose’s job as artistic director will be to establish revenue streams that can maintain momentum once that first round of funding runs out
Rose has several outside-the-box ideas for supporting the company while serving the careers of company members both on and off stage. They’re influenced in part by a varied career that took him to Atlanta and Los Angeles for significant periods of time, as well as his professional experience in several artistic modes, including stage acting, writing, videography, filmmaking and photography. And he has learned to see the world through several lenses due to his unusual upbringing as a mixed-race child from Indianapolis who was adopted by a white family at a very early age and grew up in relatively rural Tipton.
In this week’s episode of the podcast, Rose discusses how he forged a career in the arts through what he calls fortunate, back-door opportunities and developed his vision for how Indianapolis Black Theatre Company can sustain itself while helping its members find work in other venues. He also delves into the group’s first official production which has something to say about taking professional risks in places where you might not have felt welcome in the past. It’s a staged reading of a play about a groundbreaking black woman who became the first professional female baseball player as a member of the Indianapolis Clowns in the previously all-male Negro Leagues.
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WWE and the Indiana Sports Corp. announced a first-of-its-kind agreement last week that will bring three of pro wrestling's top events to Lucas Oil Stadium over the next eight years.
The deal means Indianapolis will host "Royal Rumble" on Feb. 1, 2025, and then “WrestleMania" and “SummerSlam” in the years after.
This week on the podcast, we’re giving host Mason King a break and turning the podcast microphone over to IBJ arts reporter Dave Lindquist. His guest is our own Mickey Shuey, who – among other things – covers tourism and the business of sports for IBJ.
He's got the latest on the WWE deal—including the history that led to the impactful agreement.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
Over the last four decades, residents of Hamilton County have amassed a wealth of options for hospital care. The county is already home to 11 acute-care and specialty hospitals with a total of nearly 800 beds—while many Indiana counties have no hospitals, or a single facility with less than 50 beds.
Some consumer advocates say the hospital systems are chasing business in the suburbs, where household income is high and residents have generous health insurance packages, while curtailing or closing hospital services in less prosperous, more rural parts of Indiana. Several of the health systems say they are simply following the market and providing health care where the population is growing the fastest.
The latest entry into the Hamilton County market was announced this month: Community Health Network says it’s planning to open a $335 million campus in Westfield, which would make it Community’s first hospital facility in Hamilton County. As the guest on this week’s edition of the podcast, IBJ health care reporter John Russell is using this opportunity to take stock of the county’s hospital marketplace, what’s behind the boom, and to ask what’s prompting this additional growth.
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Earlier this month, the owner of the Mass Ave sushi eatery Forty Five Degrees celebrated the restaurant’s 16th anniversary. Bill Pritt was told he was crazy in 2008 for trying to create a restaurant at the six-lane intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, College Avenue and St. Clair Street. A smart real estate move during the recession gave him ownership of the retail space on that corner, laying the groundwork for future success.
After a three-year stint as president of the board for the not-for-profit Damien Center, Pritt is rededicating his energy to what he loves most—the hospitality industry. Earlier this year, he purchased a parcel at 555 Delaware St. with a former Regions bank branch that Pritt plans to turn into a casual dining spot called Harrison’s Restaurant. And in May he purchased the building on Mass Ave that houses the Metro Nightclub and Restaurant, as well the business itself. He isn’t planning on changing the longtime institution for gay nightlife as much as he wants to spruce it up and improve operations.
This week on the IBJ Podcast, Pritt discusses his early years in the restaurant business, which including working the drive-thru at a Steak ’n Shake and eventually buying the Blu Martini restaurant and nightclub at the age of 27. He also digs into the origin story of Forty Five Degrees and the real estate acquisition—and yogurt shop—that helped him succeed. And he serves up details from his plans for Harrison’s Restaurant and the Metro.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
Our subject today is a little touchy, but it requires some discussion due to the effect in can have on your financial future and the quality of your relationships with family members. This episode is all about inheritance, including the best and worst ways you can deal with a life-altering influx of money and/or property.
The bottom line is that the inheritance recipient benefits from someone’s death. And that seems distasteful. Nobody wants to look greedy at the expense of a family member’s life. But because it seems distasteful, we don’t talk about inheritance very much. And because we don’t talk about it, some folks don’t handle it very well.
It helps to start with a little context. According to the Federal Reserve, the average inheritance today is about $46,000, although the vast majority goes to wealthy families and more than two thirds of households receive nothing. It’s also smart to keep in mind that your perception of a potential benefactor’s wealth is probably wildly off, so making assumptions about future inheritances is a big mistake when doing financial planning.
IBJ personal finance columnist Pete Dunn, aka Pete the Planner, has seen many recipients mishandle and waste inheritances, especially when they view them apart from their long-term financial strategies. In this week’s episode, Pete also shares his thoughts about how much you would need to inherit in order to immediately retire; why putting a big downpayment on a lake house might not be advisable; and why preventing family squabbles should be a key goal in planning to divide your assets.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
Usually when we’re talking about economic impact in Indianapolis we’re referring to a multimillion-dollar real estate project or a one-off sports or convention event like GenCon or the Super Bowl. But much of the talk in the last few months has been about a living, breathing basketball star from Iowa who in a very short period of time has changed the financial expectations for women’s basketball, not only for the Indiana Fever but the entire WNBA. Of course, that's Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark, who is bringing thousands of new fans downtown for every Fever home game.
Clark has arrived in the WNBA at an opportune moment. The league is in negotiations for a new media rights deal, which could significantly increase revenue. And after this season, the players union and the league can negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement that could significantly raise compensation. You’ll recall the outrage heard across social media last month when fans learned that due to the WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement Clark’s salary this season would be just a smidge over $76,000—about one-hundredth of what top rookies earn in the NBA.
On this week’s episode of the IBJ Podcast, we have two guests to discuss the short-term and long-term effects of Caitlin Clark’s stardom on the Indiana Fever, the WNBA and Indianapolis. (We should acknowledge that for all of the attention Clark received last year for her otherworldy shooting and her pursuit of the NCAA Division I scoring record, the WNBA already was on an upswing, and there are at least a dozen high-profile rookies in the league this year driving fans to games.) Our guests are Ann Bastianelli, teaching professor in marketing at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, and Beth Livingston, an associate professor in industrial relations at the University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business. They dive into all of these issues, as well as whether another poor showing by the Fever this season will take some of the wind out of the sails of the "Caitlin Clark effect."
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Three weeks ago, we released an episode of the IBJ Podcast explaining the sudden, multifaceted and high-pitched battle over building a soccer stadium in downtown Indianapolis. Since then, the drama has taken several turns with fresh revelations about what’s underneath the ground set aside for the stadium complex that developer Keystone Group wants to build and who owns the land the city has identified for another site that Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration has championed. Meanwhile, a proposal for a taxing district that would cover most of the cost for the latter stadium is wending its way to the City-County Council, with a key committee vote coming on May 28. So we thought this would be a great opportunity to bring you up to date.
IBJ’s Mickey Shuey has been on top of the story from the beginning and has a piece in the latest issue of IBJ about what a stadium for Major League Soccer, America’s highest professional league—would look like. But first let me set the stage for folks who are new to this issue. In late April, everything that we had assumed about the future of pro soccer in Indianapolis and the creation of a publicly owned downtown stadium for the Indy Eleven soccer team received a swift kick between the stitches. The owner of the Indy Eleven, who also owns the development firm Keystone Group, accused the city of backing out of negotiations to finalize the stadium deal. Then Mayor Joe Hogsett announced that the city indeed had stopped stadium negotiations, believing the numbers didn’t add up. Indy Eleven and Keystone representatives disagreed. Hogsett also said the city had been working with an undisclosed group of investors who believed they could bring a Major League Soccer franchise to the city. In fact, Hogsett disclosed that he had just met face-to-face with MLS officials in New York and believed the time was right for Indianapolis to take its shot at the top rung of American pro soccer.
Since our last podcast, IBJ broke the story that the Simon family, which owns the Indiana Pacers and Indiana Fever, has purchased a large swath of land where the investor group’s stadium would be located. City-County Council President Vop Osili volunteered to sponsor the proposal for financing the stadium after the councilor for that district refused to do so. On May 28, the same day this podcast debuts, the proposal will be considered by the council’s Rules and Public Policy Committee, which Osili chairs, although a vote to deny the proposal won’t stop it from reaching the City-County Council. And in maybe the biggest revelations yet, both the Hogsett administration and Keystone revealed what they know—or have projected—about the human remains and gravesites that are buried on the 20-acre site Keystone has been trying to develop. The study and reinternment of those excavated remains have become a major issue in this increasingly complex battle over who gets to build and occupy a downtown soccer stadium.
Carolyn Gentle-Genitty grew up in Belize, the eldest of five children whose parents operated a food cart and canteen. She applied to a private all-girls high school and, upon being accepted, worked with her parents to negotiate the terms that would allow them to afford it.
She paid for her associate’s degree through work study, earned a full scholarship to cover the cost of her bachelor’s degree, and paid for her master’s degree through a promissory loan. So she’s no stranger to the barriers that can keep young people from attending college.
Today, she's preparing to lead the creation of Founder’s College at Butler University, a two-year program designed for high school graduates who face significant barriers to higher education. Students at the college will be able to earn associates degrees in subjects such as in business management, data analytics and health care—all while paying virtually nothing for the education.
Gentle-Genitty comes to the position of inaugural dean after a distinguished career at Indiana University. After earning her PhD in social work from IU, she went on to lead the university’s Bachelor of Social Work program on its Indianapolis campus before moving into system-wide leadership roles, including developing online education programs, overseeing academic policy and programs, and improving transfer policies. But Butler also has touted her built-in empathy with the future students of Founder’s College, having faced so many obstacles to her own education and benefitting from the help of administrators who took an interest.
In this week’s episode of the IBJ Podcast, she lays out the mission of the college, how it will attract students for its first cohorts, and the many steps and decisions required to get the classes up and running. She also expands on her youth in Belize and the chain of events that took her far beyond her initial goal of simply finishing high school.
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Our guest this week is Jesse Rice, who took a circuitous route to becoming one of Indianapolis’ most unpredictable arts, entertainment and community entrepreneurs. He grew up in a blue-collar family in a small town, and then went to Purdue University with hopes of going to med school. He flipped his focus to finance and ended up working at Enterprise Rent-A-Car and J.P. Morgan Chase. He and a friend started kicking around ideas for a venue where they could serve their own beer and feature live music. As Rice says, “I think of something I want that needs to happen, and I just somehow make it happen.” So was born Black Circle Brewing Company, just west of the intersection of 46th Street and Keystone Avenue, which opened in 2016. In addition to craft beverages and some family friendly areas, it features a broad spectrum of entertainment, including heavy metal, drag and comedy shows.
In 2019, he opened an eclectic spot a few blocks to the west called Loom, which became the new home of Black Circle’s brewing operation, as well as a co-working space, a bar, a pinball parlor and a coin-operated laundromat. Just last October, he bought a 99-year-old building at 3317 E. 10th St. that once was home to American Legion Post 465. Now in the midst of renovation, Rice envisions that project as an event venue, a recording studio and temporary accommodations for visiting musicians.
Rice readily admits he had no grand plan when he started on this path eight years ago, but there’s something to be said for making it up as you go. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Rice discusses how he developed the first two venues while maintaining his career in corporate America and then in 2019, pursuing an MBA. He also details what he learned in the master’s program and how that changed how he ran Black Circle Brewing Co., the umbrella firm for all of these projects. And he takes a look back at what he’s created over eight years and what he thinks is most valuable.
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Less than two weeks ago, everything that we had assumed about the future of pro soccer in Indianapolis and the creation of a publicly owned downtown stadium for the Indy Eleven soccer team received a swift kick between the stitches. With head-spinning speed on April 25, the owner of the Indy Eleven accused the city of backing out of the stadium deal. Then Mayor Joe Hogsett announced that the city indeed had stopped stadium negotiations, believing the numbers didn’t add up. Indy Eleven representatives disagreed. Hogsett also said the city had been working with an undisclosed group of investors who believed they could bring a Major League Soccer franchise to the city. In fact, Hogsett disclosed that he had just met face-to-face with MLS officials in New York and believed the time was right for Indianapolis to take its shot at the top rung of American professional soccer.
That's a relatively simple synopsis, but this set of events has a bewildering number of layers. The Indy Eleven is owned by the same man who owns the development firm Keystone Group, which planned to make the stadium the centerpiece of a $1.5 billion sports, business and residential campus downtown. In fact, it already has broken ground on the site. State legislators gave Indianapolis the means to harness tax revenue to pay for the majority of the stadium, and now the city has proposed using the same tool for a publicly owned soccer stadium that could be built a couple of blocks east of Gainbridge Fieldhouse. City-county councilors, who would have to approve the taxing district, have been skeptical and non-committal. In the meantime, the Indy Eleven continue to play on the IUPUI campus, having built more than a decade of relationships and goodwill in the city soccer community. Can two pro soccer franchises exist in the same city? And does this anonymous ownership group really have the wherewithal to even cover the entry fee for MLS, which most recently was $500 million?
IBJ reporter Mickey Shuey is uniquely qualified to cover this story, since two of his main beats for IBJ are the business of sports and real estate development. For the IBJ Podcast this week, Shuey and host Mason King lay out a clear timeline of events and help unpack and unravel all of these issues, while looking ahead to what might happen next.
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Our guest this week is Brandi Davis-Handy, who in February was named president of AES Indiana. That’s the electricity utility for Marion County and portions of the greater Indianapolis area, serving more than 500,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers. Davis-Handy was promoted from her position as chief customer officer, and prior to that she spent much of her career at parent firm AES Corp. in communications and public relations roles.
That experience is entirely relevant to a major issue she now faces as president. In November, AES Indiana upgraded several customer-related systems that were at least a quarter of a century old. The complex operation hasn’t gone entirely as planned. At the height of the problems with the rollout, about 10% of the company’s customers were affected by billing issues—for example, being charged the wrong amount for service or not even receiving a bill. The fixes are ongoing despite the efforts of more than 400 people working on the project.
Davis-Handy’s goals as president include improving customer service and communication, as well as the reliability of service. In this episode of the IBJ Podcast, she discusses the problems with the upgrade. She outlines the challenges of trying to grow the business when it’s hemmed in by other electric utilities, as well as the company’s final push to eliminate coal as a source of energy for creating electricity. And she discusses growing up in the Indianapolis area with dreams of becoming the next Oprah Winfrey and pursuing a career in media.
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This is the 300th episode of the IBJ Podcast, which debuted on June 3, 2018. In what has become a tradition for the podcast's anniversaries, host Mason King checks in with Pete Dunn, aka Pete the Planner, to get his latest take on personal finance and some of the knottier issues that arise when managing your money.
In this episode, Pete explores for the first time the relationship between career earnings and the assets you’ve accumulated. It’s a different way to think about what you’ve saved so far, as well as how much more you need to put away before you retire. Along these lines, he also spend a significant amount of time talking about the role that your housing decisions—good and bad—play in retirement readiness. And if you listen closely, you’ll hear a recommendation for a book of financial advice that despite being nearly 100 years old is still valuable today.
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If you’ve lived in central Indiana for more than a few years, you’re probably at least familiar with John Stehr, a lead news anchor for WTHR-TV Channel 13 for 23 years before retiring in 2018. He since has gone from reporting the news to becoming the news. At the age of 65, he is now the mayor of Zionsville, the fast-growing town just northwest of Indianapolis with one of the state’s highest median incomes. He ran on a platform that included reforming the culture and financial transparency of Zionsville government and taking better advantage of economic development opportunities while preserving the essential character of the town.
He jumped into the job in January with a big-picture plan for addressing perhaps the most contentious issue in Zionsville over the last decade: how to develop the land just south of Zionsville’s gingerbread-like downtown business district. In the last decade, there have been at least three proposals for projects of various sizes with various uses for that area. None of them panned out. The typical result is that residents argue the proposals are too dense, would create too much traffic and would undermine downtown’s identity and power as a draw for visitors.
Stehr has proposed a master plan for the South Village area that could bring $250 million in investment over 160 acres, including new homes and apartments, office space and retail development, and road upgrades, while devoting nearly half of the area to greenspace. In this week’s edition of the podcast, Stehr makes his case for South Village and how he can win over opponents in coming weeks. He also discusses progress on several of his other campaign promises, including lowering the temperature of Zionsville politics. It became heated during clashes between former Mayor Emily Styron and the town council over personnel issues, spending decisions and reviewing the town’s finances. Here’s our conversation.
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When Benjamin Hanna assembled the schedule for his first season as artistic director of the Indiana Repertory Theatre, he placed “Little Shop of Horrors” as the closing production for the 2023-24 season. The IRT, founded in 1972, had not previously staged “Little Shop of Horrors”—which debuted in New York in 1982 and was adapted for a 1986 film.
Perhaps more noteworthy is that “Little Shop of Horrors” is a musical. The IRT last staged a traditional Broadway musical in 2013, when Stephen Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music” was part of the schedule.
For this edition of the podcast, IBJ arts reporter Dave Lindquist talks with Benjamin Hanna and “Little Shop of Horrors” cast member Rob Johansen, who preview the production that opens April 17th. Rob has appeared in more than 50 productions at the IRT. This time, he’s the puppeteer controlling Audrey Two, the otherworldly plant that requires human blood to thrive.
For more arts and entertainment news, sign up for Lindquist's "After Hours' newsletter here.
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Chick McGee has been a fixture on Indianapolis radio for 38 years as a cast member of “The Bob & Tom Show,” the morning show which originates from WFBQ-FM and is heard on close to 100 radio stations across the country. That’s 38 consecutive years, even if you count the six months in 1995 when he moved to San Diego to host another show and then resigned due to creative differences, home sickness and the earlier resignation of his co-host. He was quickly invited back to “Bob & Tom,” where his chemistry with the core cast continued to grow.
Anybody who has listened to the show for more than a few weeks knows his central role: He’s the combustible comic foil for host Tom Griswold, who likes to claim the intellectual high ground while Chick wears his heart on his sleeve, including his seven or eight stents from cardiac disease.
On this episode of the IBJ Podcast, Magee and host Mason King dive into the dynamics that drive the show and how his role developed and evolved over 38 years. You might know that co-host Bob Kevoian retired in 2015 and since has suffered serious health issues; Griswold had heart valve replacement surgery in 2021; and comedian Ron Sexton, best known as recurring character Donnie Baker, died last fall. Mortality isn’t necessarily funny, but it's fodder for McGee, who believes it’s important to be real on-air about difficult topics. McGee also runs through his origin story: growing up in an idyllic Ohio town, the rocky family life that shaped him and the mentor who encouraged him to embrace being funny.
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Back in 1990, Mark Hardwick had a courtside seat on the Ball State University bench for one of the most memorable games in March Madness history. Those were heady times for the redshirt freshman from tiny Dunkirk, Indiana, and a few years later he would have his chance to start in an NCAA tournament game for Ball State. But it’s the former squad from 1990 that came within a basket of defeating one of the greatest teams in college basketball history and has since been enshrined in the BSU Athletics Hall of Fame.
But Hardwick’s journey as a distinguished alum continues. In early 2021, he was named CEO of Muncie-based First Merchants Bank after more than two decades as an executive for the institution, including a 19-year run as chief financial officer. Over the course of his tenure at First Merchants, the bank’s assets have increased from $1 billion to $18 billion, and its employee base has grown from 200 to 2,100 in its operations over four states.
Hardwick has lived the vast majority of his life either in Muncie or just outside Muncie, but in April 2023 he moved to Carmel. He’ll be working out of the new Indianapolis regional headquarters for First Merchants, the former headquarters building of Duke Realty Corp. The bank purchased the building for a bargain $18 million after Duke was acquired 2022. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Hardwick and host Mason King of course tip things off by talking college hoops and the basketball lessons Hardwick now uses to preach business principles. He discusses the philosophy behind buying the Duke building in the Keystone at the Crossing area and why Muncie remains the bank’s corporate home base although most of the executives work in Indianapolis. And he dives into his passions for making lists of his goals and for developing leadership skills for himself and bank employees.
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You don’t need to be 50 years old to remember the Carpenters, the brother-sister duo that helped define pop music in the 1970s with gold-gilded melodies, pristine production and a certain yen for heartache. The music is timeless and has ardent fans online and on music streaming channels. It’s also the basis for a new cabaret show that was developed in Indianapolis with a strong connection to Ball State University. It since has been performed on Broadway’s doorstep in New York City. The most recent production was less than two weeks ago at the Laurie Beechman Theatre on 42nd Street.
Titled “The Carpenters Project: An Offering,” the show is the product of two performers who cut their teeth onstage in central Indiana. One of them you very likely have seen: Brent Marty, the director of music and education at Booth Tarkington Civic Theatre in Carmel, who performs all around the Indy area. His partner in the production is Amy Rafa, a performer, producer and arts and not-for-profit administrator based in New York City. The two of them met in Ball State’s Department of Theatre and Dance in the 1990s and have been friends ever since. Their mutual love of the Carpenters led them over several years to develop the show, which is more an exploration and celebration of the music than an impersonation.
By the same token, this episode of the IBJ Podcast is about more than two people putting on a show. It’s also about how young performers in theater have to hustle and sacrifice to build careers, and how they constantly face the question of whether performing exacts too high a price. It’s about opportunities for collaboration, particularly in Indiana’s close-knit theater community. And it’s about preserving the bonds of friendship and helping each other achieve dreams together.
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When serial entrepreneur Christopher Day walks into a room, he should be followed by somebody with a boombox playing “Start Me Up” by the Rolling Stones. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Christopher Day gathers no moss. Over the last 30 years, he has co-founded eight businesses in seven distinct sectors—namely, artificial intelligence, software as a service, hardtech, broadband, entertainment, investment banking and real estate. For the last two years, he has been CEO of Indianapolis-based Elevate Ventures, a seed and early-stage venture capital firm that invests in high-potential, innovation-based companies with a significant presence in Indiana. Last year, Elevate launched Rally, a three-day innovation conference in Indianapolis that brought together hundreds of companies, entrepreneurs, universities and investors from a broad range of industries. It included a pitch competition with $5 million in prizes.
With his decades of experience and different roles in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, Day has a unique vantage point on Indiana’s startup community, its strengths and its weaknesses. He recently served as a panelist at IBJ’s Technology Power Breakfast, and IBJ Podcast host Mason King wanted to follow up with him on several points he made about expanding recruitment of talent, the untapped power of collaboration and transparency, and the five key aspects of a business where entrepreneurs can minimize risk and get buy-in from investors. He also shares some high-level thoughts about Elevate’s plans to relocate from northern Indianapolis to downtown’s Mile Square.
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Change can be hard. Systemic change, or massive change across a large organization with lots of stakeholders, can be particularly tough to manage. About three weeks ago, Latha Ramchand started her new job as incoming chancellor for Indiana University Indianapolis, which will be one of the products when IUPUI splits into two campuses on July 1.
Ramchand will preside over the transition, which is billed by IU as a transformation on the IU Indianapolis side. It wants to establish IU Indianapolis as one of the nation’s premier urban research universities, and to that end it’s planning two new research institutes on campus focusing on biosciences. It wants to double enrollment at its Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering. And Ramchand wants to strengthen the link between students, academic programs and leading Indiana companies, so graduates can build careers in Indiana.
On this week’s edition of the podcast, Ramchand discusses her upbringing and education in Mumbai, India, which predisposed her to the energy of urban institutions. She also discusses her goals as chancellor of IU Indianapolis, the importance of multichannel communication, the issues that can arise when trying to institute big changes and why she’s up to the task.
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Central Indiana isn’t necessarily known as a golf mecca, but it's well represented on the national championship stage by Crooked Stick Golf Club and its singular course designed by the legendary Pete and Alice Dye. It recently announced that it will host the 2028 U.S. Senior Open. It last hosted the Senior Open in 2009, drawing nearly 150,000 attendees to Carmel for three days of practices and four days of tournament play.
In the last 20 years, Crooked Stick has hosted the 2005 Solheim Cup, 2007 USGA Women’s Amateur, 2009 U.S. Senior Open, the 2012 BMW Championship, the 2016 BMW Championship, and the 2020 Western Amateur. This brings us to Tony Pancake, the director of golf at Crooked Stick, who has worked at the club for 21 years. He didn’t compete in any of these events, but in late January he was announced as the recipient of the highest award granted by the PGA of America: Golf Professional of the Year. In the words of the PGA, the award recognizes leadership, strong moral character and a substantial record of service to the association and the game of golf.
Pancake walks a fine line. He’s charged with preserving one of the most significant golf courses in the country while pleasing the club’s exclusive membership. He also needs to be sensitive to contemporary trends in golf while remaining faithful to the purpose of the club when it was founded in 1964: to provide a venue for championship-level golf. For this week’s edition of the podcast, he discusses the mix of talents required to do his job justice—from a strong grasp of accounting to an instinctive ability to read people’s unspoken needs. Golf is a people business, and Pancake explains in detail how the skills needed for success as a golf pro are the same tools needed for success in any business. He also shares a hair-raising story about a last-second trip last year to see his youngest daughter compete in the final of the British Amateur Championship, filled with twists and turns and ultimately made possible by the members of Crooked Stick.
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As you know, we discuss retirement planning fairly regularly on the IBJ Podcast, but in retrospect it’s been a little one-dimensional. We almost always are focused on how to hit a particular number—the amount to have squirreled away that will allow you to maintain your current lifestyle during retirement. There’s a little bit of wiggle room in our definition of lifestyle, but we’re usually talking about creature comforts, travel, entertainment, family obligations and health care.
What we have not addressed is ambition. If you’re a company founder, serial entrepreneur and/or C-suite executive, the ambition that drives you will not vanish the day you decide to give up full-time work and hit the pickleball court. Ambition is part of your mental and genetic makeup, and you need to account for that itch while planning for quote-unquote “retirement.”
IBJ personal finance columnist Pete The Planner, aka Peter Dunn, is obsessed with the topic of ambition, and it’s frequently something host Mason King finds himself wrestling with. So in this week’s edition of the podcast, they’re fleshing out how retirees can harness their ambitions while widening their definition of the term to help others. They also have a wide-ranging discussion about the nature of ambition, people who use ambition in a constructive way—with several local examples cited by Pete—and those who are focused on their own interests.
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This is the week of the NBA All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis, which officially tips off on Thursday and will run through the 73rd NBA All-Star Game on Sunday night. Over the next week, Indianapolis will be the site of star-studded concerts, exhibition games, fan-friendly activities, multimedia programming and major art installations. For this week’s episode of the podcast, we wanted to focus on a philanthropic feat that deserves to be in someone’s record book. The Indianapolis-based not-for-profit Million Meal Movement is bringing together thousands of volunteers in Lucas Oil Stadium on Thursday in an attempt to pack 1 million meals for Indiana-based food pantries in a 24-hour period.
For a not-for-profit with such an aspirational name, Million Meal Movement is a surprisingly compact organization. It has five employees, including co-founder Nancy Hintz, who is a full-time executive for another firm in the food and agriculture space. But since Hintz and her husband, Dan, founded the group in 2007, it has packed nearly 35 million meals for food-insecure people. Nancy Hintz is our guest this week, sharing the story of how she and her husband met at Indiana University, the game plan for packing one million meals in one day, and the group’s strategy for simplifying its operations so its impact can have such a wide footprint.
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The NBA’s All-Star weekend is just about 10 days away, and the calendar is filling up fast with official and unofficial events. There are concerts, forums, theater, comedy and lots of art.
Guest host Lesley Weidenbener talked with IBJ arts and entertainment writer Dave Lindquist to talk about the schedule so far and what central Indiana residents can find to do during All-Star Weekend—even if they don’t have a ticket to the game.
One note: After this podcast was recorded, the NBA said rapper Lil Wayne will be the headliner for a pre-game concert at the NBA Crossover. You can find more information about that show and the entire schedule at IBJ.com/All-Star.
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The concept behind the local not-for-profit group RecycleForce can be stated in a very elegant maxim: “We’re recycling electronics, and recycling lives.” When you get into the nitty-gritty details, RecycleForce is not nearly as refined, but accepting things that are rough around the edges is integral to its mission.
Entrepreneur Gregg Keesling hit on this set of solutions to two persistent problems in the early 2000s: Give people who have just been released from jail or prison a much-needed opportunity for temporary employment by training and hiring them to salvage recyclable materials from electronic waste. The ex-offenders also receive comprehensive services designed to get their lives back on track, including job skills, personal counseling, professional mentoring, literacy training and connections to full-time, permanent jobs.
RecycleForce has employed thousands of formerly incarcerated individuals since 2006 and recycled about 10 million pounds of waste. But there’s so much more to the story. Keesling grew up about an hour outside of Indianapolis, and one of the major themes of his life has been transformation. Beginning at 16, he played a minor role in the drug trade, procuring marijuana with his friends and regularly driving his family’s station wagon to Florida to pick up pounds of pot to transport back to Indiana for people who would pay a delivery fee. He moved to Jamaica for its easy access to pot, but he ended up becoming a straight-laced businessman who developed a vacation resort and joined the Rotary Club.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Keesling discusses how RecycleForce’s new headquarters in Indianapolis will help it do more with the recyclable materials and the people it trains. But he also talks at length about his own story and how he has learned the importance of giving people a chance to change and succeed.
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At least as far back as the 2012 Super Bowl, Indianapolis has built a reputation not just for its excellence in stitching together all of the elements of large sports events but also for finding ways to weave the work of local artists and craftspeople into the fabric of the event. For the NBA All-Star Weekend set for Feb. 15-18, local organizers hit on a way to put a distinctly Hoosier spin on the areas downtown that will host the most visitors, playing off of the concept of Hoosier Hysteria.
Here’s the idea: Create 24 giant fiberglass basketballs that would act as blank canvases for 24 artists. On the balls, they would paint scenes relating to the people, places and specific game we most associate with Hoosier Hysteria. Obviously, the Milan Miracle is on the list—the 1954 state championship that inspired the movie “Hoosiers”. And there’s a ball dedicated to the legendary 1955 champions from Crispus Attucks High School—the first all-black squad to win an open state championship in the nation. You’ll also see balls referencing the annual Indiana-Kentucky game, the effect of Title IX on high school basketball and the never-ending debate over class basketball.
The project is called Hoosier Historia. For this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, host Mason King went to the warehouse where artists are working on their pieces before they’re deployed in the Mile Square. He interview to several of the artists, who in some cases were chosen for their close personal connections to the schools they’re depicting. And organizer Julia Muney Moore of the Arts Council of Indianapolis discusses the challenges of mounting a large-scale public art project in February that will only be display for a handful of days before dispersing across the state.
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For people outside of Indianapolis, the focus of NBA All-Star Weekend next month will be an offense-only exhibition game between the league’s biggest stars. But the expansive festivities surrounding the game in Indianapolis will essentially be a celebration of Black excellence. The league has come to embrace the way its players have pushed the sport into the realms of Black culture, including music, fashion, cuisine, acting and art. A cavalcade of Black celebrities will be on hand as Indianapolis becomes a cultural magnet.
One of the many events timed to coincide with all-star festivities is the debut run of a play about the 1955 Crispus Attucks High School basketball team, led by Oscar Robertson, that became the nation’s first all-Black squad to win an open state tournament. Titled “A Touch of Glory,” the play will be performed at the high school, just north of downtown’s core. For the podcast this week, IBJ arts and entertainment writer Dave Lindquist hosts a conversation with playwright Laura Town and director Deborah Asante. They discuss the production and the achievements of Robertson and his teammates, who excelled despite having no home court—and some being displaced from their actual homes. Here’s their conversation.
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Stocks went up about 25% in 2023, a welcome correction from a lousy 2022. Don’t say we didn’t give you a heads-up: On the IBJ Podcast a year ago, Peter Dunn, aka Pete the Planner, predicted a “bonkers” year for stocks with equities rising 30%. He wasn’t quite as close on some of his other prediction—especially for the housing market—but, you know, nobody ever gets it totally right.
Given Pete’s qualified success last year, we thought it’d be worth revisiting those predictions about stock, interest rates, housing and the overall economy for this week's edition of the IBJ Podcast, and then present a fresh forecast for 2024. As David Letterman used to say, “Please, no wagering.” But, as you’ll hear, Pete has some compelling reasons to be bullish on 2024—as long as the political climate in America remains at its usual low boil.
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Indiana lawmakers will return to the Statehouse for their 2024 session on Jan. 8 with plans to talk about water rights, literacy and apprenticeships for students. But House and Senate leaders have said they don't expect to tackle any especially polarizing issues this year.
With IBJ Podcast host Mason King off this week, Managing Editor Greg Weaver talks with two Statehouse reporters—IBJ's Peter Blanchard and State Affairs' Kaitlin Lange—about what to expect at the Legislature in the coming weeks.
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Welcome back to the podcast everybody. Noblesville-based Clancy’s Hospitality has been creating and running restaurants in central Indiana—and much of the Midwest—for nearly 60 years. The names are instantly recognizable for folks who have lived in these parts for a while, including Clancy’s Hamburgers, Grindstone Charley’s, Michaelangelo’s Italian Bistro, Red Rock Roadhouse and, most recently, The Fountain Room at Bottleworks District. But you almost certainly don’t know the name Fogelsong. Carl Fogelsong co-founded Clancy’s in 1965, and incredibly it has stayed in the same family for 58 years. It’s now on its third generation of leadership, with Carl’s grandson Blake spearheading a recent surge of restaurant openings alongside his father, Perry Fogelsong.
The story of Clancy’s Hospitality in many ways is the story of the central Indiana restaurant industry. Clancy’s Hamburgers beat McDonald’s to the punch in many areas in the 1960s, but it eventually was overpowered by burger chains. Grindstone Charley’s was on the front end of the casual American trend in the early 1980s, but the rise of national competitors put it at a disadvantage. But Clancy’s Hospitality is nothing if not scrappy, and it has continued to adjust to new trends while leveraging savvy real estate decisions. It has a successful entry for the food hall trend—actually a version of its original concept—while also embracing high end dining with The Fountain Room.
For this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Perry and Blake join host Mason King for a freewheeling conversation about the evolution of Clancy’s Hospitality over 58 years. The family-owned firm currently counts eight restaurants: Two Clancy’s Hamburgers, two Grindstone Charley’s, one Michaelangelo’s, The Fountain Room and two next-generation versions of Grindstone Charley’s—Grindstone Public House in Noblesville and Grindstone on the Monon in Westfield.
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His last name literally is up in lights on downtown’s biggest stadium, although he probably could wander through a crowd of 60,000 Indianapolis Colts fans in near-complete anonymity. Morgan Lucas is the president of Lucas Oil Products, and quite literally grew up with the company. His parents, Forrest and Charlotte Lucas, founded the firm in 1989, when Morgan was about 7 years old. His youth and tween years were spent in part making deliveries to early customers and playing with Hot Wheels at trade shows under the table bunting at the Lucas Oil booth.
Then he discovered drag racing, and the die was cast. From 2004 to 2016, he won about two dozen titles and started his own racing team. That experience under the hood of his business gave him a decent footing as he transitioned to the family company and tried to learn all facets of developing, testing and selling engine and gear oils for cars, trucks, marine crafts, motorsports vehicles and industrial machines. It’s a tough company to get your arms around, as it sells more than 300 products in 48 countries and maintains several subsidiaries loosely related to sports, farming, transportation and metal fabrication.
Morgan was named president in 2020 and effectively now serves as the company’s CEO. And in an unusual mirroring of the firm’s founders, Morgan is married to the company’s chief administrative officer, Katie Lucas. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Lucas recounts what it was like growing up with hard-charging entrepreneurs as parents, how he and his wife have geared their relationship at home and at work, the value of being the naming rights sponsor for Lucas Oil Stadium, and the recent decision to relocate the company’s headquarters from California to Indianapolis.
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Joey Chestnut is the king of competitive eating. You almost certainly have seen video clips of him gulping down dozens of hot dogs, boiled eggs, tacos, wings, burritos, Twinkies and/or spears of deep-fried asparagus. He in fact has more than 50 gastronomic world records, including a vaunted 76 Nathan’s Famous hot dogs, with buns, eaten in 10 minutes. He’s the first to admit that competitive eating is a little weird, but he has a natural affinity for it, and it allows him to make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. He confirms in his IBJ Podcast interview recent reports that he earned close to $500,000 in 2022.
A few things brought him to the IBJ Podcast studio in late November. He recently moved to Westfield, which now is his home base for spending about 140 days a year on the road. He chats about the reasons in his conversation with podcast host Mason King. Chestnut also was preparing for the 10th Annual St. Elmo Shrimp Cocktail Eating Championship, which this year was staged on Dec. 2 as part of the festivities for the Big Ten Football Championship. He explains how he prepares to down somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 pounds of shrimp, plus St. Elmo’s extra-potent cocktail sauce. (He recently hit 40, and it’s not as easy as it used to be.) But the lion’s share of the conversation concerns how he built a career in competitive eating and assembled all of the revenue streams he leverages to make a good living.
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We’re entering the holiday season, of course, and that critical six-week period in which we are encouraged to indulge in conspicuous consumption. IBJ Podcast host Mason King has it circled on his calendar, since his goal this year is to keep from exceeding his modest budget. His plan for this week’s edition of the podcast was to ask regular contributor Pete Dunn—aka Pete the Planner—how best to avoid going into the red this year. But as usual, Pete had the bigger picture in mind.
Pete’s plan is to discuss the five things everyone should know about their financial life. Knowing those should help give you the grounding and confidence you need to guide your shorter-term budgeting decisions. And Pete and King still managed to talk a bit about how to deal with the unwelcome revelation that you and your family are spending more money than you’re making. Spoiler alert: This revelation came about after King and his wife did a line-by-line examination of their credit card and debit card purchases.
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Over its first 10 years, The Garrett Co. has been one of the fastest-growing—if not THE fastest-growing—company in the Indianapolis area. Not coincidentally, it also has become one of the largest companies in the state of Indiana. To put it as simply as possible: The Garrett Cos. develops high-end apartment complexes. To flesh it out a bit: The Garrett Cos. has been built to include nearly every element of the apartment development process under one roof—including site selection, design, material sourcing, construction, landscape architecture and even a restaurant company with its own brands of brewhouse and coffee shop for mixed-use projects.
The Garrett Cos is based in Greenwood, where founder Eric Garrett launched the company from a barn in his backyard. He grew up in Evansville, and one of the seminal moments of his childhood was moving with his mom into their very first apartment. He found his niche in real estate, first on the finance side and then picking up experience as part of a development firm.
In this week’s episode of the IBJ Podcast, Garrett discusses the origins of the company; a business model that you could shorthand as “a rising tide lifts all ships”; the firm’s recent growth to nearly 300 employees despite a very deliberative hiring process; and how his role as CEO has evolved as the firm has sped through several ages of the corporate growth process.
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You certainly hear a lot of people these days talk about changing careers, especially to start their own business—maybe a restaurant, coffee shop or microbrewery. Juliet Schmalz hears from a lot of people who are impressed that she actually did it. In her mid 40s, she left her career as a medical doctor—an anesthesiologist—to start a company that produces high-end whiskey.
That company, called Fortune’s Fool Whiskey—a nod to a line in a Shakespearean tragedy—debuted its first product a few weeks ago in Indiana stores, bars and restaurants. It's called The Prelude. It’s a 109-proof straight rye whiskey that has been aged nearly three years, which, yes, means that Schmalz has had to wait nearly six years to see any revenue from a company she started in early 2018. In the meantime, there is another rye whiskey, a bourbon whiskey and a wheated bourbon whiskey sitting in barrels on the four-year plan.
An Indianapolis native, Schmalz is our guest on this week’s edition of the podcast. Host Mason King asks what possessed her to leave a lucrative and respected profession to make spirits for a living. They also discuss how she brought herself up to speed in a fickle industry, determined how she would position her product, and funded what by necessity is a long-term startup process.
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Legendary local newscaster Debby Knox has been on the air in Indianapolis, with the exception of a short break, since 1980 when she joined WISH-TV Channel 8. She worked as a reporter and anchor for 33 years until retiring in late 2013. It didn’t stick. She soon was recruited to help launch the newscasts for CBS4, which had taken over the city’s CBS network affiliation from WISH-TV. She was paired with veteran news anchor Bob Donaldson and meteorologist Chris Wright starting in January 2015.
Earlier this month, she announced that her second stint in TV news would come to an end with her second shot at retirement, set for Nov. 30. The Michigan native will be 70 years old in February and has a long list of places around the globe she wants to visit when she isn’t spending time with her granddaughter, now 18 months old. Still, she’s concerned about being able to shake what she calls an "addiction" to breaking news.
On this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Knox shares a wide-angle view of her career, including the most difficult and most rewarding days on the job. She shares heart-stopping stories from her interviews with world leaders such as Mikhail Gorbachev and Desmond Tutu. She also discusses how TV news has changed over four decades—and its current value in relation to today’s multitude of news sources.
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It might not be surprising that the History Channel is planning to air an eight-hour docu-series on the life of President John F. Kennedy next month to mark the 60th anniversary of his assassination. You might be very surprised to learn that the filmmaker who researched, shot, wrote, edited and scored much of the documentary is 23 years old, having been born a year before 9/11.
Ashton Gleckman grew up in Carmel and attended local schools, although his ambition to work in the film industry was so great that he left Carmel High School after his sophomore year to work for a collective of film and TV composers. He decided to become a documentarian after a short stint working in Los Angeles, and by the age of 19 had created the award-winning documentary “We Shall Not Die Now” about survivors of the Holocaust.
In this week’s edition of the podcast, Gleckman discusses what he found so resonant about Kennedy that he embarked on the three-year project by doing his own fundraising and without any guarantee that the finished product would win national distribution. (Along the way, he picked up a producing partner in the Academy Award-winning firm Radical Media.) Gleckman also lays out milestones in his lightning-fast and unusual rise as a filmmaker, as well as the reasons he thought the world—and in particular post-Kennedy generations--needed a deep dive into the life and legacy of the 35th president.
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IBJ columnist Peter Dunn—aka Pete the Planner—joins the podcast this week to talk about the ways in which people relate to money. He describes four money personalities—or "scripts," as they are called by Brad Klontz, a Boulder, Colorado-based psychologist and certified financial planner who first wrote about them.
They scripts are money vigilance, money worship, money status and money avoidance.
Pete uses a series of questions to help listeners identify the script that best matches their relationship with money and then explains the pros and cons of each. Plus, he talks about the importance of understanding not just your own relationship to money but that of your partner's as well.
Shawn Fain seemingly came from nowhere to win the United Auto Workers presidential election in March by a razor-thin margin. He ran on a reform platform promising to toss out the status quo and stand up to the Big Three automakers: GM, Ford, and Stellantis. He took a hard line in contract negotiations, and when the automakers didn’t meet the union’s aggressive demands by the Sept. 15 deadline, the UAW took the unusual tack of striking against all three companies at the same time.
It’s still in the midst of what’s called a standup strike, meaning that it adds more and more of its 145,000 members to picket lines as negotiations continue. The UAW has 13,000 members in Indiana, but no workers in those Indiana plants had been asked to strike as of Oct. 6.
But Fain knows all about the auto industry’s history in Indiana. He grew up in Kokomo, the grandson of two UAW members at General Motors. Another grandparent started at Chrysler in 1937, the year the workers joined the union after a sit-down strike. Fain himself worked as an electrician in a Chrysler foundry in Kokomo and was active in the union for decades. Of course, Chrysler now goes by the name Stellantis, its new parent company, and it employs about 7,000 people in Kokomo and nearby Tipton.
Now 54, Fain is leading a high-stakes battle against the U.S. auto industry, which is remarkable given that he has been such a relatively low-profile player in the union until recently. IBJ reporter John Russell went back to Fain’s old stomping grounds and tried to get a sense of how he was shaped by his decades in Kokomo. It’s worth noting that Fain still carries in his pocket one of his grandfather’s Chrysler pay stubs from 1940. In this week’s episode of the IBJ Podcast, John tells us what he’s learned.
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You could say Scott Moorehead, the 45-year-old owner and CEO of Fishers-based Round Room, is in the connections business. Round Room is the holding company for TCC, which is one of the largest Verizon retailers in the United States, and Wireless Zone, one of the nation’s largest wireless retail franchise systems in the U.S and also a Verizon authorized dealer. Together they count about 1,260 stores in 43 states. Another one of Moorehead’s main preoccupations is finding ways for workers to feel connected to their employers, beyond the need for a paycheck. To that end, Round Room has given its employees the ability to grant millions of dollars per year to not-for-profit groups of their choice. And another firm under the Round Room umbrella provides consulting services for employers who want to strengthen their company cultures by finding the “soul” of their enterprises.
Here's another move out of left field that makes a certain sense to Moorehead via his expertise in the retail industry. He and his wife, Julie, sniffed out cannabis as a simpatico business opportunity and dove in after Michigan legalized it for adult recreational use. Founded in 2020, Stash Ventures is a vertically integrated provider with indoor growing operations, a processing facility and several retail dispensaries. Moorehead also has been lobbying Indiana legislators to take the leap and legalize marijuana use, seeing big growth opportunities in the sector.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Moorehead lays out his journey as an entrepreneur, first buying out his parents in their family-owned company and guiding it through a decade of staggering growth in the wireless industry. He also details how he uses philanthropy to help define Round Room, as well as his hopes for expanding Stash Ventures.
A sudden leap forward in the evolution of artificial intelligence has brought the technology’s benefits and risks into much sharper relief and into everyday conversations. Businesses hear warnings that they need to take advantage of AI or else drift into irrelevancy. But when cheerleaders say AI can make businesses more productive, what does that look like exactly? As with the advent of any major technological evolution, will workers lose their jobs? You’ve probably already heard about professions that are vulnerable, such as tax preparers, law clerks, industrial designers, computer programmers, content creators, market research analysts, financial analysts, graphic designers, and customer service agents. Another question: Since data is the fuel of the AI revolution, how can companies keep theirs safe? How can companies avoid unintentionally stealing existing content fed into AI engines? And how can AI avoid adopting the biases lodged in previous data?
In the latest edition of the IBJ Podcast, host Mason King poses all of these questions to the founders of an Indianapolis-based startup dedicated to helping business clients integrate AI into their operations. Named Stellar, the firm has been up and running for less than a year, but its executives have decades of experience working with AI applications and developing AI products. Brett Flinchum, Stellar’s CEO, and Zach Linder, the chief operating officer, share their account from the frontlines of a revolution as they try to help companies take advantage of the benefits while avoiding the pitfalls.
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Founded in 1997, Indianapolis-based Cunningham Restaurant Group now counts 17 distinctive dining concepts spread over a total of about 40 establishments in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. A sampling: Mesh, Rize, Provision, Bru Burger Bar, Modita, Union 50, Nesso, Stonecreek Dining Company and the nationally rated Vida and Livery. And the stovetop at CRG’s development kitchen in downtown Indianapolis is full: The company is opening several new concepts in the next year, and founder and CEO Mike Cunningham estimates that the group could have as many as 60 locations within three years.
The highest-profile additions to the CRG roster will be located on Bicentennial Unity Plaza next to Gainbridge Fieldhouse. Indiana Pacers owner Herb Simon is building a 30,000-square-foot dining and entertainment complex called Commission Row, and CRG has been hired to develop and manage its three main components: a 220-seat upscale restaurant called Commission Row, a 110-seat speakeasy-style watering hole called Mel’s at Commission Row, and a 260-seat event space called Above at Commission Row. CRG also is working on an indoor/outdoor casual dining spot called Shindig in the North Mass corridor and a family-friendly joint in Plainfield called Theo’s Italian.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Mike Cunningham discusses in detail his plans for the new eateries, as well as adjustments he’s making to existing properties in central Indiana. He also dives deep into his philosophy for growing the restaurant group and why such a significant chunk of it has taken shape in downtown Indianapolis.
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Chad Peterman and his younger brother Tyler grew up with their dad’s business, Peterman Heating Cooling & Plumbing. Pete Peterman received at least one offer for the Greenwood-based business, but he kept it in the family and handed over day-to-day operations to his boys in 2015. He couldn’t have imagined how much and how fast the company would grow under the new generation, which had a strategy that required a fundamental change in the business. From 2016 to 2018, Peterman’s annual revenue grew 101% to $15.7 million. From 2018 to 2022, its revenue grew 560% to $88.2 million. Since 2018, its employee base has grown at roughly the same clip, from a little over 100 people to nearly 700. That’s pretty good for a company in an established industry that has been a staple of American life for at least a century.
Chad Peterman didn’t initially think he’d go into the home-services industry, but he since has become CEO and co-owner. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, he explains the strategy shift that led to more lucrative work and an expansion from central Indiana to most of the state. And one of the key factors in the firm’s continued growth has been its out-the-box solution—or you could call it and in-house solution—to training and retaining employees. Peterman essentially can supply itself with as many rookie technicians as it needs as it expands beyond Indiana’s borders and expects to break the eight-digit barrier for revenue.
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Darrian and Devyn Mikell grew up in central Indiana, played sports, went to college, tried a few things to get their careers started and ultimately launched a tech firm together. They have some juicy stories from their early days of griding that would resonate with other tech founders: starting with the wrong sales strategy, struggling for months without revenue and slowly building a base of investors. There are a few things that are relatively unique: First, they’re brothers, and we all know that it’s often not easy for family members to work together. Second, they recently reached an important milestone with a $4.5 million fundraising round. Third, they are among the few company founders in any industry sector who are Black. Businesses majority-owned by Black or African American people accounted for only 3% of all U.S. firms that were classifiable by the race and ethnicity of their owners in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center. And the Mikells have made hiring people from underrepresented populations a priority at their company, called Qualifi.
The issues of diversity and inclusion dovetail into the mission of Qualifi, which sells software that helps employers automate the hiring process and avoid biases that could slip into the interview process.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, the Mikells join host Mason King for an in-depth interview about how they work together as brothers; the inspiration they’ve received from their family (including an older brother with a Pro Bowl career in the NFL); how they handle the rollercoaster of startup life; obstacles that Black entrepreneurs face; and the importance to them of diversity as they grow the company.
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The process for designing and upgrading interstates in Indiana hasn’t exactly been a two-way street. Typically, the Indiana Department of Transportation draws up plans for its projects and then the public has an opportunity to provide feedback. You’ll recall the uproar in 2017 when INDOT presented its plans for reconstructing the North Split, where I-70 and I-65 meet in the northeast corner of downtown. Nearby residents were vehemently against some elements of the project and proposed a fundamentally different alternative. INDOT was able to accommodate the Rethink 65/70 Coalition’s concerns on some aspects of the project, but it proceeded largely as originally proposed.
As the state now begins to plan for future upgrades to other portions of I-65 and I-70 that run through Indianapolis, it’s conducting a long-term study to get public input on the front end of the process. Piloted in part with the infrastructure firm HNTB, the ProPel Indy study is collecting public input in a wide variety of venues to identify ideas for improvements that would impact quality of life, economic growth, mobility, and safety.
In this week’s episode of the IBJ Podcast, we’re joined by Tim Miller, senior project manager for HNTB and the project manager for the ProPel Indy study, as well as Natalie Garrett, communications director for INDOT. In addition to discussing the process so far, they share some of the ideas they’ve already received, related to signage, the location of interchanges, pedestrian right of way and the way these corridors represent—or fail to represent—the city as a whole.
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For 25 years, Sam Schmidt has been a beloved figure in the IndyCar Series, first as a driver, then as a team owner and a champion of innovation, persistence and the human spirit. During a practice session in Florida in 2000, he lost control of his car and smashed into a concrete barrier at around 180 miles per hour. Doctors saved his life, but he has been paralyzed from the shoulders down ever since. Within about a year, he had started a racing team, as well as a not-for-profit group dedicated to raising funds for medical research, developing innovative equipment for rehabilitation and helping people with severe mobility issues navigate their lives again.
Schmidt announced this month that the group, now called Conquer Paralysis Now, would be moving its headquarters from Las Vegas to the former home of Five Seasons Family Sports Club on 96th Street, right on the border between Indianapolis and Carmel. The facility also will house CPN’s second Driven NeuroRecovery Center, offering fitness programs, adaptive sports, aquatics, physical and occupational therapy and mental health services. CPN expects to invest $22 million in the whole project, including the nearly $8 million that it already has paid to purchase the property.
In this week’s edition of the podcast, Schmidt shares his story of recovery from a near fatal injury and how he uses it to help inspire others with mobility issues. He explains why he wanted to move his not-for-profit to the Indy area, as well as his vision for how the Driven Center will work with many of the big players in central Indiana’s medical community. And he discusses his plans to create Driven Centers across the country—as many as 25 within five years.
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When people say Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour could have a seismic impact on Indianapolis during its three-show gig next year, that’s not just a figure of speech. When Swift performed in July at Seattle’s Lumen Field, the show generated seismic activity similar to that of a magnitude 2.3 earthquake, thanks to a combination of the sound system and the dancing and cheering of fans.
When the Indy shows take place in November 2024, Swift’s local fan base will have waited more than a year and a half to see the music event of the decade, since Indianapolis wasn’t on the list of cities for the tour’s first pass through America. There’s no question whether the three shows will break the attendance record for concerts at Lucas Oil Stadium, which Swift herself set during her previous tour. Everything about this show is huge, starting with the complex stage and set pieces that require 90 semis to transport.
In this week’s edition of the podcast, Eric Neuburger, the director of Lucas Oil Stadium, fills us in on the negotiations that led to landing the tour in Indianapolis. To fully appreciate the relationship that brought Taylor to town, you’d have to go all the way back to 2008 and the first concert ever staged in the stadium. Looking ahead, Neuburger discusses the advance work required to prepare for the shows, the questions that still need answers and the staff of more than 2,000 people that will be required to stage and host each concert.
In 2018, a raft of Purdue University researchers published a report on the impact of climate change on Indiana agriculture. It looked at the ways increasing temperatures and rainfall could affect the growing season for crops, the types of crops that could be planted, the health of farm animals, and the prevalence of weeds, pests, and disease.
Even for Hoosiers who spend most of their time in air-conditioned environments, the future of agriculture is a very big deal. About 15 million acres of land in Indiana are devoted to farm operations, which is about two-thirds of the entire state. There are 55,000 farms throughout Indiana and agriculture contributes about $35 billion to Indiana’s economy every year.
For this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, host Mason King wants to get a sense of how climate change is playing out on the ground in Indiana farm fields. For guests, he has invited three members of Purdue’s agronomy faculty, including an expert in soybeans and an expert in corn. They’re quick to note how much more difficult it is for the tens of thousands of farmers in Indiana to make the right decisions at the right times, but the future is still bright for farmers who have the tools and willingness to adapt to quickening change.
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IBJ personal finance columnist Pete the Planner has a teen and a tween at home. Pete has been helping people with family finances for decades, and even he admits now to being humbled in this new season of his financial life by numerous large or unusual obligations. As he puts it in an upcoming column for IBJ, Pete is bracing for many years of “financial chaos.” He also finds himself in the uncomfortable position of using the advice he has given older families over the years and realizing that it’s tougher to follow than he thought.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Pete and host Mason King take an in-depth look at three of the most expensive seasons of parenting—roughly the infant and toddler years, the teen years, and the young-adult years. The latter period often coincides with the years parents are required to help support their own parents. You often hear that referred to as the “sandwich generation.” Pete runs through some of the biggest and most surprising expenses over these three seasons and ways to avoid or soften the blows. He also suggests a quick exercise to help you figure out the timing of these rough patches relative to your age, your kids’ ages, and the ages of your parents.
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Last July, IBJ Media unveiled the inaugural issue of the Indiana 250—a compendium of the state’s 250 most influential and impactful business and community leaders. The definitions of “influence” and “impact” were intentionally broad, and the list included C-suite executives, not-for-profit leaders, civic bigwigs, lawyers, bankers, board chairs, artists, promoters, judges, philanthropists, and serial entrepreneurs. The biggest caveat was that the list didn’t include elected officials because their influence was already so obvious.
The beauty of the Indiana 250 concept is that the list is a living document that’s updated every year. On July 20, IBJ Media unveiled the 2023 edition of the Indiana 250, and there has been significant turnover with dozens of new honorees knocking others off the list. For this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Nate Feltman, co-owner and CEO of IBJ Media, joins host Mason King to shed more light on the process of choosing honorees this year. They also shine a spotlight on 10 of the Hoosier leaders making their first appearances on the list.
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It’s not hard to find the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum if you’re a fan of the track: It’s tucked on the inside of the short chute between turns 1 and 2. The ironic thing is that while the Speedway was originally built as a testing ground for new technology and the IndyCar Series has always made a habit of adopting racing innovations, the museum has seemed increasingly mired in the past. Its exhibits have been mostly static, including a gallery of Indy 500-winning cars that some say resembles the lot at a car auction. Until very recently, the museum only featured one or two new exhibits per year.
On July 11, museum officials announced plans for an $89 million transformation, ushering in a totally redesigned experience for visitors, a robust educational program for school-aged children and a beefier endowment that would help pay for more and better exhibits. Race fans might be tempted to think that this change is being driven by Roger Penske, who bought the Speedway and the IndyCar Series in 2020, but the museum actually is owned and run by an independent not-for-profit which leases the museum facility from the track owner.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Joe Hale, the museum’s executive director, explains how the planned renovation will be much more than a tuneup—more like a rebuild, with a sleeker design and all the latest technology to give visitors a greater sense of being in the driver’s seat.
Two years ago, Sajjad Shah entered the Indianapolis coffee shop market with his eyes wide open and a hook that could help differentiate his locations from the herd of java joints. His coffee shops would have a built-in audience through a very popular Instagram account that he founded in 2014, and they would be tied to the account’s overarching mission: promoting the Muslim community and raising millions of dollars for Muslims in crisis around the world. Indeed, the name of the Instagram account is Muslims Of The World, and it currently has about 680,000 followers. The coffee shops are called MOTW Coffee and Pastries. In just two years, Shah has gone from one shop to four, located in Carmel, Fishers, Castleton and on West 38th Street in the International Marketplace District in Indianapolis.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Shah reveals that he’s planning an aggressive expansion outside of central Indiana, starting with a 3,000-square-foot shop expected to open within a few months in the Chicagoland area. He also tells host Mason King that within five years he hopes to have 40 to 50 MOTW shops in the U.S.—a mix of company-owned and franchised locations. Shah didn’t have a lot of experience with coffee when he got started, but he did have many years in corporate accounting and consulting, and he thinks he’s landed on a formula for lean and mean coffee shops that’s easily repeatable.
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The health care industry in America is on the precipice of its biggest change at least since the passage of Obamacare 13 years ago. Passed last summer, the Inflation Reduction Act has given Medicare the green light to negotiate the prices of some drugs for its 60 million-some recipients. The program is expected to save patients many billions of dollars while significantly shrinking revenue for some pharmaceutical firms. Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. is intensely concerned about this development. Two of its most popular medicines are expected to be among the first 40 drugs subject to negotiations.
Lilly CEO David Ricks has gone on the record in public forums criticizing the new law for what he anticipates will be a chilling effect on the development of certain types of drugs. Meanwhile, other big players in the pharmaceutical industry are trying to squash the negotiations altogether. Two have sued the Biden administration, asking a federal judge to declare the program unconstitutional.
IBJ reporter John Russell has been studying the program for a story that’s on the front page of the latest issue of IBJ. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Russell discusses the program’s potential effects on patients, drug makers and the rest the health care industry, as well as the objections from Eli Lilly and Co.
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On June 30, Brian Payne will finish a 23-year run as CEO and president of the Central Indiana Community Foundation and president of the Indianapolis Foundation. You can think of CICF as an umbrella organization that includes the Indianapolis Foundation and many other foundations and charitable funds that make nearly $100 million in grants every year to help not-for-profit groups in central Indiana. Over 23 years of Payne’s leadership, the total assets of the CICF collective organization have grown from $338 million to more than $1 billion.
For that alone, Payne is widely considered one of the most influential not-for-profit leaders in the city. But he also is the founder and primary creative force behind the $63 million Indianapolis Cultural Trail that loops downtown, links its six cultural districts and has become a major driver of economic development along its path. He further cemented his reputation for taking on big challenges when, in 2018, CICF formally changed its mission to support racial equity and inclusion and to dismantle institutional racism in central Indiana.
At CICF, the new focus on fighting racism and creating opportunity for people of color led to changes big and small—from anti-racist training for its staff and cultivating new vendors to structural shifts that affected which programs and initiatives it decides to fund. The new focus was received positively by many and was criticized by others.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Payne explains why he has decided to retire from full-time work, what he plans to do next, and how CICF will change once he leaves. We also discuss the impact of the Cultural Trail, why CICF decided to change its mission in 2018 and the challenge of measuring its progress on a goal as large as dismantling institutional racism.
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As Jim Carpenter tells it, he was “an unemployed bird watcher” in 1981 when he decided to open a feed store in Broad Ripple called Wild Birds Unlimited. Today, there are 365 franchised locations in the chain founded by Carpenter and his wife, Nancy—and the couple has a jaw-dropping new roost for watching birds. In 2021, they bought a former golf course in northern Zionsville so it could it slip back into its natural state.
The decision to buy the 215-acre Wolf Run Golf Club for $5.5 million was a bit of a gamble. The Carpenters were banking on Zionsville officials to buy the land from them—albeit at a discount from their purchase price—so it could be a town nature park. It took about two years, but the town council agreed last month to free up funds to pay $4.5 million for the land—which is now assessed at $6 million—and another $1 million to help prepare for its launch as Carpenter Nature Preserve.
Jim and Nancy Carpenter have for years practiced this kind of conservation philanthropy. They hosted the IBJ Podcast outside Wolf Run’s old clubhouse—amid a cacophony of songbirds—for an interview to discuss why they took a chance on buying the golf course, how they’ll stay involved with the preserve, and how they envision the property evolving. They also provide an update on how Wild Birds Unlimited fared during the pandemic, riding the sudden wave of interest in backyard recreation.
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More than 40 million people in America are about to take a big financial hit, and it could have such serious repercussions on the economy that we could find ourselves back in at least a mini-recession.
Federal student loan borrowers haven’t been required to make loan payments since March 2020, due to the economic stresses of the pandemic. But the grace period is almost over: Some 44 million borrowers will be required to either begin or continue making payments in September.
Education officials have predicted that there could be historic levels of federal student loan delinquency and defaults. The companies that service these loans for the federal government also are in a tough position, restarting the machinery after years of inactivity or taking on millions of customers for the first time. In fact, it’s estimated that 16 million borrowers will have a different company to deal with by the time payments resume.
IBJ person finance columnist Pete The Planner has been looking into the possible ramifications of this big shift for a sizeable chunk of the country. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, he has advice for borrowers and their families to help prepare for the upcoming tumult, as well as some friendly warnings about the possible economic effects.
Indianapolis leaders made sports one of the focus points of its downtown economic development strategy as far back as the early 1970s. Today, we have the 70,000-seat Lucas Oil Stadium and the 17,200-seat Gainbridge Fieldhouse, not to mention the 9,100-seat Hinkle Fieldhouse and 6,500-seat Indiana Farmer’s Coliseum a few miles to the north.
Apparently, civic leaders believe there is room for at least one more indoor sports palace, and it intersects with another one of downtown’s evolving selling points: the campus of urban university IUPUI. As we’ve discussed, IUPUI is in the midst of splitting into two separate campuses—one for Indiana University, one for Purdue University—with its Division 1 sports programs becoming part of what will be known as Indiana University Indianapolis.
In the two-year state budget that they just approved, Indiana lawmakers allotted $89.5 million to design and build the midsize sports facility that would be home for the IU Indianapolis indoor athletic programs. But the local leaders who pushed for the funding want the 5,000-seat arena to play host to a wide variety of events serving the city’s best interests as a magnet for tourism.
On this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, host Mason King chats with IBJ reporter Mickey Shuey about the rationale behind the plans for the stadium, what needs to happen before construction could start, and how it could affect Indianapolis’ sports ecosystem.
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For a century, Indiana’s identity has been informed by the bucolic farms folks can see from the window of an airplane or from the window of their cars as they zoom by on one of our many interstates. But folks on the ground know that the state has become one of the nation’s hubs for plant diagnostics, crop protection, gene editing, biotechnology, food preservation, field management, aerial intelligence, animal health and sources of renewable energy. The companies and scientists involved in this work have reached the critical mass for creating an ecosystem of innovation, where advancements in one area help drive results in another. Not only is this accumulated expertise good for the state’s economy, but it also plays into national security and global stability. What is more in mankind’s best interest than the production of healthy food in adequate supplies?
For the latest edition of the podcast, host Mason King is joined by Mitch Frazier, who draws on his considerable professional experience in technology and agriculture as president and CEO of Agrinovus Indiana. It’s a statewide organization devoted to fueling growth in the agbioscience economy. Frazier has one of the most expansive and rounded perspective of agricultural innovation in the state and how Indiana is becoming a major player in vital issues of food security.
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Dan Wheldon, Kyle Kirkwood, J.R. Hildebrand, Jay Howard, Sage Karam, Oliver Askew, Spencer Pigot, and Rinus VeeKay. Beyond the fact that all of these drivers are either past or current competitors in the Indy 500, what do they have in common? They all competed in the USF2000 series, which is one of the feeder series to IndyCar.
Al Morey IV is 17 years old and a rookie in the USF 2000 series, competing for Indianapolis-based team Jay Howard Driver Development. He lives in Fishers, and ever since he started racing karts at the age of 9, he has had his sights on the upper rungs of professional racing. But the road to IndyCar is never easy, in part because it is so expensive. Running an open-wheel car for a full season in USF2000 can easily run several hundred thousand dollars for the driver. That includes tires, engineering and mechanical services, parts and labor, track testing and travel, food, and lodging. Drivers can defray some of those costs with sponsor dollars, but they typically must arrange those relationships themselves.
Al Morey’s father, also named Al Morey, says the cost of this season could be anywhere between $400,000 to $700,000, depending, for example, on how often the car is damaged. In the latest edition of the IBJ Podcast, the father and son team talk about what it’s like in the trenches of professional racing, the costs involved, and how they work together to secure sponsors.
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In 1977, Rabbi Dennis Sasso and his wife, Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, loaded up their car and drove from New York to Indianapolis. As the first practicing rabbinical couple in world Jewish history, they already had a fair amount of renown and had even appeared on the quiz shows “What’s My Line?” and “To Tell the Truth.” But they were young—just a few years out of rabbinical school—so it might have been a bit of a gamble for Congregation Beth-El Zedeck in Indianapolis to hire them as its spiritual leaders. Dennis was named senior rabbi, a position he has held now for 47 years.
The records are little spotty, but congregation officials believe he has led or been involved in more than 2,400 Shabbat services, close to 1,400 bat mitzvahs and bar mitzvahs, 275 weddings, 1,000 funerals, 800 bris and baby-naming celebrations and 470 board meetings. At the end of this month he will retire as senior rabbi, although the weekend of May 13 and 14th will be filled with special events honoring Sasso at the synagogue.
On the eve of the May 13th celebrations, IBJ Podcast host Mason King sat down with the two rabbis to discuss Dennis’ decision to step down, the months of preparation necessary for such a transition, what he sees as his legacy and, crucially, what exit music he would want heard as he dances into retirement.
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The 2023 Indiana General Assembly wrapped up about a week ago—specifically, 2:47 a.m. on Friday, April 28—after your state lawmakers hammered out a $44.6 billion budget for the next two years, filed 1,154 bills and approved 252 of them. Gov. Eric Holcomb has now signed all 252, as of May 4. As you know, both the Indiana House and the Indiana Senate have Republican supermajorities, so the GOP generally did not need support from Democrats to pass its priorities. And so these laws now venture out into the world to do the bidding of our elected representatives. It was hard to miss the big debates this year over the proposed ban on gender transition procedures for minors, which is now law. As are the controversial proposals to expand eligibility for the state’s school voucher program, ban instruction on human sexuality in grades kindergarten through third, and forbid state retirement system managers from investing in companies based on environmental and social factors.
For journalists who cover state government, the end of the legislative session is just the beginning. Now they must follow these laws and report on their consequences. We can assume that lawmakers go into these sessions with the best of intentions, but sometimes the laws they produce don’t work as intended. Sometimes they immediately end up in the court system through legal challenges. And sometimes they require a Herculean amount of work to simply get up and running. The reporters who covered this year’s session already have earmarked the laws that bear more investigation, and we have two of them join host Mason King on the podcast this week: Peter Blanchard, who covers politics and state government for IBJ, and Casey Smith, who covers the same for the not-for-profit newsroom Indiana capital Chronicle.
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The first episode of the IBJ Podcast was posted on June 4, 2018. This week, we present the 250th episode. As listeners know, the podcast’s only regular guest outside of IBJ’s editorial staff has been Pete Dunn, aka Pete the Planner. He first was featured on March 11, 2019, after becoming one of IBJ’s regular columnists for personal finance. Over about 20 podcast episodes, he and host Mason King have discussed investments, insurance, budgeting, retirement, buying a car, saving for college, giving to charities, quitting your job, and how to prepare for the next financial calamity.
After nearly every interview with Dunn, King has had the nagging suspicion that at least one important question—perhaps a bit too touchy, or even mercenary—goes unasked. This week, he asks those questions. The kid gloves are off, and Dunn has agreed to discuss some of the sensitive topics in personal finance. How can you help your spouse or elderly parents when they can’t manage their own finances? Who in a marriage should have the final say on big purchases? How should one prepare for the financial implications of divorce? How much should you ask about your pending inheritance? And, of course: How do you know when it's time to change financial advisers?
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Joel Kirk doesn’t have an MBA or what you would consider to be a traditional business background. But he is every inch an entrepreneur and promoter, and he cut his teeth in one of the toughest markets in the world: New York City. And he has persuaded some of the most experienced philanthropists in central Indiana to back his venture that makes Indiana a conduit for one of New York City’s most famous products: Broadway-style musicals.
A native of Carmel, Kirk is the founder and CEO of Discovering Broadway, which brings musicals that are still in the developmental stage to central Indiana so the creative teams can work in relative peace and then stage their work here with a combination of local and national talent. For example, the creative team behind the musical version of “The Devil Wears Prada” rewrote most of the show’s script and created several new songs over the course of about a week in Carmel back in 2021.
In this week’s episode of the IBJ Podcast, Kirk discusses his own incubation period in Carmel and then at Ball State University before moving to New York at the age of 20 and starting a career as a theater director. He also tells the origin story of Discovering Broadway and explains how this one-man show—at least until recently—persuaded producers and creators with international reputations to make central Indiana their workshop.
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You might recognize Indianapolis-based Bosma Enterprises as a not-for-profit that helps Indiana residents who are blind or visually impaired. Its business model includes providing products and services for the public and private sector. This provides jobs for people with vision loss who otherwise would face a 70% unemployment rate. In fact, more than half of Bosma’s employees are blind or visually impaired—including its vice president of external affairs, Lise Pace.
She was climbing the ladder in the banking industry in the early 1990s when she learned that she would eventually lose her sight to a disease called retinitis pigmentosa. Married and the mother of a young son, she slowly retreated into a dark and isolated life as she lost most of her sight, stopped working and became a stay-at-home mom. As she says, “I didn’t know how to be someone who was blind.”
In this week’s episode of the IBJ Podcast, Pace tells the story of how her son inspired her to get her college degree and start volunteering. That led to a full-time job at Bosma and then a raft of promotions that brought her to her current position as a company executive. You could see her as a prime example of how someone with limited sight can excel in the corporate world. Indeed, one of Bosma’s missions is to help clients learn the skills required for succeeding in almost any business environment. But as Pace acknowledges, employers considering visually impaired applicants also need to see beyond sight impediments and trust the results from past work history.
In 1979, musician Chuck Surack started a business in Fort Wayne called Sweetwater Sound by creating a mobile recording studio in a Volkswagen Bus. Fast-forward a bit more than four decades, and Sweetwater has evolved into one of the nation’s most prominent e-commerce sites for musical instruments and audio gear, with $1.6 billion in sales for 2022. Surack and his wife, Lisa, had total ownership of the company until 2021 when they sold a big stake to a private equity firm.
The Suracks have used that money to help further their already extensive philanthropic giving. Chuck also has more time to focus on Surack Enterprises, a collection of companies unrelated to Sweetwater, including several that stem from his interest in aviation. And that’s the reason why Chuck has been in the news in Indianapolis in recent weeks. The Indianapolis Airport Authority wants to decommission the Indianapolis Downtown Heliport, a move that’s supported by the city of Indianapolis due to the site’s attractiveness for redevelopment. Chuck is helping lead the charge to persuade the Federal Aviation Administration to deny permission to decommission the heliport. Chuck has a helicopter charter company that uses the heliport, but he also joins aviation experts and the Indiana Department of Transportation in arguing that the heliport is uniquely positioned to advantage of new developments in urban aviation. That includes electric aircraft that can take off and land vertically.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Surack sheds more light on his decision to sell a controlling stake in Sweetwater and step away from day-to-day operations. And he explains the reasoning behind his desire to keep the heliport open.
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*In the 38 years that Steve Sanner has owned and operated Jiffy Lube oil change shops in Indiana, he has laid down some serious tread marks. He is owner and president of Jiffy Lube of Indiana, which counts 51 locations and about 510 employees altogether. That’s the vast majority of the Jiffy Lubes in the state. But he hasn’t been content to simply make his mark as a major Jiffy Lube franchisee. He has volunteered at the highest levels of some of central Indiana’s highest profile organizations, including the Indiana Sports Corp., the local organizing committee for the Big Ten Football Championship and the Washington Township Schools Foundation. And he has used his Jiffy Lubes as a platform for some surprising community-minded initiatives. He has supported Indiana artists by commissioning 30 murals for his stores. He’s kicking off a campaign called “No ticket, let’s fix it,” in which police officers around the state give motorists $25 Jiffy Lube gift cards to get minor car repairs, at a total retail value so far of $300,000. It’s a great way to get motorists into Jiffy Lube, but Sanner says he also wants to promote positive interactions between police and motorists while keeping roads safer.
Sanner is the guest for this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast. He starts with a few wild stories about his early days as an entrepreneur and how he got a foothold as a Jiffy Lube franchisee. He reacts to some of the common complaints that consumers have about oil change shops. And he talks at length about his secondary career as a volunteer, including being in charge of all of the laundry in the March Madness bubble when Indianapolis hosted all of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in 2021.*
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The owners of Homefield, a maker of T-shirts, sweatshirts, and other apparel for college sports fans, haven’t necessarily been upset with all of the upsets during March Madness this year. The firm was founded by recent Indiana University graduate Connor Hitchcock and his wife, Christa, built off of a side project called Hoosier Proud. It seems like college gear is everywhere, and that initially gave Connor pause when considering whether to take the Indiana-focused venture national. But he and Christa landed on a formula to help Homefield to stand out: Using premium materials and creating unusual designs that draw on a school’s vintage iconography, and then moving at the speed of the internet when a particular school hits big.
So, for example, in the first few hours after Fairleigh Dickinson University beat Purdue in the first round of the men’s tournament this year, Homefield was in touch with licensing officials for FDU, designing a series of shirts and notifying its followers on Twitter. It did the same thing last year when St. Peters University made a run in the tournament. Both schools are squarely in Homefield’s comfort zone as small universities that don’t necessarily have robust apparel programs. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Connor and Christa explain how they parlayed their success with small schools into agreements with the bigger names. They also dig into how they landed on Homefield’s winning strategy and how they’ve grown the firm to 40 employees in five years while maintaining a four-day workweek and keeping the emphasis on their staff’s quality of life. That includes all weekends off, even during the tournament.
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After the immediate fallout of the Great Recession, apartment development in downtown Indianapolis surged. Just in the last decade, the number of downtown apartment units has more than doubled to the current total of about 15,000 units.
Indianapolis and other major cities across the nation are trying to encourage apartment development, especially as downtowns face an existential crisis brought about by the pandemic—namely, the loss of office workers in their downtown cores to remote working. One of the hottest trends is to take existing office towers and convert them into apartment buildings. And it’s happening with other major commercial structures, like downtown malls.
We’re seeing that now in Indianapolis, with the conversion of the AT&T building and the plans for the Gold Building. The redevelopment of Circle Centre Mall very likely will have apartments, and as the city tries to find new uses for past-their-prime municipal properties, it’s often making residential uses a priority.
For this week’s edition of the podcast, we have a three-person panel to explore the reasons behind the recent surge, the city’s desire to encourage apartment development, and future prospects for continued development and how that could affect downtown. Joining us are apartment market specialist George Tikijian, real estate developer Eric Gershman and deputy mayor of economic development Scarlett Andrews. Here’s our conversation.
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The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates again next week as it continues to try to cool inflation. The silver lining is that when lending rates rise, savings rates also rise. It’s not unusual now to see certificates of deposits with 4% or 5% annual yields locked in over 12 to 24 months. Money market accounts are now paying healthy returns as well. Millennials and members of Gen Z should take note, because they probably haven’t experienced interest rates this high for savings in their adult lives.
It's difficult to get many Americans to put away an appropriate amount of money for retirement or a financial emergency. Late last year, Congress passed a significant revision to the rules for retirement plans with the intent of extending and expanding your saving opportunities and ability to put away money for retirement. It’s not just for folks preparing to hobble across the finish line. The changes also can help people still paying off their college loans and those who need to establish their first emergency funds.
For this week’s podcast, IBJ columnist Pete Dunn, aka Pete The Planner, explains these new opportunities for savings. He also shares a tip for avoiding an interest-rate trap that current homeowners could fall into if they try to level up on housing.
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The Indiana General Assembly just reached the midpoint of its 2023 legislative session and passed some deadlines for advancing bills, which has pushed at least two-thirds of them back to the curb—at least for this session. So this is a great time to take stock of the bills that made the cut and those that tanked.As usual, education funding has been at the center of major debate. Lawmakers also are hip-deep in social issues, such as so-called “ESG investing” and potential bans on library books some people believe are inappropriate for minors. The Legislature likes to trumpet its efforts to make the state more business-friendly, and different ways to lower business taxes have been under discussion.
For this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, regular host Mason King is turning the discussion over to Managing Editor Greg Weaver, who’s been covering state government for decades, and IBJ statehouse reporter Peter Blanchard. And they have invited a guest to help flesh out the discussion: Casey Smith, a reporter for Indiana Capital Chronicle, who recently authored a scoop on a major omission in the Indiana House Republicans’ school funding plan.The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
One of the most persistent questions about downtown Indianapolis since its 1980s resurgence has been, “Is downtown safe?” In the Feb. 17 issue of IBJ, reporters Mickey Shuey and Taylor Wooten presented statistics for violent and nonviolent crime indicating that downtown remains one of the city’s safest areas, in particular in terms of crimes per capita.
Here’s the rub: Statistics often don’t matter as much as perception. And good luck quoting statistics to someone who has been the victim of a crime. Since safety is a prime concern of business owners and executives whose operations are based downtown, IBJ Podcast host Mason King spoke to two owners who have drawn different conclusions about downtown safety and made very different decisions about their downtown operations.
Greg Harris is the founder of Backhaul Direct, and Andrew Elsenser is a co-founder of Spot, formerly known as Spot Freight. Harris decided to relocate Backhaul Direct’s offices to Fishers after being attacked downtown and hearing employee concerns about safety. Meanwhile, Elsenser decided to open an additional office downtown—although he does have concerns about incidents of theft and the state of downtown infrastructure. In fact, Elsenser recently moved his entire family to the Mile Square, just a block north of Monument Circle.
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Wheeler Mission has been an integral part of downtown for more than 100 years and is intrinsically linked to quality of life issues and downtown’s image. It’s now in the middle of its first leadership transition in 33 years.
When Rick Alvis became president and CEO in 1990, Wheeler Mission had 17 employees and an annual budget of about $700,000. Today, it has about 200 employees and an annual budget of nearly $20 million. On any given night, it provides shelter for about 550 people, which is about a third of all people experiencing homelessness in Indianapolis. And it’s widely known for its shelter services—to the chagrin of some downtown residents—although those services account for just one spoke in a four-pronged strategy to help men, women and children get the basic services they need, acquire job skills, move to stable housing and eventually become self-sufficient.
Now 70 years old, Alvis is retiring soon and helping ease the transition for his successor, Perry Hines, who became Wheeler’s chief development officer in 2021. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Alvis and Hines discuss Wheeler’s evolution over the last three decades, perceptions of Wheeler in the community, perceptions of the homeless population downtown in recent years and why they think it’s important that Wheeler remain based downtown.
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In his mid-20s, Christian Resiak decided to learn how to hand-stitch leather handbags. He went to thrift stores, bought all of the leather jackets he could find and set up a workspace in his basement. He sold his first bag on Etsy within a month. He called his fledgling company Howl + Hide, partly in reference to his talkative Siberian Husky. Eight years later, Resiak has built Howl + Hide into a million-dollar business with 17 employees without the help of any investors or bank financing.Howl + Hide’s flagship location in Fountain Square doubles as its main retail site—where it sells a wide variety of handbags, tote bags, duffels, keychains and wallets—and its main production facility. But that will change in the near future as Resiak plans to at least double his employee base and double—maybe triple—his sales this year, with some partnerships with national brands on the way. In conversation with podcast host Mason King, Resiak details the process of building the business from scratch and his grand plan to become a global brand.
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Amy Brown is the founder and CEO of Indianapolis-based Authenticx Inc., one of the hottest technology firms the state. Despite the national slowdown in venture capital funding in 2022, Authenticx raised $20 million just before the end of the year. That’s almost $30 million total since Brown founded the firm in 2018, which speaks to investor confidence in the idea behind Authenticx as well as the management team’s level of experience and ability to execute.
But Brown took a very unusual route to becoming a first-time entrepreneur in her early 40s. As an undergrad at Indiana University, she earned a bachelor’s degree in human development and family studies. She then earned a master’s of social work in policy and program administration. She had several jobs with a focus on health care policy and health insurance programs. Before deciding to take the leap to create Autheticx, she was the chief operating office for a Carmel-based travel insurance firm.
It was there that the idea for Authenticx took shape: A company that could collect all of the feedback that health care companies get from their clients and suss out major weaknesses in the customer experience. The health care companies, such as pharmaceutical firms, insurers or medical care providers, could then use all of the data about their customers and their concerns to improve the bottom line.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Brown discusses what it took to bootstrap Authenticx and get it off the ground, including her desire to inspire her four children. She also sheds light on the experience of persuading venture capitalists to invest in Authenticx, including one distinction in her presentations that she said was invaluable.The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
Celebrated jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery was born 100 years ago in Indianapolis and spent much of his career here, recording and performing on Indiana Avenue, sometimes with his brothers and often with some of the greatest jazz, soul and even pop musicians of his generation.
Montgomery died in 1968 at just 45 years old. But during his relatively short career, he won two Grammy Awards and was routinely selected as the top guitarist in Down Beat magazine polls, five times by critics in the 1960s and four times by readers.
We’re turning today’s episode of the podcast over to IBJ arts writer Dave Lindquist for an exploration of the ways that Wes Montgomery was an innovator of jazz guitar, why fellow guitarists continue to find inspiration in his playing 55 years after his death and how he was one of many world-class musicians to emerge from the Indiana Avenue jazz scene in the 1940s and ’50s.
Joining Dave for the conversation are Rob Dixon, a saxophone player and artistic director of the Indianapolis Jazz Foundation. And Lasana Kazembe, a poet, teaching artist and assistant professor of education at IUPUI.
Rob and Lasana will celebrate Montgomery’s legacy during a May 13 special event at The Cabaret, where Kazembe serves as the venue’s first artist in residence. The event is titled “In Our Own Sweet Way: Honoring the Artistic Legacy of Wes Montgomery.”
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David Becker is considered one of the godfathers of the Indiana technology ecosystem, having started and sold several tech firms over the past four decades. But he’s probably best known for his current effort, which broke new ground in an entire tech sector. In 1999, he launched First Internet Bank of Indiana, an online-only bank that offered typical bank services without needing to maintain any physical branches.
First Internet Bank recently passed $4 billion in assets. Becker is 69 years old and says he has no plans to hand over the reins of CEO and chairman, given that developing new products and services for the bank scratches his entrepreneurial itch. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Becker has a wide-ranging conversation with host Mason King, jumping from his motorcycle-trip bucket list to what he’s done to make the bank’s new headquarters in Fishers attractive to employees while the corporate world wrangles with the trend of working from home.
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Tom Wood Automotive Group is one of the best-known family businesses in central Indiana, with more than a dozen car dealerships and 1,000 employees. But relatively few people have heard of Jeff Wood, who took over the company after Tom Wood, his father, died from lung cancer in 2010.
Jeff Wood grew up in central Indiana and worked in the family business for a while, but he found his calling in the United States Air Force. He served for 20 years as a combat pilot who flew F-16s. As nerve-wracking as it might be to fly an armed aircraft at 1,400 miles per hour at an altitude of 40,000 feet, Jeff Wood wasn’t entirely prepared for the white-knuckle ride of taking over a huge family business at the request of his father.
It's been more than a dozen years since Jeff Wood became company president, and he has used that time to diversify Tom Wood Automotive Group—often following his own interests to see where they lead. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, he discusses his dad, flying F-16s and the hair-raising transition to company leader in 2010. It’s been a tough year for the car sales industry, and Wood provides an insider’s look and a sense of how the group is trying to ride out the turbulence. And he provides a 30,000-foot view of this sprawling conglomerate and how he has been able to keep aviation in his life—flying as often as once per week.
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On Wednesday, global tech giant Salesforce revealed in a sparse regulatory filing that it planned to lay off about 10% of its employees companywide. The reason, in a nutshell: Salesforce hired too many people during a recent period of massive growth, and customers now are cutting back on spending in the uncertain economic environment. And speaking of uncertainty, cities with a significant Salesforce presence were left with many questions, since the firm declined to provide any more details about the layoffs than what was in the filing.
The company has about 80,000 employees worldwide, about 2,300 of which work in Indianapolis, where its operations are based in the 48-story Salesforce Tower. Although the company is about as high-profile as you can get in Indianapolis, one suspects many local folks are only vaguely familiar with what the company does here and why it’s an important part of the technology ecosystem.For this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, host Mason King and reporters Susan Orr and Mickey Shuey discuss what they’ve learned so far about the restructuring. It's not just a tech story: Salesforce has revealed, somewhat cryptically, that it also plans to shrink its real estate footprint, which could have serious ramifications for Indianapolis’ premier office tower. It all sounds ominous for downtown, which is still trying to recover from the effects of the pandemic on its urban workforce.
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IBJ reporter Dave Lindquist, in this week for Mason King, talks with Emmis Corp. founder Jeff Smulyan about his 2022 memoir “Never Ride a Roller Coaster Upside Down: The Ups, Downs and Reinvention of an Entrepreneur”
The book—which he wrote at his daughter’s urging—caps a year of tremendous transition for Smulyan, whose roster of former employees includes David Letterman, Mike Pence, Isaac Hayes and Ken Griffey Jr.
Emmis sold four Indianapolis radio stations and Indianapolis Monthly magazine in 2022, ending the company’s four-decade run as a media powerhouse. Although Emmis still owns two radio stations in New York City, the company is now focused on three assets it has in the fields of e-commerce, ergonomics and corporate podcasting.
Lindquist talks with Smulyan about his career, his successes and some of his initiatives that didn’t go so well, including NextRadio—a costly effort to make mobile phones act like smart portable radios that never took off.
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Given what we know about inflation and the chances for a recession, you could assume this isn’t the best time to start a business that depends on consumer discretionary spending.
Shari Jenkins isn’t too concerned. She’s the restauranteur behind the Zionsville mainstays Noah Grant’s Grill House & Oyster Bar and Salty Cowboy Tequileria. She’s now in the process of opening a new restaurant in Zionsville that’s designed to make patrons feel like they’re on vacation and don’t have a care in the world. It’s called Tipsy Mermaid Conch House & Cocktails, and getting it open this spring will require a seven-figure startup investment.
Jenkins has faith in her customer base in her native city of Zionsville. Their support helped keep Noah Grant’s going during the Great Recession, and patrons remained loyal to both of her restaurants during the worst of the pandemic. Jenkins also overcame a devastating fire at the original Noah Grant’s during a key period in which she was relocating the restaurant to a new spot in Zionsville. Fears of a mild recession don’t give her much pause.
IBJ reporter Daniel Bradley featured the plans for Tipsy Mermaid in the latest issue of IBJ, and Jenkins joined IBJ Podcast host Mason King for a deeper conversation about her emergence as a restauranteur after working as a teacher in Indianapolis Public Schools. She also explains how she surmounted a litany of obstacles over the last 14 years, although elevated food costs continue to be a problem.
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This is the time of year, for better or worse, that we usually take stock of our investments and either count our blessings or lick our wounds. Sad to say, there hasn’t been a year when traditional equity investments—aka the stock market—have behaved this poorly since 2008, and we all know what happened there.
Of course, 2022 can’t compare to the financial meltdown and Great Recession, but that doesn’t take any of the sting out of seeing your portfolio slip 20 percent into the red. IBJ personal finance columnist Pete the Planner is in the same boat and isn’t looking forward to his annual financial review on New Year’s Eve, but Pete does have a pocket full of silver linings to pull out.
Markets go down and then they go up. It’s a healthy cycle. To benefit from the cycle, you need to make sure that you are taking advantage of opportunities to save money and eliminate. In the podcast this week, Pete shares the questions he asks himself at the end of every year to make sure he’s positioning himself for success. It all boils down to a concept Pete calls the “power percentage,” which he will explain. And he also ventures to make a few optimistic predictions for 2023.
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No one disputes that Indiana residents rank very low among all Americans in terms of their health. The operative question, which will be posed to Indiana legislators in their budget-writing session beginning next month, is to what extent the state should try to intervene and do something about it.
Last year, Gov. Eric Holcomb convened a special commission to conduct the first comprehensive assessment of Indiana’s public health system in more than three decades. It was co-chaired by former state senator Luke Kenley, the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee from 2009 to 2017 and one of the most powerful holders of state purse strings for many years.
This summer, the commission released its findings and recommendations. Its overarching proposal is that the state increase annual public health funding from about $55 per person—which ranks 48th in terms of state funding per capita in the nation—to $91 per person. That would cost another $242.6 million a year.
Kenley’s job now is to convince skeptical state legislators that this added expenditure is worth it. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Kenley discusses his strategy, as well as why the state’s public health spending has been so relatively meager up to this point. And he’s joined by Dr. Kristina Box, Indiana state health commissioner, to discuss the need to improve the health of Hoosiers and how best to deploy the proposed annual injection of $242.6 million.
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The U.S. airline industry isn’t just short of the pilots needed to meet travel demand. The demographic makeup of the industry’s pilot workforce remains overwhelmingly male and white.
Indianapolis-based Republic Airways, one of the largest regional airlines in America, has a vested interest in trying to stock its talent pipeline—not just with pilots but for other aviation careers as well, including maintenance. And Republic has made a concerted effort in recent years to recruit more women and people of color and to eliminate barriers that might stand in the way of successful careers at the company.
The airline’s initiatives include a three-day aviation career summit that in October attracted 1,100 attendees—including 750 students of color—from across the state. Republic is also in in the process of launching a campaign to raise $24 million to help 300 central Indiana students of color start careers in aviation.
For this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, host Mason King is joined by Rob Lowe, Republic’s vice president of people and culture, and Alisha Spires, senior manager of talent acquisition for pilot recruiting, to discuss the barriers that women and people of color face when they consider aviation careers, and what Republic is doing to widen those horizons.
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The convention and events business that downtown Indianapolis has worked so hard to develop over recent decades has recovered fairly well from the worst days of the pandemic. But there’s a new competitor on the horizon.
Nashville, Tennessee—a fellow NFL city that also has positioned its downtown for tourism—is on the brink of building a new football stadium downtown with a covered roof. As we know in Indianapolis, a stadium with a roof gives your city a lot more flexibility in attracting and staging major events—for sports, concerts and conventions. And Nashville officials have been clear that they’ll be going after events that Indianapolis currently hosts or traditionally is in the hunt to host.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, reporter IBJ’s Mickey Shuey tries to gauge the potential impact on Indianapolis of having a tougher competitor for some of the city’s bread-and-butter business.
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Although the White House isn’t up for grabs during the U.S. midterm elections on Tuesday, there are candidates for federal, state and local positions on the ballot that affect central Indiana residents in any number of ways.
U.S. Sen. Todd Young, a Republican, is defending his seat from Tom McDermott, the Democratic mayor of Hammond, and Libertarian candidate James Sceniak, a behavioral therapist. Some polls have shown the race between Young and McDermott to be surprisingly close, given Young’s name recognition and massive advantage in fundraising.
On the state level, there’s a headline-grabbing contest between Republican Diego Morales and Democrat Destiny Wells for secretary of state. Morales has been hit by several troubling allegations in recent months, including accusations of sexual misconduct and embellishing his military record.
There’s a fascinating race shaping up in Indiana Senate District 31, which includes the Geist area, Lawrence and the city of Fishers. The incumbent, Republican Kyle Walker, has outraised Democrat opponent Jocelyn Vare many times over, but at least one poll shows this race as a toss-up.
And in Indianapolis, Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears, a Democrat, faces a tough challenge from Republican Cyndi Carrasco. She claims Mears has been soft on violent criminals and she has raised an impressive amount of money to get her message out.
For this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, host Mason King is joined by two colleagues from the IBJ newsroom to dig deeper into the four races: Peter Blanchard, who covers politics and state government, and Greg Weaver, IBJ’s government and politics editor.
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The guest for this week’s IBJ Podcast is Ben Lytle, whom longtime residents will remember as the former CEO of Indianapolis-based health insurer Anthem. He captained the strategy that turned Anthem into one of the largest health insurers in the nation and a publicly traded firm on the New York Stock Exchange. He also founded, took public and sold the insurance brokerage Accordia.
But don’t think of Lytle as a career corporate guy. He started his career as an expert in technology and information systems. He’s an entrepreneur at heart and in recent years has co-founded two companies with his son Hugh—both related to health care.
But he’s not interested in talking about the past. He wants to discuss the next 30 years, a period he expects to be filled with mind-boggling changes in the ways we work and live. The pace of life will continue to accelerate and become more turbulent. He says institutions such as government, education, religion, news media and corporate America will be disrupted and become less reliable. So he has written a book titled “The Potentialist: Your Future in the New Reality of the Next 30 Years.” Its purpose is to help us—and especially people at the beginning of their careers—develop the skills and mindset necessary to succeed in that environment.
He joined podcast host Mason King to discuss the book and how we can thrive alongside incredible change as we live longer, work longer and develop more intimate relationships with technology.
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IBJ columnist and frequent IBJ Podcast guest Pete “The Planner” Dunn had a piece in the Oct. 14 issue with an uncharacteristically sharp rebuke for a reader who was woefully uninsured. IBJ Podcast host Mason King took it to heart, because he has long avoided getting life insurance, despite being in his 50s, married and the father of a 6-year-old.
But he is far from alone in wanting to avoid acknowledging the need to plan for one’s own demise. Dunn’s take is that life insurance is the foundation of good financial planning, as well as being a good spouse and parent. In the latest edition of the IBJ Podcast, King and Dunn dive into some the big questions that usually come up when one finally addresses this dark elephant in the room, including how much life insurance is necessary.
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Three of IndyCar’s most prominent teams—Andretti Autosport, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and Arrow McLaren SP—are investing a total of $250 million to expand their operations and add as many as 750 jobs in central Indiana.
In this week’s podcast, IBJ reporter Mickey Shuey takes on hosting duties and talks with IndyCar President Jay Frye and Rahal Letterman Lanigan co-owner Bobby Rahal about why teams are investing now and what it says about the state of racing globally and in the Indianapolis area.
But Shuey starts by talking with IBJ reporter Daniel Bradley to get the details about the teams’ expansions, which are taking place in the suburbs north of Indianapolis that he covers.
For more, read the story Shuey and Bradley wrote about IndyCar investments for the Oct. 14 issue of IBJ.
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Recent studies from across the country have helped solidify the link between housing instability—for example, substandard conditions, homelessness or needing to move regularly—and poor infant health. In a pilot program based in Ohio called Healthy Beginnings at Home, organizers wanted to test the impact of providing pregnant women struggling to find stable homes with rental assistance and other services to secure their housing situations. In the group of mothers in the pilot program, there were no infant deaths, and there were more full-term healthy births than in a control group. The pilot group also saw shorter stays in neo-natal intensive care and a reduced need for emergency health care.
The Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health at IUPUI has received a five-year, $2.4 million federal grant to launch an initiative to reduce Indianapolis’ infant mortality rate. And it specifically will address housing instability. Called the Housing Equity for Infant Health Initiative, the program will provide support for pregnant women and mothers with infants under 1 year old. The organizers then will evaluate the program’s impact on birth outcomes and health care costs.
CareSource, a not-for-profit that provides health care insurance coverage through public programs including Medicaid and Medicare, was a key participant in the Ohio-based pilot of Healthy Beginnings at Home. It is also a key player in bringing Healthy Beginnings at Home to this Initiative in Indianapolis. A second major piece of the initiative is focused on health justice. Led by the Indiana Justice Project, it will combine legal education, direct legal services, strategic litigation, and advocacy to improve both housing stability and housing conditions for pregnant Hoosiers.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, host Mason King digs into the details with two guests: Dr. Cameual Wright, an OBGYN and vice president and market chief medical officer with CareSource; and Jack E. Turman Jr. He’s the director of the Housing Equity for Infant Health Initiative and the Grassroots Maternal and Child Health Initiative, as well as a professor in the Fairbanks School of Public Health. They cover the link between unstable housing and poor infant health, the difficulty in quantifying the extent of the problem, and the hope that the initiative will lead to larger efforts across the state.
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In just two years, the arts and culture startup known as Gang Gang has become one of the most influential and active producers of events in Indianapolis, promoting the creative economy and the concept of equity. The founders are Malina Simone Jeffers and Alan Bacon, working from the precept that creative people of color continue to be underrepresented and underrecognized for their contributions to culture. GangGang means to change that. The group wants to bring these artists to the forefront, but everyone is welcome to collaborate.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, guest host Dave Lindquist asks Jeffers and Bacon about the impact of “We. The Culture: Works by the Eighteen Art Collective,” a ground-breaking exhibit curated by GangGang that debuted last month at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. They discuss Butter 2, the second edition of GangGang’s fine art festival featuring work by Black visual artists. They also touch on the blueprint that GangGang is creating for stimulating the creative economy, why the group is trying to raise $500,000 by the end of the year, and what they foresee for GangGang over the next five years.
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To the extent Butler University has become a known quantity at the national level, we can thank its basketball program. Since 2006, the Bulldogs have earned seeds in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament 10 times, including reaching the national championship final twice. That 16-year period also coincides with the tenure of Barry Collier as Butler’s athletic director. He didn’t need an introduction to Bulldog fans when he was hired for the job, since he had coached the basketball team from 1989 to 2000, earning three NCAA tournament appearances. During that stretch, he was Horizon League Coach of the Year four times.
Over the past 16 years, Collier also has presided over an aggressive push into higher levels of competition, jumping from the Horizon League to the Atlantic 10 in 2012, and then to the Big East in 2013. Since then, Butler has invested tens of millions of dollars in renovating or building athletic facilities for a broad range of sports, with the cost largely picked up by donors. And in fact, Collier has enjoyed particular success since 2006 increasing the number of donors and the amounts they give to Butler athletics.
In the latest edition of the IBJ Podcast, host Mason King asks Collier, now 68, whether he plans to retire soon. That leads o a conversation about long-term goals, his success in fundraising and improving Butler athletic facilities, and Butler’s transition to the Big East. He looks to the past, including what he learned from Butler coaching legend Tony Hinkle, and to the future and his expectations for Butler basketball this year with the return of Thad Matta as head coach.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
To the extent Butler University has become a known quantity at the national level, we can thank its basketball program. Since 2006, the Bulldogs have earned seeds in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament 10 times, including reaching the national championship final twice. That 16-year period also coincides with the tenure of Barry Collier as Butler’s athletic director. He didn’t need an introduction to Bulldog fans when he was hired for the job, since he had coached the basketball team from 1989 to 2000, earning three NCAA tournament appearances. During that stretch, he was Horizon League Coach of the Year four times.
Over the past 16 years, Collier also has presided over an aggressive push into higher levels of competition, jumping from the Horizon League to the Atlantic 10 in 2012, and then to the Big East in 2013. Since then, Butler has invested tens of millions of dollars in renovating or building athletic facilities for a broad range of sports, with the cost largely picked up by donors. And in fact, Collier has enjoyed particular success since 2006 increasing the number of donors and the amounts they give to Butler athletics.
In the latest edition of the IBJ Podcast, host Mason King asks Collier, now 68, whether he plans to retire soon. That leads o a conversation about long-term goals, his success in fundraising and improving Butler athletic facilities, and Butler’s transition to the Big East. He looks to the past, including what he learned from Butler coaching legend Tony Hinkle, and to the future and his expectations for Butler basketball this year with the return of Thad Matta as head coach.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
In 2013, the Indiana Legislature created a path for artisan distillers to produce and sell spirits to the public by the glass, bottle or case. The hope was to start a micro-distilling industry in Indiana, and one of the first businesses to take the leap was called Hotel Tango Distillery. It was co-founded by husband-and-wife attorneys Travis and Hilary Barnes. With the help of a handful of investors, they opened a production facility and tasting room in an early 20th century carriage house in the Fletcher Place neighborhood.
In eight years, it has grown to three tasting rooms in Indiana and retail sales in 25 states and on 120 military bases around the world. For 2022, Travis Barnes expects total sales of about $6 million.
Travis is a former Marine who served in the elite special operations Reconnaissance force. He enlisted right after 9/11, and it turned out to be a life-changing experience, going well beyond the serious injuries he suffered in Iraq. A lot of what he learned in the military is encoded in the values and processes of Hotel Tango. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, he discusses Hotel Tango’s creation, its rocketing sales and how one of the state’s first micro-distilleries could establish such a big footprint in less than a decade.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
In 2013, the Indiana Legislature created a path for artisan distillers to produce and sell spirits to the public by the glass, bottle or case. The hope was to start a micro-distilling industry in Indiana, and one of the first businesses to take the leap was called Hotel Tango Distillery. It was co-founded by husband-and-wife attorneys Travis and Hilary Barnes. With the help of a handful of investors, they opened a production facility and tasting room in an early 20th century carriage house in the Fletcher Place neighborhood.
In eight years, it has grown to three tasting rooms in Indiana and retail sales in 25 states and on 120 military bases around the world. For 2022, Travis Barnes expects total sales of about $6 million.
Travis is a former Marine who served in the elite special operations Reconnaissance force. He enlisted right after 9/11, and it turned out to be a life-changing experience, going well beyond the serious injuries he suffered in Iraq. A lot of what he learned in the military is encoded in the values and processes of Hotel Tango. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, he discusses Hotel Tango’s creation, its rocketing sales and how one of the state’s first micro-distilleries could establish such a big footprint in less than a decade.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
Indianapolis leaders have pleaded with state lawmakers for decades to change the state’s formula for funding local roads, which they say shows favoritism to rural counties with sparse traffic. When the state determines how much funding to pass along, it counts streets, roads and thoroughfares by their length. So, for example, a one-mile stretch of a two-lane road in rural Parke County would carry the same weight as a one-mile stretch of the six-lane Keystone Avenue on the north side of Indianapolis. City officials would prefer the funding formula place greater importance on traffic volume and an area’s population.
But there’s new hope leaders in the Indianapolis area can persuade Indiana lawmakers to make some changes. Suburban mayors in cities like Carmel, Fishers and Greenwood are becoming acutely aware that that the state’s funding mechanisms put their municipalities at a disadvantage.
The cities are banding together in hopes their collective voice will be heard during next year’s General Assembly. In a conversation with IBJ Podcast host Mason King, IBJ reporter Peter Blanchard discusses the state formula and the potential that legislators would be receptive to funding charges.
Indianapolis leaders have pleaded with state lawmakers for decades to change the state’s formula for funding local roads, which they say shows favoritism to rural counties with sparse traffic. When the state determines how much funding to pass along, it counts streets, roads and thoroughfares by their length. So, for example, a one-mile stretch of a two-lane road in rural Parke County would carry the same weight as a one-mile stretch of the six-lane Keystone Avenue on the north side of Indianapolis. City officials would prefer the funding formula place greater importance on traffic volume and an area’s population.
But there’s new hope leaders in the Indianapolis area can persuade Indiana lawmakers to make some changes. Suburban mayors in cities like Carmel, Fishers and Greenwood are becoming acutely aware that that the state’s funding mechanisms put their municipalities at a disadvantage.
The cities are banding together in hopes their collective voice will be heard during next year’s General Assembly. In a conversation with IBJ Podcast host Mason King, IBJ reporter Peter Blanchard discusses the state formula and the potential that legislators would be receptive to funding charges.
The Indiana Fever just endured its worst season since joining the WNBA in 2000. On Aug. 14, it finished the season on an 18-game losing streak, posting a record of 5-31.
The Fever won the WNBA title 10 years ago, but the team hasn’t made the playoffs since 2016. It also hopes to see a major turnaround in attendance. Due to ongoing renovations at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the team hosted home games in three arenas last season, and its average home crowd fell to about 1,800 fans. That’s roughly a quarter of what it drew in the mid-2010s.
In 2019, Allison Barber was named president and chief operating officer of the Fever, which already was in rebuild mode. Since then, the team has won roughly a quarter of its games. Barber has an impressive resume that includes significant communications and community relations positions at the American Red Cross, White House and Department of Defense. Prior to joining the Fever, she was chancellor of Western Governors University Indiana.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, host Mason King asks Barber why progress on the court has been so slow in coming. And Barber shares her take on the 2022 season, the franchise’s new rebuild strategy, her top priorities in the off-season and the challenges of leading an organization mired in a rough transition.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
The Indiana Fever just endured its worst season since joining the WNBA in 2000. On Aug. 14, it finished the season on an 18-game losing streak, posting a record of 5-31.
The Fever won the WNBA title 10 years ago, but the team hasn’t made the playoffs since 2016. It also hopes to see a major turnaround in attendance. Due to ongoing renovations at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the team hosted home games in three arenas last season, and its average home crowd fell to about 1,800 fans. That’s roughly a quarter of what it drew in the mid-2010s.
In 2019, Allison Barber was named president and chief operating officer of the Fever, which already was in rebuild mode. Since then, the team has won roughly a quarter of its games. Barber has an impressive resume that includes significant communications and community relations positions at the American Red Cross, White House and Department of Defense. Prior to joining the Fever, she was chancellor of Western Governors University Indiana.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, host Mason King asks Barber why progress on the court has been so slow in coming. And Barber shares her take on the 2022 season, the franchise’s new rebuild strategy, her top priorities in the off-season and the challenges of leading an organization mired in a rough transition.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
We want our kids to learn how money and personal finances work at a fairly early age so they learn how to make smart decisions. IBJ happens to have a good resource for this bit of childhood development: personal finance columnist Pete Dunn, aka Pete the Planner. He has two kids, ages 10 and 13, and has spent several years trying to imprint them with economic wisdom. IBJ Podcast host Mason King has a 6-year-old with a keen interest in money, so he has turned to Pete for his advice in this week’s edition of the podcast.
There are two kinds of advice here. There is the practical, mechanical side of money: yeaching your kids how to make money, how to save it, how to spend it, how to invest it and how to earn interest. Pete has been guiding his daughter through hands-on experiences with money since at least the age of 7, as she buys shares of stock, starts internet businesses and helps pay the family’s mortgage every month. The other kind of advice is more about values. How should you handle debt? How much should you rely on your family for financial help? Is becoming rich, by itself, a worthwhile goal? Is the experience of a teen working a regular job more or less valuable than trying to burnish a college resume with sports and academics?
In the end, a lot of this advice is just as appropriate for adults.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
Monument Circle is the heart of Indianapolis—and has been since the town of Indianapolis was platted in 1821. Unfortunately, the Circle is subject to the same wear and tear as any street.
In the 1970s, its surface—both the street and the adjacent sidewalks—were replaced by red bricks. As a nod to the Circle’s historic status, bricks are terrific. But those bricks must continually be replaced, which is a constant challenge for the city. More recently, it has become evident that the very foundation of the Circle below those bricks needs to be replaced. What’s more—the conventional wisdom for more than a decade has been that we could do more to make the Circle more attractive, more pedestrian-friendly and more conducive to public gatherings.
In 2014, the Ballard administration plotted a complete rebuild of the streets and sidewalks of Monument Circle and its four main spokes on Meridian and Market streets. The cost—$54 million—was prohibitive.
The city has since embarked on similar projects along East and West Market Streets, which officials hope can serve as a kind of proof of concept for a Monument Circle redo. The Hogsett administration has dusted off the Ballard plan and is strategizing how to turn it into reality. It very likely will require a mix of city, state and federal funds, plus perhaps some philanthropic assistance, to the tune of $60 million.
A circle seems like a simple shape, but this is a very complex puzzle for city officials. For this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Dan Parker, director of the Indianapolis Department of Public Works, talks with host Mason King about the direction the city is taking and what roadblocks could be in the way.
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It’s no small achievement that Gwendolyn Rogers correctly predicted that Hoosiers would pay a pretty penny for high-end baked goods in an environment right out of “Cinderella.” In 2014, she opened The Cake Bake Shop in Broad Ripple, transforming a free-standing home on the north side of the village into a kind of confectioner’s paradise, populated with sparking accents and a cozy but high-end aesthetic. It offered regular table service, topped off with towering and indulgent cakes—including the deluxe chocolate cake she used to win the London Cake & Bake Show in 2013.
In 2019, she opened a second Cake Bake Shop in Carmel. And in April of this year she announced that a longtime dream of hers had come true: The Walt Disney World Resort revealed that a Cake Bake Shop would open next year at Disney’s BoardWalk.
But there’s a lot more to the Cake Bake story than the new location. Rogers has put a lot on the line over the last eight years to establish and grow the brand, including a hefty financial commitment. She was saved during the pandemic by a relationship with Williams Sonoma that made her cakes available on the high-end retailer’s website. In eight years, she has gone from a single employee to nearly 190. But as she tells host Mason King in this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, she dreamed of opening in Disney World even before launching the Broad Ripple store.
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Chuck Lofton was hired as a weather forecaster and anchor for WTHR Channel 13’s “Sunrise” morning show when it debuted in 1985. He since has survived any number of severe weather events, including tracking tornados, as well as the notoriously fickle TV news business.
But in March, he had a big health scare, followed by triple-bypass heart surgery and a two-month recovery off the air. At 65, he would seem to be a prime candidate for winding up his career and taking it easy. But in some ways, he is healthier now than he was five years ago, and he’s enjoying the work more as well. At one point he assumed that 65 would be the end of his career, but now his attitude is much more open-ended.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Lofton chats with host Mason King about his longevity in the TV news business; the offers he’s had—but not taken—to move up from the Indianapolis market; the close shaves he has experienced in the field; and whether there is room on local TV news to talk about the politically charged topic of climate change.
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Tony Dzwonar had just wrapped up three consecutive terms on the Washington Township school board—serving from 2008 to late 2020—and was looking for a way to spend his extra free time. He remembered that the district –like most school corporations—needed bus drivers.
He received the required training and a commercial driver’s license before becoming one of about 100 district bus drivers in fall 2021. He worked daily, running two or three routes in the southeastern portion of the district that included elementary children, middle schoolers and high school students.
In the latest edition of the IBJ Podcast, Dzwonar tells host Mason King about what he learned waking up at 5 a.m. every school day and getting behind the wheel of a 40-foot bus. He explains how he dealt with his most disruptive students as a newbie driver. He also shares his new street-level perspective of the district and how it gave him insight into the impact of at least one of the school board’s student-focused initiatives.
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IBJ Media last week released its inaugural Indiana 250, a list of the most influential and impactful business and community leaders in Indiana.
The list — researched and developed by IBJ, Indiana Lawyer and Inside INdiana Business — includes CEOs, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, attorneys, economic development officials and more from across the state.
Host Mason King talks with IBJ Media CEO Nate Feltman and IBJ Editor Lesley Weidenbener, who oversaw production of the Indiana 250, about the goal of the program and the challenge of choosing the honorees.
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Lawmakers are preparing to return to the Statehouse next week for a special session that will focus on two key issues: abortion and how to spend some of the state’s $6.1 billion the state has in reserves.
That's right—$6.1 billion. That huge balance in the state's reserve accounts is the result of higher than expected tax receipts as well as pandemic relief money the federal government sent to the state. Gov. Eric Holcomb wants lawmakers to send some of that money back to Hoosiers in the form of $225 tax refund checks.
In this week's podcast, IBJ Editor Lesley Weidenbener—in for vacationing host Mason King—talks about the upcoming session with Peter Blanchard, IBJ’s new Statehouse reporter, and managing editor Greg Weaver, who has spent much of his career writing about and editor reporters who cover politics.
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Americans are back in the throes of financial anxiety. Folks with most of their savings in the stock market have been in the profoundly uncomfortable position of watching their portfolios lose 20% to 25% of their value since the beginning of the year. Gas is still near its all-time high and is continuing to play a major factor in skyrocketing inflation. And most experts agree that if we’re not already in a recession, there’s still a very good chance we’ll get stuck in one soon.
IBJ Podcast host Mason King calls on frequent guest Peter Dunn—aka Pete The Planner—to give listeners a pep talk, or at least some straight talk about what’s happening and what to expect. He hits the major topics from inflation to recession, as well as the strategies for riding out the latest fiscal downturn such as gas-tax holidays and Fed rate increases.
To be frank, Pete’s major takeaway is a return to frugality. And be ready for more anxiety this fall, when we really start to feel the restrictions of recession.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
IBJ reporter Mickey Shuey broke the story last month that Indy Eleven majority owner Ersal Ozdemir has purchased the Diamond Chain industrial site downtown to be home to Eleven Park, a mixed-use development that is to include a 20,000-seat soccer stadium.
Shuey joins the IBJ Podcast this week to discuss the Diamond Chain site, which is located at the corner of South and West streets downtown, and what sorts of surprises it might hold for the development.
Of course, there's the usual concerns about environmental impacts that come with any industrial site. But this particular spot was also the city's first burial ground. Shuey and podcast host Mason King dive into the details.
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Ryan Vaughn has spent the past eight years leading the Indiana Sports Corp., a job that requires constant work attracting big sports events to the city and then pulling them off once they arrive. The goal is to always have a pipeline of events coming to help bolster the region's tourism industry and economy overall.
IBJ reporter Mickey Shuey (in for vacationing host Mason King) talks with Vaughn about what he's learned during his time in the post and why he's leaving to take a job in the tech sector.
Plus, Shuey presses Vaughn about the challenge the next Indiana Sports Corp. president will face—and whether Vaughn might someday run for mayor.
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The city has endorsed a $175 million proposal from two Indianapolis-based developers to significantly recast the entire block that contains the Indianapolis City Market.
The proposal from Gershman Partners and Citimark included the following: A $90 million redevelopment of the Gold Building (which is the 9thlargest office complex downtown) into an apartment building with 350 units and an entirely new façade with a darker, more neutral color.
Next up: Construction of a $40 million, 11-story apartment building with 60 units, plus office and retail space, on the site where the market’s east wing currently sits. Next, $30 million in ongoing improvements to the 11-story office building at 251 E. Ohio, and $12 million in improvements to the parking garage that’s between 251 E. Ohio and the Gold Building, which are all on the northern half of the block.
For this week’s edition of the podcast, host Mason king talks with Scarlett Andrews, director of the Indianapolis Department of Metropolitan Development, and Eric Gershman, principal at Gershman Partners, about the project and the timeline.
The amount of venture capital invested into Indiana-based tech companies was down overall in the first quarter of the year—despite several recent announcements. That tracks with national trends, and has local venture firms urging their portfolio companies to think about ways to make their cash last longer.
IBJ tech reporter Susan Orr talked with local tech firms and venture funders about the trends and tells host Mason King about their concerns and expectations.
But Orr said there’s plenty of optimism about the area’s tech sector. And she offers a reminder that sometime slowdowns help weed out weaker companies while making others stronger.
You can read Orr’s story at IBJ.com.
The name Leslie Bailey might ring a bell. She was a reporter for The Indianapolis Star from 2012 to 2016 and penned a regular column titled "The Adventuress." She’d jump into some new sport or activity or an unusual situation and write about it. As she discusses in the latest edition of the IBJ Podcast, taking risks is in her DNA.
In 2019, Bailey and business partner Amanda Kingsbury co-founded Indy Maven, a lifestyle website and membership organization focused on providing a wide variety of content and networking resources for women. As Bailey learned more from the women who were consuming the content and pursuing networking opportunities, she realized that the next obvious move was to create a physical space that could serve that community.
So she and another partner co-founded Maven Space, which at heart is a co-working space—again, primarily intended for women—but also offers an abundance of amenities including a full gym, a podcast studio and a room for new mothers. This was a much bigger risk, which entailed digging deeply into her personal savings and getting a zero-interest credit card for charging necessary expenses.
Maven Space opened in mid-May. Bailey was fortunate to find a space to sublease in downtown's historic Gibson building that already was outfitted with many of the features she wanted to offer. But the sublease is up in about two years, meaning a new set of important decisions is waiting just over the horizon.
In this week’s edition of the podcast, Bailey discusses her approach to entrepreneurism, which some would describe as building the plane while you’re trying to fly it. She readily admits that she wouldn’t necessarily advise other new entrepreneurs to take the same path. But, as she says, she believes in the idea and wasn’t interested in the time and energy needed to try to find investors when women-led businesses historically get so little attention from funders.
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Carmaker Stellantis NV made big news in Indiana last week when it announced it will build a $2.5 billion electric-vehicle battery plant in Kokomo with partner Samsung SDI. The plant—which is expected to employ 1,400 people—is one step in a fledgling transition in the auto industry from vehicles with internal combustion engines to those with electric motors.
But what does that transition mean for a state like Indiana, which has five vehicle assembly plants and more than 500 auto industry suppliers. In all, more than 110,000 people are employed by the auto industry.
Podcast host Mason King talks with Ananth Iyer, a professor of management at Purdue’s Krannert School of Management, who is part of a group studying the potential disruption in the auto industry and how Indiana manufacturers can adapt.
Iyer sees tremendous potential for those plants and their workers, even if that means a bit of retooling and retraining to realize it.
For more about the disruption EVs are causing in the auto industry, read Susan Orr's story in IBJ's Innovation Issue here.
As most racing fans know, Doug Boles is president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. But that title isn’t quite adequate.
Boles is the Speedway’s chief evangelist, its omnipresent public face and its buck-stops-here customer service guru. Beyond presiding over the day-to-day management of a 300-acre venue that hosts dozens of large, complicated events annually, Boles is the protector of its legacy as Indy’s symbol of industry and speed, while lifting its vital role in the city’s aspirations to create strong connections between innovative industries.
And that’s important, although to thousands of fans on race day, he is the guy in the suit and tie who remembers your family and where you traditionally sit and is happy as hell to take a picture with you, the kids, grandpa and the cooler.
In this week's podcast, host Mason King talks with Boles about what his daily life is like in May, why he calls race fans every day on his drive home from work and what's ahead for the hundreds of acres of undeveloped land IMS owns.
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When Larry Myers was mayor of Greenwood in the 1970s, about 20,000 people lived in the Johnson County city. Today, Larry's son, Greenwood Mayor Mark Myers, leads a city of more than 64,000. But he says some of the most important duties haven't changed: Fill potholes, pick up the trash and plow the snow (without blocking anyone's driveways).
Still, Greenwood has definitely changed. And during Mark Myers' three terms, downtown has been revitalized, parks and trails have been greatly expanded and the new Greenwood Fieldhouse—the first piece of a larger development called The Madison—has opened.
Host Mason King talks with Myers about how Greenwood is changing, but also about his life, which has included working for his parents' ambulance business, as a police detective, a missionary and in security for a foreign embassy.
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In the latest issue of IBJ, financial advice columnist Peter "Pete the Planner" Dunn shares a letter from reader who for undisclosed reasons has spent a great deal of the money that he made through a successful business.
It’s evident from the letter that this person has hit an emotional low. And in his response, Dunn addresses the dangers of linking your self worth to your financial worth.
IBJ Podcast host Mason King picks up on that thread for this week's podcast and talks to Dunn about steps to stabilize and buttress your finances if you've suffered a big loss or are just behind in saving for retirement.
There's good news: Dunn says even later in life you can make your finances work—but it's more about adjusting your spending than it is about saving.
You can read Dunn's columns here.
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Best-selling author Michael Koryta of Bloomington based his book, “So Cold the River,” at the West Baden Hotel in Orange County. In fact, you could argue the hotel is essentially a character in the book. And so when it came time to make "So Cold the River" into a movie, there could be no other spot to do it.
Enter Pete Yonkman, president of the hotel's owner, Cook Group. Yonkman is friends with Koryta and the folks at Pigasus Pictures, a Bloomington-based film company.
So he connected the two—and stayed involved. In fact, Yonkman and Cook CEO Carl Cook (the son of Bill and Gayle Cook, who funded the hotel's renovation) invested in the movie and facilitated Pigasus' use of the hotel, which closed down for several weeks to accomodate filming.
Host Mason King talks with Yonkman and Zack Spicer, CEO of Pigasus Pictures, about the hotel, the story and making the movie. But they also delve into a new law that will offer tax credits to future productions filmed in Indiana.
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As spring turns into the month of May and Indy 500 season, broadcaster Kevin Lee is reviewing his notes for many hours on radio and TV, explaining the nuances of IndyCar and its drivers to fans.
Lee has had a 30-year history covering sports, a career that included doing play-by-play work for the Indianapolis Colts and the Indiana Pacers but is focused today largely on auto racing. He’s in the pits for most IndyCar races and hosts the radio show “Trackside” on The Fan, 93.5-FM and 107.5-FM, among other racing duties.
And in his spare time, Lee manages a racing team in the USF2000 Championship—a rung in the Road to Indy developmental program—for which his son, Jackson, is the driver.
Lee talked with host Mason King about his broadcasting career, what it takes to prepare to announce an IndyCar race and how managing a racing team has helped him better understand the sport.
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Elanco Animal Health on March 12 broke ground on its $100 million headquarters campus on the former GM stamping plant site just west of downtown Indianapolis.
CEO Jeff Simmons explains why the project is far more than simply an office building. He tells host Mason King that the goal is to create what the company calls "a post-COVID workplace destination" that attracts talent to the city and the company and gives workers more flexibility and engagement.
And Simmons is aiming to make the campus an epicenter for animal research and innovation, while connecting the neighborhood to downtown.
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Matt Gentry was just 26 when he was elected mayor of Lebanon in 2015, after running a campaign in which he argued it was time for the Boone County city to embrace change, attract jobs and revitalize its downtown.
Since then, Lebanon has become one of the fastest growing communities in the state—both in terms of population and commercial development. And now, the state is negotiating to buy as many as 7,000 acres of land just outside Lebanon for what could be a high-tech business park.
Gentry talks with podcast host Mason King about his approach to growth, why he's excited about the state's efforts and how he's trying to ensure Lebanon retains its character while embracing change.
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The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra announced last week that Andrea Bocelli, the operatic star who has sold more than 90 million albums worldwide, will perform Dec. 7 at Gainbridge Fieldhouse along with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.
In this week's episode of the podcast, IBJ arts reporter Dave Lindquist talks with James Johnson, the CEO of the orchestra, about how the show came to be and what will make it special for the ISO and the city.
Plus, they dive into what’s upcoming for the orchestra, how the hunt for a new music director is going and how the symphony is working to diversify its organization as well as the works its performs.
Dave is filling in for host Mason King, who is on vacation and will return next week.
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Anyone who has driven past a car lot knows that dealers have virtually no inventory. So what do you do if you need a car?
IBJ personal finance column Peter "Pete the Planner" Dunn found himself in just that predicament recently. And he tells host Mason King that shopping for a car was like nothing he's experienced before.
Buyers have no negotiating power. Zilch, he says. And that's because there are as many buyers on a lot looking for a vehicle as there are cars. In fact, dealers are pre-selling the cars they're expecting to receive.
The upshot, Dunn says, is to try to avoid buying or leasing a car right now. But if you have little choice, you might want to listen to this conversation before you head out to the lot.
For more, read Dunn's latest IBJ column:
Pete the Planner: Time bigger purchases (if and when you can)
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The Children's Museum of Indianapolis has just reopened its Dinosphere exhibit after a year of renovations that added two huge long-necked sauropods and a new prehistoric marine area—all based on bones found in a museum-owned dig site.
CEO Jennifer Pace Robinson, who took on the museum's top job about a year ago, talks with Mason King about the importance of the exhibit, the logistics of hanging all those bones, and what makes the experience different than visitors might find at other museums.
Plus, King quizzes Robinson about what's ahead for the museum, what it plans to do with the historic Drake building that it owns and why it costs so much to buy a family membership.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
Hoosiers For Good Inc., the brainchild in part of Cook Medical Group President Pete Yonkman, is a new organization that is looking to pay Indiana University athletes to represent and promote Indiana not-for-profit organizations.
Just a year ago, such an arrangement would not have been possible. But last summer—under pressure advocates for student-athletes as well as states legislatures and Congress—the Indianapolis-based NCAA approved new rules that let student-athletes be paid for endorsements, autographs and more.
In most cases, companies will pay athletes for the right to use their name, image or likeness—referred to as NIL—to sell shoes or endorse other products. In many cases, that will involve athletes using their social media accounts to align with brand.
But the organizers of Hoosiers for Good thought the new rules could also be used to pay athletes to endorse causes or charities. So the group has well more than $1 million, according to Yonkman, and will use that to connect athletes with not-for-profit groups they believe in. The goal is to benefit the not-for-profit but also to help student-athletes become community leaders.
Host Mason King talks with Yonkman and the group's executive director, Tyler Harris, about the mission.
To learn more, read IBJ reporter Mickey Shuey's story about Hoosiers for Good.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
Buying a franchise is one way to become an entrepreneur—and it can be an effective way. You’re starting with an established brand, some built-in marketing and, hopefully, a solid business plan provided by your franchisor.
But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Just ask Lori Meyer, owner and operator of Garbanzo Mediterranean Fresh in Zionsville, and Melinda Rowan, owner and operator of The Human Bean at 5405 N. Keystone Ave.
On this week’s IBJ Podcast, the new business owners detail just how much money and time they spent launching their stores in the middle of a pandemic. And they tell host Mason King about the biggest hurdles (think rising labor costs and supply chain troubles) and why they don’t regret their mid-life career changes.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
In 2020, Colts owners Jim Irsay and daughters Kalen Jackson, Carlie Irsay-Gordon and Casey Foyt launched the "Kicking the Stigma" campaign to boost awareness about mental illness and raise money to help not-for-profits expand addiction and mental health treatment.
Since then, the effort has committed more than $16 million to local and national organizations—and most of that was donated directly by the Irsay family. The Irsays have created and paid to broadcast several national public service announcements, many featuring prominent celebrities and athletes, including Snoop Dogg, Rob Lowe, Mike Epps, Carson Daily and Peyton Manning.
More than a dozen organizations have received game-changing grants, and the Irsays recently donated $3 million to Indiana University to create a research institute to study mental health issues.
Jackson is a vice chair in the Colts organization, overseeing operations and community relations, including the club's philanthropic efforts. That includes overseeing the Kicking the Stigma campaign.
She talked with host Mason King about why the family decided to focus on mental health, what they've learned about the problem along the way and how they got so many celebrities to participate.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
Entrepreneur Madame C.J. Walker. International sports star Marshall “Major” Taylor. The Indiana Avenue commercial and entertainment district. Crispus Attucks High School. The foundations and luminaries of Black history in Indianapolis have received due attention in recent decades and have been the subjects of books and documentaries. But there hasn’t been an authoritative history of African Americans in Indianapolis—featuring the highlights as well as the crushing obstacles thrown in the path of the Black community—until this month.
Historian David Leander Williams has built on his previous works documenting the city’s jazz and rhythm-and-blues legacies with “African Americans in Indianapolis: The Story of a People Determined to Be Free,” published by Indiana University Press. It covers the 150-year period between 1820 and 1970—from the establishment of the Black community on the banks of the White River after a ruinous flood and malaria epidemic to the destruction of Black neighborhoods due to the construction of Interstate-65 through downtown and the expansion of IUPUI.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Williams discusses his personal connections to some of the key figures and places in the Black community, including jazz legend Wes Montgomery, the Bethel AME Church and Crispus Attucks High School. He also explains the clever ways he was able to reconstruct Black life in the city’s first decades, when record keeping was rare. And he pinpoints the ways the Black community has been set back economically, including the loss of thousands upon thousands of jobs in the city’s manufacturing sector that once served as passports to the middle class.
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Stephen Goldsmith is the Indianapolis mayor who pushed Circle Centre Mall into reality some 27 years ago. But he's not surprised the mall needs some reimagining—something its owners are now undertaking.
In fact, Goldsmith—who is now a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School—says he's surprised the mall remained as successful as it did for long. That's because the project was less about creating a retail space, he says, and more about spurring downtown revitalization.
Host Mason King talks with Goldsmith about how the city and the mall owners should think about what's next. And they talk about Goldsmith's new book, "Growing Fairly: How to Build Opportunity and Equity in Workforce Development," which includes some examples from Indianapolis.
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The Legislature is debating a bill that could clear a path for nuclear energy to come to Indiana, a controversial move that could help the state reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.
Indiana has never had a nuclear plant—and the one attempt to local one in southern Indiana failed when the utility building it ran out of money.
So why are Indiana and other states talking about nuclear power now? IBJ reporter John Russell joins the podcast to explain how the technology is changing and why lawmakers are interested.
You can read more from Russell about nuclear power here.
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Following an unexpectedly strong year for the stock market, 2022 is starting with far more volatility, as concern about interest rate hikes and lingering supply chain issues have kept investors jumping.
So what do you do as you watch the balance in your 401(k) fund rise and fall (and so far this year, mostly fall)? IBJ investing columnist Mickey Kim said to stick with your plan—which probably means doing nothing, although that can be tough.
"When things get rocky, we want to protect ourselves," he tells host Mason King. "We are thinking: Don't just sit there, do something. And I will tell you: Doing something is the wrong thing to do."
Kim explains why and offers some thoughts on why the market is so jittery.
You can read more from Kim at IBJ.com.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
In a wide-ranging conversation with IBJ reporter Dave Lindquist, Tom Griswold — Tom of "The Bob & Tom Show" — talks about working with his sons (one on the air and one off), recovering from heart surgery and the future of the iconic radio program.
Plus, Griswold offers his take on the show's cast, including Chick McGee, Kristi Lee and Ace Cosby.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
The 150-acre estate of the late Indianapolis philanthropist Christel DeHaan is on the market for $14 million, with the proceeds earmarked for an endowment that will help support and expand Christel House International, which operates schools in poor areas around the world.
Host Mason King talks with Mike Johnson, the Sothebys International agent who has listed the property, about what makes the house and grounds special, what kind of interest the estate has generated and whether it's likely to remain a single family residence.
In addition, Christel House CEO Bart Peterson, a former mayor of Indianapolis, and Mark Willis, chief investment officer at CD Enterprises and president of the Christel DeHaan Family Foundation, join the conversation to talk about DeHaan's wishes for the proceeds and how the money will help expand the not-for-profit organization's reach.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
The population of Indianapolis swelled by about 100,000 headed into Monday night’s College Football Playoff National Championship game. Fans from Georgia and Alabama filled hotel rooms, injected adrenalin into the local restaurant scene, rented cars, shelled out for keepsakes and, hopefully, told their friends back home how much they’re enjoying the city despite absolutely dreadful weather.
City tourism officials say their best estimate of the economic impact from hosting the championship is about $150 million. But how can they possibly produce an accurate prediction in such a complicated economic environment? Wasn’t the economic impact prediction for March Madness last year off by $50 million? In the first half of this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Visit Indy’s Chris Gahl explains how precisely the estimates are calculated—when good data is available—and why the CFP figure should be more accurate.
Decades into Indianapolis’ sports tourism strategy, we essentially take it as an article of faith that hosting huge sporting events is worth all of the trouble and expense. But why? Beyond the dollars visitors drop in Indianapolis, what is the ultimate value of repeatedly playing host? In the second half of the podcast, Mark Rosentraub, a sports business expert at the University of Michigan, explains the less quantifiable benefits and why Indianapolis might always have to prove it’s worthy.
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In this week's episode, IBJ Editor Lesley Weidenbener steps in for host Mason King to lead a year-in-review discussion about 2021 and the people who made headlines in 2021.
IBJ Managing Editor Greg Weaver and reporters Dave Lindquist and Mickey Shuey talk about the reasons that IBJ named The Sports Corp.'s Ryan Vaughn its newsmakers of the year and why the new IU president, chair of Newfields, High Alpha partners, a SPAC specialist, an arts community power couple and the head of a local real estate investment trust all made the newsmakers list.
You can read more details about IBJ's newsmakers by clicking here and more about the year's top stories here.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
With the holidays upon us—and only a small percentage of kids vaccinated against COVID-19—host Mason King has been wondering what's safe when it comes to family gatherings, parties and public events
So he called Dr. James Wood, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Riley Children's Health, to talk about vaccinations for children, how latest strains of coronavirus are affecting younger kids and whether it's safe for grandkids to gather with their grandparents at the holidays. (Hint: You're safest if the kids are vaccinated and the adults are boosted.)
Plus, King asks Dr. Woods to share what he's done about vaccinations with his own young kids and how they're treating family outings.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
Local tech executive Eric Tobias and two partners bought the entertainment business that stages events at the Vogue in Broad Ripple in early 2019. “When people ask me about this, I say, ‘Owning a music venue—best first year of my life … but maybe one of the most challenging second years,’” Tobias says.
The Vogue closed abruptly on March 12, 2020, just as that night’s band—Drive-By Truckers—was warming up on stage. The pandemic of course hit the live entertainment industry like a sledgehammer, and Tobias and his partners had to think outside the box—literally, outside the venue itself—to keep the business going.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, longtime local music journalist (and newly minted IBJ reporter) Dave Lindquist catches up with Tobias to discuss how the group has been able to weather the pandemic. Tobias says he has seen convincing proof that some patrons aren't sold on attending live events. The ownership group is getting more involved in livestreaming concerts and promoting shows in other venues. Tobias also explains the Vogue’s policy on health checks for patrons, how the Vogue intersects with his high-tech daytime gig, and what he sees as a vital need in order for the local music scene to thrive going forward.
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Investment adviser Morningstar has issued new guidance that changes the conventional wisdom about how much you can expect to withdraw from your investment accounts in retirement.
The change in the so-called 4% rule has podcast host Mason King worried, and so he and Peter "Pete the Planner" Dunn dive into the details in search of clarity.
Pete also predicts what the omicron variant will mean for the market and why the debate about the debt ceiling might actually be more important.
You can read more from Pete at IBJ.com.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
Experts expect shoppers to drop a record amount of money this holiday season. The National Retail Federation forecasts sales for November and December to grow between 8.5% and 10.5% over the same months in 2020. In total dollars, that would be between $843.4 billion and $859 billion.
At the same time, the supply-chain issues that have plagued commerce since the start of the pandemic are expected to complicate gift buying and limit stock for some products.
The answer is to get your shopping done as soon as possible, because you might not get a second chance, says John Talbott, the director of the Center for Education and Research in Retailing at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. In the latest edition of the IBJ Podcast, Talbott explores other big questions with host Mason King. Does Indy’s status as a leading U.S. logistics hub give Hoosiers a leg up on gift availability? What role might inflation play in this year’s shopping season? Why are gift cards even more valuable than usual this year? How can we avoid cybercrime? And are there any blockbuster, must-have gifts for this season?
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In the second part of a two-episode interview, Martha Hoover—founder of the Indianapolis-based Patachou Inc. restaurant company—explains how the pandemic pulled back the curtain on problems in the restaurant industry, especially how little workers are paid and how vulnerable most eateries really are.
Hoover—known for restaurants including Cafe Patachou, Public Greens and Napolese—tells host Mason King that because she came from outside the restaurant world, she charged appropriate prices from the start, with the goal of providing a living wage to workers. But she said the industry has historically put too much emphasis on quantity and price at the expense of quality, as well as the people making the food.
She talks about what she thinks the public and the media get wrong about the industry and what might change things.
Click here to listen to Part 1 of the interview with Hoover.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
Indianapolis restauranteur Martha Hoover launched her first Cafe Patachou at 49th and Pennsylvania in 1989 and has since expanded her company to 13 eateries spread across several distinct concepts.
Like other restaurants, though, Hoover had to close the doors at all of her Patachou Inc. locations when the pandemic hit, a time she calls "frightening."
But Hoover tells host Mason King — in the first of a two-part interview — that Patachou is now "very healthy," in part because she and her leadership team started making some tough decisions pre-pandemic to streamline and become more efficient.
Now, Patachou is looking to expand.
Tune in next week for part 2 of King's interview with Hoover, when she explains what she thinks the public — and especially the media — don't understand about the restaurant business.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
Veteran real estate agent Matt McLaughlin reached more than $1 billion in career sales in September after some 22 years as an agent for F.C. Tucker. It's a milestone the firm's CEO, Jim Litten, called "one of the most challenging to attain in our industry."
And yet McLaughlin said it was not particularly a goal and he wasn't fully aware he was approaching it until the folks in his office mentioned it earlier this year.
Host Mason King sat down with McLaughlin to learn how he closed so many sales (he attributes some early success to the gray hair he had as a young man), what makes his approach different (he still dresses up for clients) and what he thinks about central Indiana's red-hot real estate market (it's not a bubble).
Plus, McClaughlin shares the advice he'd give a young broker.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
Indiana’s unemployment rate inched down to 4% in September, but what does that actually mean? How many people are in the Indiana workforce? And why are so many companies struggling to find workers?
Host Mason King talks with Fred Payne, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, about what the state is doing to help more Hoosiers find jobs and more companies find workers.
Plus, King quizzes Payne about whether Indiana should join most of its neighbors in raising the minimum wage.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.
A record 4.3 million workers in the U.S. quit their jobs in August and more are expected to do so as part of what analysts are calling the "Great Resignation."
But can you afford to join them?
Host Mason King talks with Peter "Pete the Planner" Dunn about how to prepare financially to leave your job. Plus, Pete offers a prediction about the stock market as the year comes to a close.
Looking for another podcast to try? Check out IBJ's The Freedom Forum with Angela B. Freeman, an exploration of diversity and inclusion issues in the central Indiana business community.
Nine teams representing students, researchers and autonomous vehicle experts from across the globe will convene at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Oct. 23 for an auto-racing competition without drivers.
Or at least without a human in the cockpit. The "drivers" in this case are software systems coded in advance by the teams, who must just sit back on "race day" to see if the cars can direct themselves out of the pits, around the track and avoid obstacles (which might or might not include another car).
The Indy Autonomous Challenge has been more than two years in the making. And so podcast host Mason King talks with Paul MItchell, CEO of Energy Systems Network, the Indianapolis-based not-for-profit that dreamed up and organized the event, about why the competition is important and what the group wants to achieve.
And then he talks with Michael Saxon, who is leading the Black & Gold Racing team, made up of students and researchers from Purdue University, West Point and IUPUI.
To learn more, read IBJ reporter Mickey Shuey's story about the challenge.
Photo courtesy of Central Indiana Corporate Partnership.
In the wake of criticism about conditions at last spring's women's basketball championship, the NCAA is considering a number of changes, including whether the men's and women's Final Fours should be played on the same weekend in the same city.
IBJ's sports business reporter Mickey Shuey talks with host Mason King about why that would significantly shorten the list of cities that could host the Final Four and whether Indianapolis could handle a combined event.
And King talks with Michelle Perry, a former NCAA executive and now a sports consultant, about what the change would mean for the women's game—and its fans.
You can read more about the issue in Mickey's story in this week's IBJ.
Looking for another podcast to try? Check out IBJ's The Freedom Forum with Angela B. Freeman, a monthly discussion about diversity and inclusion in central Indiana's business community.
Riley Hospital for Children is preparing to unveil its $142 million maternity center—five floors of renovated space that will house labor and delivery rooms, intensive-care-unit rooms, emergency and triage rooms, operating rooms, and infant-resuscitation rooms.
It's a new direction for Riley, which has traditionally served sick children and babies who need special care. But Indiana University Health is now moving its well-baby maternity services from Methodist Hospital to Riley, giving moms and their babies one place to receive all the care they need.
IBJ health reporter John Russell toured the facility and talked with host Mason King about what he saw and how the tower fits into the increasingly competitive business of maternity care.
You can read more about the maternity tower in John's story here.
Some 11.5 million Americans quit their jobs in April, May and June, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. And a recent Gallup poll found that nearly half of all workers are actively searching for other work.
It's part of what's become known as the Great Resignation—and if you're a manager, you might be wondering whether there's anything you can do to keep your employees on the job.
Host Mason King talks with IBJ workplace columnists Garrett Mintz, founder of consulting firm Ambition in Motion, and Mandy Haskett, a leadership consultant at Carmel-based Advisa, about the trend and how companies can engage with workers in a way that encourages them to stay.
You can read IBJ's weekly workplace column here.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by First Person Advisors, a subsidiary of NFP.
Podcast host Mason King recently used an online calculator to estimate what it might cost to send his 5-year-old son to college someday—and the answer shocked him.
So he's talking with Peter "Pete the Planner" Dunn this week about when parents need to start saving, what savings vehicles to use and whether parents should go into debt to fund their kids' education.
The IBJ podcast is brought to you by First Person Advisors, a subsidiary of NFP.
Dale Neuburger is a former president of the Indiana Sports Corp. and treasurer of FINA, the International Federation for Aquatics.
He spent several weeks in Japan for the Olympic Games, where he served as the International Olympic Committee’s competition director for swimming, with additional responsibilities for diving, water polo, artistic swimming and open-water swimming.
IBJ sports business reporter Mickey Shuey talked with Dale about his experiences in Tokyo and what Indiana can learn from them.
You can read a column written by Dale in this week's IBJ.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by First Person Advisors, a subsidiary of NFP.
IBJ Media’s recent acquisition of competitor Grow Indiana Media Ventures and the Inside INdiana Business and Inside Edge multimedia platforms raises a series of questions, starting with the extent to which the state’s two biggest business news brands actually overlap. Some see the deal as a combination of complementary businesses with different audiences, but the irony of the acquisition is that one is often mistaken for the other in central Indiana.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, IBJ Media CEO and co-owner Nate Feltman joins Gerry Dick, formerly the owner of Grow Indiana and now president of the new Inside INdiana Business division of IBJ Media, to break down what the deal means for subscribers, other news consumers and the business community in general. They push back on any suggestion that this is yet another example of media consolidation, promising that this will lead to wider and deeper coverage of business around the state that preserves the Inside INdiana Business brand and perspective. At the same time, the deal gives IBJ the ability to make a strong push into new mediums and grow outside the Indy area.
Feltman and Dick tell host Mason King that they foresee very few changes in the two brands’ editorial output and products in the near term. But how might IBJ influence Inside INdiana Business, and vice versa? How much will one bleed into the other? Are there any redundancies between the two businesses? How big is IBJ Media now? How closely will the teams be working? They address these questions here.
Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears told IBJ last week that he hasn't decided whether his office will move to the new Community Justice Campus, which remains under construction in the Twin Aire neighborhood.
The office was expected to be part of a second office building that Browning Investments planned to build at the site to complement a jail, Sheriff's Office and court system that will be moving to the campus at the end of the year.
Host Mason King talks with IBJ reporters Leslie Bonilla Muñiz and Mickey Shuey about their reporting on the topic, including the reasons Mears gave for his hesitancy and why the mayor wants the prosecutor at the campus.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Resultant, formerly KSM Consulting.
It was about six years ago when Indianapolis arts organization Big Car bought an old factory in the Garfield Park neighborhood and started working on a plan to create an arts campus there.
Fast forward to today and the group owns the Tube Factory Artspace in that former factory, an audio art space that houses a radio station, nine houses it has renovated for artists and another factory—this one 40,000 square feet—that it is starting to renovate. Plus, it's creating a public green space between the buildings.
Host Mason King talks with Big Car CEO Jim Walker about the vision, what the project means for the neighborhood and how the group is trying to ensure artists aren't eventually priced out of being there.
You can read more about Big Car's Garfield Park project in this story by IBJ reporter Susan Orr.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Resultant, formerly KSM Consulting.
At emergency rooms across central Indiana, “No Vacancy” signs are flashing at unprecedented rates. Emergency rooms are often overflowing with patients, prompting hospitals to divert ambulances to other hospitals for hours at a stretch, provided the cases aren’t life-threatening. On July 26, for example, at least 10 large hospitals in central Indiana went on diversion at some point, causing ambulance drivers to look high and low for a place to take their patients.
In the latest edition of the IBJ Podcast, reporter John Russell explains that this is the latest indication that local and area hospitals are struggling with a growing nursing shortage and, to a lesser extent, that the pandemic is roaring back to life.
Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to pin hospitals down on just how often this has been happening. No federal or state agency tracks ambulance diversions or requires the hospitals to report it, so the fine details are closely guarded secrets.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Resultant, formerly KSM Consulting.
While intense heat waves and wildfires scorch the Western U.S. and freak rainstorms spawn massive floods in Europe and China, the weather in central Indiana has been fairly tame so far this year.
Indeed, Indiana very well could sidestep some of the most extreme effects of climate change, but don’t get lulled into complacency, says Jeffrey Dukes, director of the Purdue Climate Change Research Center and a professor of forestry and natural resources.
Indiana’s weather already has been altered by man-made climate change, and the effects could be significantly more intense in coming decades, Dukes says. Since 1895, Indiana’s statewide annual average temperature has risen by 1.3°F, and some models show it rising another 5°F by mid-century. Winters will be shorter and the number of days above 95°F could rise by dozens per year.
The state also is getting wetter. Since 1895, average annual precipitation in Indiana has increased by about 15%, or about 5.6 inches. Models show winters and springs are likely to be much wetter by mid-century. Heavy rain events will increase flooding risks and increase the amount of pollutants washing into waterways from city streets and farm fields.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Dukes explains to host Mason King how these changes will impact our day-to-day lives and some of the state’s most important industries, such as agriculture, energy and tourism and recreation.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Resultant, formerly KSM Consulting.
Indy Chamber last month was recognized by its peers for work it has been doing that's not quite typical of chambers of commerce nationwide.
The group won the 2021 Chamber of the Year award from an association that represents 1,600 chambers and economic development organizations. And it earned the honor for the work it has done on inclusive growth—primarily a rework of the city's economic incentives program—and for the Rapid Response Hub it deployed during the pandemic.
Guest host Lesley Weidenbener interviews Indy Chamber CEO Michael Huber and the group's director of economic development, Vincent Ash, about the programs and the honor.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Resultant, formerly KSM Consulting.
The pandemic wreaked havoc on the hospitality industry in Indianapolis and across the nation.
Still, IBJ reporter Mickey Shuey finds that many of the hotels in the planning stages for downtown Indianapolis before the pandemic are still moving forward today. In fact, three hotels have opened since COVID-19 struck the state in March 2020.
Host Mason King chats with Shuey about the state of the hotel industry in Indy and which projects are completed, underway and on hold.
For more, read Shuey's story detailing the city's downtown hotel pipeline.
The IBJ podcast is brought to you by First Person Advisors, a subsidiary of NFP.
Host Mason King and the folks in the Midtown Parents Facebook Group in Indianapolis have a lot of questions about money—specifically how they should be saving it for retirement and college.
Should homeowners pay off a mortgage early? How do you plan for the future when one partner in a relationship is significantly older than the other? Should you prioritize retirement savings over college savings for your kids?
So Mason asked IBJ personal finance columnist Peter "Pete the Planner" Dunn to come on the podcast to get some answers to those questions and others.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by First Person Advisors, a subsidiary of NFP.
Drag racer Antron Brown of Pittsboro has won three NHRA championships in his 14 years in the sport, but he may be about to take on his biggest challenge yet: racing team owner.
Next year, Brown will become one of the few Black team owners ever in the 70-year-old NHRA— and one of the few Black majority team owners in any motorsports series. He will be the only Black owner in the modern era of Top Fuel or Funny Car racing.
Brown talks with host Mason King about why he decided to make the move, what it will cost (hint: a lot) and why the sport is more diverse than you might think.
For more, read this profile of Brown by former IBJ reporter Anthony Schoettle.
The IBJ podcast is brought to you by First Person Advisors, a subsidiary of NFP.
If you've ever been inside the historic Chatterbox Jazz Club on Massachusetts Avenue downtown, you have a pretty good idea why it didn't reopen at 50% or even 75% capacity.
It's so tiny, the restrictions would have meant only about 20 patrons could be inside at any given time. And owner David Andrichik said that's a recipe for losing more money than being closed completely.
But now that Marion County health officials have eliminated all pandemic restrictions, the Chatterbox is about to reopen for the first time in more than 15 months.
Andrichik talks with podcast Mason King about what it will take to reopen the bar, what the closure has cost him and what he's been thinking about while he's been waiting.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by First Person Advisors, a subsidiary of NFP.
The Sweets & Snacks Expo, hosted by the National Confectioners Association, is typically held in Chicago. But when the Windy City wasn't yet recovered enough from the pandemic to host this year's event, the group decided to come to Indianapolis.
IBJ reporter Mickey Shuey talks with John Downs, the CEO of the association, to find out how the group decided to become one of the first trade shows to meet in person again and why it picked Indianapolis to host the show.
Shuey asks about the group's experience in Indy and whether it might return.
You can also read a column by Downs at IBJ.com.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Resultant, formerly KSM Consulting.
In the mood for some barbecue? Or maybe some poke? A peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Or maybe just a cold beer?
It's all available at the AMP food hall at the 16 Tech Innovation District on the northwest edge of downtown. And Chef Craig Baker is the coordinator who has has helped make it all happen.
He crafted the overall feel of the 40,000-square-foot space in the HqO building at 1220 Waterway Blvd., which includes shipping containers and booths for each restaurant and retailer. But each of the eateries is responsible for their space, creating a eclectic spot for lunch or an event.
Baker talked with host Mason King about how the space came together—and why, for him, success will be when some of those same eateries grow up and move out.
For more about what's opening this month at the AMP, check out this story by reporter Susan Orr.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Resultant, formerly KSM Consulting.
The Newfields board last month elected Darrianne Christian as its new chair, making her the first Black woman to lead the museum's board.
Christian was already serving on the board in February when the Newfields president resigned following allegations of racial bias. Christian, who was then the board's only African American member, led the effort to develop the institution's new plan to embrace diversity, equity, inclusion and access.
Christian talks with host Mason King about what the museum is doing to get past the controversy and how her background growing up in poverty is helping her move Newfields in new directions.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Resultant, formerly KSM Consulting.
Peter "Pete the Planner" Dunn says most people need a financial adviser at some point in their lives to make sense of their investments, insurance, retirement accounts and more.
But as host Mason King has experienced, figuring out what type of adviser to hire and then which one to hire can be tough. So Dunn explains what to look for and how to choose.
You can read more financial advice from Dunn at IBJ.com.
Chris Baggott is always looking for a better way to do things. He co-founded ExactTarget when he couldn't find a good way to communicate with customers. He co-founded Compendium Software to give companies a better way to rank high in internet search results. And he founded ClusterTruck to get prepared food to customers while it was still hot and fresh.
In each case, Baggott has helped disrupt established industries, although he acknowledges it's not always because he was first to an idea.
Baggott talks with host Mason King about what makes an idea disruptive and explains why it's so much easier for startups—rather than established companies—to come up with those innovations.
The podcast is part of IBJ's larger look at disruption in this year's Innovation Issue, which includes a story by Anthony Schoettle about Baggott and other local disrupters.
Republican. Sen. Todd Young of Indiana and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, introduced the Endless Frontier Act this spring with the goal of pumping more than $110 billion over five years into scientific and technological innovation.
That includes a $10 billion effort to create tech hubs across the U.S., focusing on areas outside of the traditional tech centers like Silicon Valley, Seattle and Boston.
Sen. Young is on today’s podcast to talk about the legislation. Then we talked with David Johnson, the president and CEO of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership about what it could mean for Indiana. You can read a column Johnson wrote about the Endless Frontier Act at IBJ.com.
One note: After our interview with Sen. Young, Sen. Schumer announced he would expand and rename the legislation to the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act.
As more Hoosiers become fully vaccinated, restaurants and bars are filling up again. But restaurant operators say finding workers to serve all those customers. has been a struggle.
Are some people afraid to return to work at such public places? Are the increases in unemployment benefits to blame? Have former restaurant workers given up on the industry and found positions elsewhere?
Host Mason King talks with two restauranteurs—Loughmiller's Pub & Eatery co-owner Danny Scotten and Upland Brewing Co. President David Bower—about how the labor crunch is affecting their eateries and what they're doing to try to find workers.
For more about this issue, read reporter Kurt Christian's story at IBJ.com.
Sales of grills, patio furniture, fire pits and other outdoor goods skyrocketed last spring and summer as the pandemic forced people to stay at home.
So a big question for this spring—as vaccinated people started venturing out again—was whether that trend would continue. Local garden and outdoor venture retailers say it has. In fact, they say sales of some products, like outdoor furniture, have been even hotter, which is just one of several reasons many outdoor goods have been hard to come by.
Host Mason King talks with two of those retailers—Scott Horvath, owner of Omalia’s Living, and Pat Sullivan, who owns owner of three Sullivan’s Hardware & Garden stores plus Allisonville Home & Garden by Sullivan.
They explain the supply chain issues that are causing a shortage of bigger-ticket items like fire pits and furniture and smaller, everyday products like watering wands and garden hoses.
For more about the trends, check out Kurt Christian's store at IBJ.com.
The U.S. economy is on the verge of potentially the greatest boom time of all time, according to Peter “Pete the Planner” Dunn. It will be fueled at least in part by the enhanced child tax credit, which is part of the American Rescue Plan stimulus package.
In essence, the child tax credit that parents get every year will increase to $3,000 to $3,600 per child for 2021, depending on the age of each child. And the government is going to give taxpayers half of it in cash in installments over the last six months of the year.
But Dunn also is concerned that as the economy improves and taxpayers start to feel their stimulus payments since the beginning of the pandemic burn holes in their pockets, they will fall into a financial trap. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Dunn discusses with host Mason King the risks in recalibrating your spending habits during a boom with artificial income.
Indiana University didn't just hire former Hoosiers standout Mike Woodson to turn around the school's struggling basketball program; it also brought reinforcements. Thad Matta and Dane Fife are joining Woodson in the effort to bring glory back to IU.
Mason King talks with IBJ reporter Anthony Schoettle about why IU Athletic Director Scott Dolson put together the team he did and how the strategy could get big-money donors excited again.
It's all about bringing different generations of IU fans back into the fold.
To read more about Dolson's effort, check out Anthony's story at IBJ.com.
Thousands of Hoosier adults are receiving COVID vaccines every day in Indiana. But none of the shots are available to kids younger than 16.
So what does that mean for family gatherings? For cookouts and other outdoor activities? And what about youth sports?
Host Mason King poses those questions and many more to Dr. James Wood, a pediatrician at Riley Children’s Health and an expert in pediatric infectious diseases. Dr. Wood offers practical advice for traveling, entertaining and other activities when parents are vaccinated and kids aren't.
By some measures—like the percentage of doses that have gone into arms—Indiana's vaccine rollout has been better than average. But because the state hasn't received as many doses as others, the percentage of Hoosiers who are fully vaccinated trails much of the country.
IBJ health care reporter John Russell dives into the numbers with host Mason King, and they explore how soon herd immunity might stop the pandemic.
Read John Russell's story about the state's vaccination efforts here.
When the pandemic hit one year ago, Sun King almost immediately lost some 40% of its business, the result of restaurants and bars that shuttered and stopped buying beer in kegs.
It would have been a catastrophe had canned beer sales not picked up fairly quickly, leaving Sun King and other breweries to scramble to shift work. An eventual can shortage caused more problems.
But Sun King co-founder Clay Robinson tells podcast host Mason King how the company and its employees adapted to put the company in better position now than it was before the pandemic.
To read more about how other Indiana breweries managed, read IBJ reporter Susan Orr's story at IBJ.com.
The pandemic has been tough on restaurants almost across the board. And so it's no wonder that the Indianapolis City Market and its 22 vendors have had a particularly difficult past year.
And with uncertainty about the return of downtown office workers, construction outside its front door and new competition at Bottleworks and 16 Tech, it's not clear when—or if— the situation will improve.
But a new director and a group of resilient vendors say new events and a focus on residential developments nearby should help them not only survive but thrive.
To learn more about the market, read IBJ reporter Susan Orr's story here.
CBS and Turner Sports will pay the not-for-profit NCAA some $850 million this year for the right to broadcast, stream and otherwise present the Men's Basketball Tournament. That will equal about 70% of the organization's revenue for the year.
IBJ columnist and investigative reporter Greg Andrews explains why the rights to March Madness is so valuable even as the media landscape changes quickly. And he tells host Mason King why it's unlikely that the NCAA or its broadcast partners will want to renegotiate the deal—which runs through 2032.
You could read more details about the NCAA's contract and see a breakdown of the value of the contract by year in Andrews' story in this week's IBJ.
One year after the pandemic hit Indiana, three women talk about how it has affected their jobs and how that has affected their psyches.
Kelly Tingle, who kept her job in internal communications at Cummins Inc. but had to adjust to working at home; Lisette Woloszyk, who lost her job at the J.W. Marriott but has since found a new one; and Andrea Haydon, who has started her own design firm after being laid off from Ratio Design, talk with host Mason King about their anxieties, their fears and their hope about the future.
The women were among 11 central Indiana residents IBJ profiled in last week's issue. You can see all the profiles here.
From left to right: Andrea Haydon; Kelly Tingle and her daughter, Elena; and Lisette Woloszyk
After a long year crushed by the pandemic, restaurants—especially those located downtown—are reveling in a series of announcements that could help push their recoveries forward.
First, the NCAA announced it would stage its entire March Madness men's basketball tournament in central Indiana. Then, the Indy-based organization said it would allow a limited number of fans to attend. And finally, the Marion County Health Department increased the capacity limits for bars and restaurants.
So host Mason King talked with Mike Cranfill, co-owner of The District Tap, and Mike Cunningham, owner of Cunningham Group, which owns 35 restaurants with plans to open several more soon, about what the NCAA tournament will mean for them.
Plus, the restaurateurs catch us up on how they've fared throughout the past year.
You can read more about the projected impact of the NCAA tournament on restaurants in a story by IBJ reporter Susan Orr. Plus, check out all of IBJ's NCAA tournament coverage at The Rebound.
When Salesforce announced that, even after the pandemic, it planned to let many employees work from home most of the time, a ripple of dread spread across downtown. After all, some 2,000 Salesforce employees worked downtown before COVID struck, patronizing restaurants and retailers.
Other companies have indicated that they, too, plan to reevaluate how many people need to work in an office, and therefore, how much office space they actually need.
It's too soon to know for sure how many downtown workers might not be back. But to try to get a handle on the possibilities, host Mason King talks with IBJ real estate reporter Mickey Shuey about what he's hearing on the street.
Plus, Mason talks with Adam Broderick, managing broker for the Indianapolis office of Chicago-based JLL, about how the market is shifting as well as restauranteur Ed Rudisell about what that could mean for businesses that depend on downtown workers.
You can read more in Shuey's story at IBJ.com.
More than 60 business and not-for-profit executives have signed a letter telling lawmakers to back off proposals that would restrict or usurp power from city government in Indianapolis.
Leaders from Eli Lilly and Co., Elanco Animal Health, Roche Diagnostics, Anthem Inc., Salesforce and Cummins Inc. are among those who endorsed the message that city government should be allowed to make decisions affecting the city.
The letter was a reaction to separate bills that would strip the mayor of authority to oversee the police department, ban the city from regulating landlord/tenant relations, withhold tax revenue from the IndyGo bus system and more.
Host Mason King talks with Indy Chamber CEO Michael Huber and Jobvite CEO Aman Brar about why each signed the letter and what they want to see the General Assembly do now.
Click here to see the letter. You can also learn more from this story by IBJ reporter Lindsey Erdody.
The city and several community organizations are launching clean-up efforts, street upgrades and art projects to beautify downtown and nearby areas in advance of the NCAA tournament in March.
Similar beautification efforts have accompanied other big events, including the Super Bowl and past NCAA Final Fours, but this year is different. Downtown still shows signs of the violence that spilled over from racial protests last May and the pandemic has left more storefronts and restaurant spaces empty.
So host Mason King talks with Downtown Indy Inc.'s Bob Schultz, Keep Indianapolis Beautiful's Jeremy Kranowitz and the Arts Council of Indianapolis' Julie Goodman about the projects and cleanups they have planned.
To learn more, read IBJ reporter Mickey Shuey's story about beautifying downtown and then read about the grant the Lilly Endowment is making fuel the efforts.
Twenty-eight years ago, developer Turner Woodard bought the historic Stutz factory complex, which was built in 1911-1912 by Harry Stutz, who founded the Stutz Motorcar Co.
The 400,000-square-foot factory at 10th Street and Capitol Avenue produced cars until 1935, when the Great Depression forced the company to close. Eli Lilly and Co. then used the site for manufacturing.
When Woodard got his hands on it, the complex had been vacant for a decade—but he had a vision to bring it back to life, create a place for companies seeking a creative space and celebrate its auto industry history. And over the years, that vision has made the Stutz a home to artist studios, tech startups and even small manufacturers.
Last week, Woodard announced he had sold majority interest in the complex to real estate investment firm SomeraRoad Inc., although Woodard and his son have retained a minority interest.
Woodard talked to host Mason King about his adventure restoring the Stutz, about his decision to sell a majority share and what the new owners have in store for the building.
You can also read more about the sale in this story from IBJ's Susan Orr.
In this week's podcast, Peter "Pete the Planner" Dunn says parents aren't doing their adult kids any favors when they share details about their net worth or finances. In fact, doing so can cause far more problems than it solves.
Dunn explores these problems with podcast host Mason King and gives some advice about what money issues are appropriate to talk about with your adult kids. Hint: Stay away from the dollar signs!
You can read Dunn's column about the issue—and all of his other IBJ columns—by clicking here.
After decades working in car sales, Cole Keesling knows what buyers want and how dealerships work.
So he created a website an app called CarSnoop that helps connect buyers and sellers in a way that helps both.
Keesling talks with host Mason King about how he developed the idea, what it took to go from concept to product and the marketing push CarSnoop has underway.
Want to learn more? Read IBJ reporter Anthony Schoettle's story about CarSnoop at IBJ.com.
The NCAA made it official last week: Indianapolis will host the entire March Madness men's basketball tournament this spring.
That's every team. Every game. With the goal of creating a coronavirus-free zone for players, team staffs, officials and a few hundred family members who will be allowed to attend each game.
The logistics needed to pull this off are incredible. But Indianapolis officials tell IBJ reporter Mickey Shuey they are up to the task. So podcast host Mason King talks with Shuey about what he's learned and what's left to figure out.
To learn more, check out Mickey's story about the city's plans for the tournament here.
COVID-19 vaccinations are underway, with tens of thousands of shots administered here in Indiana.
But how many doses are available and who is receiving them? And of course, the question on many people’s minds: When can I get a vaccine? Or when can my parents get one?
IBJ reporter John Russell has been looking for answers. So we invited him onto the podcast to tell us what he’s learned.
(Vaccine photo by Ricky Carioti, The Washington Post)
In a discombobulating year that has turned everything from the world economy to a simple trip to visit your relatives upside down, it’s not particularly important that many college football teams were able to eke out a full season—but it was an impressive feat nonetheless. And no team was more surprising than the Indiana University Hoosiers.
Although the team clearly was on an upward trajectory under fourth-year coach Tom Allen, its ascension to the nation’s top 10 with a 6-1 record in the Big Ten was almost surreal. The good news for IU: The team has booked the Outback Bowl on Jan. 2 with Ole Miss. The bad news: Allen is one of the hottest coaches in the nation and is being pursued by upper-echelon schools with plenty of resources.
This is an unusual position for a program that historically has been the Big Ten’s doormat, at least in part because it hasn’t made the necessary investments in football. In this week’s edition of The IBJ Podcast, host Mason King and longtime sports reporter Anthony Schoettle discuss IU’s prospects for keeping Allen, factoring in his contract buyout clause, his stated loyalty to the program and IU’s new philosophy on investing in gridiron success. Unfortunately, as Schoettle points out, IU needs Tom Allen right now a lot more than Tom Allen needs IU.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Lawmakers are required to do just two things in 2021—pass a budget to take effect on July 1 and redraw legislative and congressional district maps based on Census data that will be released later this year.
The former occurs every two years; the latter every 10. But it's the budget that is likely to give lawmakers the most fits. After all, the state took in $1.4 billion less in tax revenue than they expected during the fiscal year that ended June 30, the result of slowed economic activity and high unemployment due to the pandemic.
And they don't know yet what revenue will look like in 2021 and beyond.
To find out what to expect, host Mason King talks with IBJ Statehouse reporter Lindsey Erdody about what legislative leaders are saying about the budget, which state programs could be on the chopping block and what spending the Republican-majority will prioritize.
Click here to follow Lindsey's coverage of the General Assembly and read her previews of the legislative session.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
When not-for-profits started filling your inbox with requests for donations on Giving Tuesday last week, did you respond to any of them? If so, was your contribution part of a larger plan for giving? Or were you moved by a particular message and donated on the spot? And does it matter?
Giving — and how it fits into your larger financial planning — is the subject of this week's podcast with Peter "Pete the Planner" Dunn.
Host Mason King peppers Pete with questions about whether it's better to give one or two big gifts a year, as opposed to a bunch of smaller ones; how much is the right amount to give overall (or even whether there is a "right" number); and how you choose what organizations to invest your dollars in.
And Pete explains what's changing about his giving strategy this year.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Bloomington-based Cook Medical announced last week that it will invest $7 million to help build a $15 million medical device manufacturing facility at 38th Street and Sheridan Avenue that is expected to be transformational for the lower-income neighborhood on the northeast side of Indianapolis.
Cook has partnered with Goodwill of Central & Southern Indiana, The Indianapolis Foundation, Impact Central Indiana and the United Northeast Community Development Corp. to build the facility and hire 100 employees for jobs expected to pay an average hourly wage of $16 plus benefits.
Goodwill will operate the plant with the goal of hiring workers from the neighborhood—and will provide key wrap-around services to ensure those workers and their families have the food, housing and education they need to succeed.
Podcast host Mason King talked with Pete Yonkman, president of Cook Group and Cook Medical, and Ashley Gurvitz, executive director of United Northeast Community Development Corp., about the project and what it could mean for the neighborhood. And Yonkman explains why Cook is urging other companies to make similar moves.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
The NCAA announced last week that it is in negotiations with local officials to hold its entire March Madness tournament—not just the Final Four, but every single game of the event—in Indianapolis this spring.
It's part of an effort to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the teams participates and the officials who are involved. The tournament would be treated as a virus-free bubble, similar to the way the NBA operated in Orlando.
So what would that mean for Indianapolis? And can the city pull it off?
To find out, podcast host Mason King talked with IBJ reporter Mickey Shuey, who has been covering the story, as well as Mark Ganis, co-founder of Chicago-based Sportscorp. Ltd., and Larry DeGaris, a University of Indianapolis professor and sports marketing consultant. They explain why Indianapolis is such a good candidate to take on the event and what challenges lie ahead.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Dozens of organizations and governmental agencies across central Indiana are trying to address hunger and food insecurity.
Schools provide meals to students. The federal government sends food assistance to low-income Hoosiers. Not-for-profits as big as Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana and as small as church food pantries are trying to make sure families have enough to eat.
Enter a new effort—Food Secure Indy.
But this group won't distribute food or build grocery stores or dig community gardens. Instead, the coalition of Indy companies, government leaders and not-for-groups will work to coordinate existing services. And by doing so, it hopes to The goal is to provide an additional 740,000 meals a month in Marion County on a regular basis by 2023.
Podcast host Mason King talks with Margie Craft, a senior adviser at Elanco (the lead company in the coalition) and the project lead for Food Secure Indy about the effort and what it will take to be successful.
To learn more, read reporter John Russell's story about Food Secure Indy and the hunger problem in Indianapolis.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
In a state that routinely rewards Republican candidates, Democrats were expected to have a somewhat breakthrough year here.
Sure, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Dr. Woody Myers, wasn't expected to do well. But in the 5th Congressional District, Democrats had high hope for Christina Hale in a race against Republican Victoria Spartz. And they spent heavily in an attempt to knock off several GOP lawmakers in Hamilton County.
But Republicans swept all of those races and many others, actually strengthening their hold at the Statehouse.
So podcast host Mason King talked with University of Indianapolis political science professor Laura Merrifield Wilson and IBJ political reporter Lindsey Erdody about the messages Indiana voters sent at the polls.
For more politics news, check out IBJ stories here and sign up for Erdody's award-winning newsletter, "The Rundown."
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
If you think saving effectively for retirement simply means knowing the total amount of money you need on the day you tell your boss sayonara, you've only done part of the calculation.
After all, "knowing" that number — which is really a misnomer, given that almost none of us know how long we're actually going to live in retirement — doesn't tell you anything about how to get to the number.
That's why Peter "Pete the Planner" Dunn says the most important thing to know is how much you need to save every month to reach a total number that seems reasonable for retirement.
"It's the only prudent number to think about because it leads to action," Dunn tells IBJ Podcast host Mason King.
Dunn also wrote about the issue in last week's IBJ.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Artists of all kinds have been hit hard by the pandemic. The theaters, galleries, concert halls and other venues that share their work closed in the spring and at least part of the summer.
Many performing arts groups canceled their 2020-21 seasons altogether, while others are going virtual.
Yet, the social justice movement that erupted this summer and even the pain caused by the pandemic have provided new opportunities and inspiration for many artists.
So podcast host Mason King talked with Julie Goodman, president and CEO of the Arts Council of Indianapolis, about the group's fundraising efforts and grant programs meant to sustain artists and arts groups.
Rebecca Robinson, a visual artist and one of the painters on the Black Lives Matter street mural this summer, and Andrew Elliot, a makeup artist and musician, also join the conversation to talk about their personal pandemic experiences.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Back in March, as the pandemic was unfolding in Indiana, podcast host Mason King talked with Eddie Sahm, who owns the Sahm's restaurant group with his father. At the time, Eddie talked about the company's pivot to providing meals to Second Helpings, in part to keep their staff employed, and converting some of the restaurant to marketplaces.
Six months later, King catches up with Eddie about which Sahm's restaurants have survived, how business is going overall and how worried he is about the coming cold weather, which will end patio seating.
There's one thing Eddie is certain about: Without more government assistance, a large percentage of local restaurants will close. And that, he said, won't be good for the community.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Election Day is just weeks away and, already, thousands of Hoosiers are voting early in person and through mail-in absentee ballots.
So podcast host Mason King talks with IBJ politics reporter Lindsey Erdody and Andy Downs, director of the Mike Downs Center for Indiana Politics at Purdue University-Fort Wayne, about how the races are shaping up.
They break down battles for the Governors' Office and the 5th Congressional District and evaluate the vice presidential debate. Plus, they consider the impact of early voting and what mail-in ballots will mean for how quickly the votes are counted.
To learn more, click here to sign up for Lindsey's weekly politics email, called The Rundown.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Does Indianapolis need a new vision? A new strategy for its economic development, talent attraction and overall economy that will take the city into the next 40 or 50 years?
A growing chorus of community and business leaders are saying yes, says Nate Feltman, co-owner and CEO of IBJ.
He says the city's long-time strategy related to conventions and sports will continue to be a part of its strengths and successes. But he tells podcast host Mason King that a changing economy and the changing preferences of young workers and families means Indianapolis must find a new way to grow and thrive.
He's calling on young leaders from across the city to step forward with ideas. And he says IBJ can help play a role in hosting those conversations.
Plus, Feltman provides an update on how IBJ is doing during the pandemic and what he sees as the news organization's future.
Read more in Feltman's column at IBJ.com.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
When the pandemic hit and the Big Ten and NCAA last spring began canceling sports events — many of them planned for Indianapolis — the Indiana Sports Corp. didn't go into hibernation. Instead, it went to work, trying to figure out how to be a player in whatever the sports world would become.
The result is an idea that appears to have captured the fancy of a number of colleges and athletic conferences — although it's too soon to know whether any of them will take Indy up on the idea. The Indiana Sports Corp. is proposing to create a basketball bubble at the Indiana Convention Center by turning exhibit halls and meeting rooms into basketball courts and locker rooms. There would be expansive safety measures and daily COVID-19 testing.
Indiana Sports Corp. President Ryan Vaughn talks to host Mason King about the proposal, as well as the group's finances and plans as it prepares to host major events in the coming months.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Since the pandemic began, Peter "Pete the Planner" Dunn has been talking on the IBJ Podcast and writing in the pages of IBJ about the need to get your discretionary spending under control to deal with the current economic downturn.
But now, Pete has a new message to those who are stable: Spend some money at your favorite restaurant.
We all know that restaurants have been devastated by the pandemic. Some have closed, and Pete predicts more are about to shutter. So he suggests determining how much you can afford to help and then spending that cash at two or three restaurants that are meaningful to you.
You can read more details about Pete's plan to save restaurants at IBJ.com.
Plus, in the second half of the podcast, host Mason King shoots a rapid series of questions at Pete about paying off your house early, dumping bad investments, switching careers and more.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
When Katara McCarty sees a need, she tries to find a solution. That's what led McCarty and her husband to start a church, a center for kids and a school in Africa.
Now, McCarty has a new project—a smart phone app called Exhale that is meant to help women of color cope with the stress, mind their mental health and develop confidence to achieve their goals.
McCarty talks with IBJ reporter Anthony Schoettle about why she thinks the app is needed, what it took to launch it and how she hopes to expand its offerings.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
IBJ health reporter John Russell has been covering Indiana University Health's plans to expand the Methodist Hospital campus by eight blocks, or 44 acres, anchored by a new $1.6 billion hospital.
The campus also will consolidate the operations of University Hospital, the Simon Cancer Center and much of the IU School of Medicine, all of which will move from the IUPUI campus.
Russell joins podcast host Mason King to talk about what IU Health has revealed about the campus—and what key questions remain.
You can also read Russell's latest story about why the Simon Cancer Center building will be closing, just a dozen years after it opened to significant fanfare.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
The pandemic has been a boon for the home design and renovation industry, as many people scramble to create office space, improve their yards and make other changes to make life in quarantine more acceptable.
So podcast host Mason King talks to three industry experts about what clients now want, how the pandemic has affected their companies and how they work safely in clients’ homes. They are: interior designer Heidi Woodman, owner of Haus Love Interiors; Matt Troyer, owner of Emergent Construction; and Patrick Kestner, owner and principal architect of Still Architecture + Design.
They also talk about the latest trends, including larger kitchens, more color and dedicated pantry spaces.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Six months into the pandemic, parents are still struggling with what COVID-19 means for the kids. Should they be in school? Can they go on play dates? Can they hug grandma?
Of course, in many cases, there are no black and white answers to those questions. But host Mason King gets some educated opinions from Dr. James Wood, a pediatrician at Riley Children's Health and an expert in pediatric infectious diseases.
Plus, Wood explains multi system inflammatory syndrome (which he describes as "extremely rare") and theorizes why children may not be as affected by COVID-19 as adults.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
As the pandemic has stretched into months and the days seem to melt into each other, a vast majority of remote workers are burning out, according to a recent survey from Monster.com. At the very least, many are mired in remote working ruts. And the volume of boring and unnecessary video meetings just makes it worse.
As some workforces face at least several more months of working from home, burnout threatens to become a dire business problem. But is this as good as it’s going to get? And what can we do to improve Zoom calls?
Surely there are ways to tighten focus and become more productive, while keeping jobs from seeping further into home lives. And the answer requires help from managers, some of whom haven’t figured out how managing a virtual workforce is a different from supervising on-site employees.
For the latest edition of The IBJ Podcast, host Mason King spoke with three experts in remote working who have been watching the transition during the pandemic. They provide concrete suggestions for how employees and bosses can get on top of these challenges. First up are Kim and Todd Saxton, faculty members of the IU Kelley School of Business at IUPUI. The second guest is Karen Mangia, vice president of customer and market insights for Salesforce out of its Indianapolis office.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
The pandemic has raised all kinds of new questions about college and student loans—and the value of an online education versus attending in person.
Plus, what do you do if you graduated in May and still don't have a job?
Host Mason King explores those issues and more with IBJ columnist Peter "Pete the Planner" Dunn.
Also, read Dunn's latest column here.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Windsor Jewelry, located just south of the Circle on Meridian Street, was one of the businesses hardest hit by the riots that followed Black Lives Matter protests at the end of May.
The vandalism and looting came just days after Windsor Jewelry reopened following the pandemic shutdown.
The store is open again now, and the owner, Greg Bires, talked with podcast host Mason King about the one-two punch of the pandemic and violence and what it will take for Windsor and for downtown to recover.
Plus, hear from Mayor Joe Hogsett, who spoke to IBJ's editorial board last month about some of the very problems Bires is concerned about for downtown.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Diana Brugh is a microbiologist with experience working with bacteria- and virus-killing ultraviolet lights. Her husband, Jason Brugh, is one of the state’s foremost robotics experts. And together, they've created a coronavirus-killing robot that they've just moved into the market.
UVNinja Lux is the first product from the couple's newest company, AutoBio Reduction. It moves around a workplace (after mapping the space) and uses ultraviolet let to kill bacteria and viruses.
Diana and Jason talks with podcast host Mason King about how they were able develop the product in just weeks, what it has been like working together, and what the robot costs. Plus, Diana explains her family's experience with the coronavirus that helped motivate the project.
To learn more, check out IBJ reporter Anthony Schoettle's story about AutoBio Reduction.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Dr. Virginia Caine has been in charge of the Marion County Public Health Department since 1994. Over her tenure she has fought waves of public health crises including HIV and AIDS, the H1N1 pandemic in 2009 and the ongoing scourge of black infant mortality. But never has she taken such a visible and constant public role of authority as she has over the last five months of the coronavirus crisis. For Indianapolis, she is as one of the key interpreters of data, prime shapers of policy and chief evangelizers for protective measures.
IBJ reporter Lindsey Erdody interviewed Dr. Caine last week about the frustrations and challenges of tackling the pandemic. Caine addresses the current state of local testing and contact tracing. She explains the reasoning behind the recent mask mandate and when it will be possible to make a call on running the Indianapolis 500. And she has an emphatic message for Marion Country residents who might not see the wisdom of following public health recommendations.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Before the pandemic hit Indianapolis in March, some 155,000 people were working regularly downtown. In the weeks after Gov. Eric Holcomb ordered all non-essential workers to go home, just 5% or so of those workers remained. Essentially, the Mile Square became a ghost town.
Today, some of those workers are returning. Many restaurants are open again. And a few offices are open.
But IBJ reporters Samm Quinn and Anthony Schoettle spent a week talking with the leaders of downtown companies and learned that many are delaying plans to bring workers back to the office.
What are the ramifications for downtown? That's the subject of this week's podcast.
Want to know more? See Quinn and Schoettle's story at IBJ.com.
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The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
It's been nearly four months since host Mason King sat down with Peter "Pete the Planner" Dunn to talk about personal finance. In fact, their last get together took place in person—and it was March 12, what some are now calling Black Thursday 2020, the day Wall Street suffered its largest single-day percentage drop since 1987.
Pete talks about what he got right and wrong about the economy, jobs and the stock market the last time he and King talked. And Pete explains what is scaring him the most about the economy right now.
Plus, he offers advice for people who are in financial trouble right now because of the pandemic, those who are at risk of trouble and those who are likely to escape relatively unscathed, if not in a better position than when the pandemic started.
You can read more in Dunn's "Pete the Planner" columns for IBJ.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Angela Freeman is an attorney at Barnes & Thornburg, formerly a molecular biologist at Eli Lilly and Co., and is finishing up a six-year stint on the board of the not-for-profit Women & Hi Tech, the last year as president. And in those roles, she's served on a number of search and hiring committees, which have often been charged with hiring diverse candidates.
Freeman talks with podcast host Mason King about the biases that exist in hiring and promoting and explains some of the mistakes that companies make when they seek to diversify their workforce. Here's one: If a company doesn't have a diversity statement, a diversity committee or a diversity officer, "that is a big red flag" to minority candidates. And it's not good enough to have the only person of color on an executive team be that diversity officer.
Among her many suggestions, Freeman recommends using a diverse committee for hiring (rather than leaving the job to one individual) and then assigning new employees, especially minority hires, to mentors who are invested in their success.
You can learn more about Freeman in this profile by IBJ reporter Anthony Schoettle.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
The city of Indianapolis and Indy Chamber are close partners. Not only does Indy Chamber's Develop Indy division have a $1 million contract to handle the city's economic development efforts, the city has also given it millions of dollars for grants and loans to help companies deal with the pandemic.
The Indy Black Chamber of Commerce, which launched in 2015, wants a piece of that action.
Host Mason King with the Black Chamber's Larry Williams about why he thinks the city should be working more with his organization—and providing it funding. And Mason also talks with Angela Smith Jones, the deputy mayor of economic development, about the reasons the city is working with Indy Chamber.
Read more about the issue in reporter Samm Quinn's story in this week's IBJ.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Indianapolis Motor Speedway officials are putting all their energy into running the Indy 500 with fans in August, despite continuing concerns about big crowds and the coronavirus.
In fact, just weeks after IMS announced that NASCAR's Brickyard 400 would run in front of empty stands, the track's new owner—Roger Penske—said the Indy 500 would not run if fans couldn't be there.
So we talked with IBJ reporter Anthony Schoettle about the Indy 500 and his conversation with IMS President Doug Boles about the track's plans.
You can read Anthony's Q&A with Boles by clicking here. And see our story about Penske's comments about the race and fans.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Protests focused on racial inequality and police treatment of African Americans boiled over on May 29-30 into violence and vandalism that left businesses across downtown damaged and looted.
Eric Wells, president of the Stadium Village Business Association, says the city failed to adequately protect businesses and has not communicated a plan or a vision for bringing the city's core back after the one-two punch of coronavirus and the riots.
She talks with podcast host Mason King about ways the city could step up to help businesses not just survive but thrive again.
Then Mason talks with Mayor Joe Hogsett's chief of staff, Thomas Cook, about the city's reaction, whether it acted quickly enough to quell the violence and how the administration plans to move forward from here.
You can read about the actions the Stadium Village Business Association is requesting here. Wells is also one of four columnists featured in IBJ talking about the protests and the damage.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Those familiar with Indianapolis-based Energy Systems Network say it’s one of the most innovative organizations in energy and transportation—not only in the state, but in the nation. But it’s not particularly well-known. Its officials prefer to work in the background while pushing forward initiatives like IndyGo’s bus rapid transit program, the Blue Indy electric car-sharing program, and an early initiative that helps some of the state’s biggest manufacturers make big moves in heavy-duty hybrid industry, including buses and trucks.
Over 11 years, the small not-for-profit has generated about $750 million in direct investments in ESN-related projects from public, private and philanthropic sources. In the latest edition of The IBJ Podcast, host Mason King speaks with CEO Paul Mitchell about how ESN has helped power so many high-profile initiatives. Not every project has been a winner. Blue Indy folded earlier this year, although Mitchell says it still could pay dividends for the city. And he details one of ESN’s flashiest projects: the Indy Autonomous Challenge, an IndyCar-style race with cars completely controlled by computers scheduled to take place next year.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Conversations around the family dinner table during the coronavirus crisis have taken on incredibly high stakes. Deciding whether or not the kids can see Grandma and Grandpa over the weekend now requires research into the latest physical distancing guidelines and any chronic conditions they might have. Deciding whether or not to play baseball, basketball or soccer in youth summer leagues requires a serious calculation of the risks and rewards, as well as a working knowledge of all of the precautions that coaches and venues will take. Some families are agonizing over whether to let their young children go back to day care. Some already are weighing what to do when—or if—schools open in the fall.
For this week’s edition of The IBJ Podcast, host Mason King asked local families to share the questions they’ve been wrestling with—and added a few of his own. The topics above are all covered, as well as best practices for wearing masks, eating at restaurants and taking safe vacations. Our experts this week are Heidi Hancher-Rauch, who is an associate professor and director of the public health program at the University of Indianapolis, and Kara Cecil, an assistant professor of public health at University of Indianapolis. Both have families with kids and are willing to share the thought processes that have led to their decisions on these vital questions
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb has put himself in the public spotlight—or, if you will, the crosshairs of public opinion—nearly every weekday for the last two months, hosting press conferences about the state’s response to the coronavirus crisis. It is not an easy job, as the governor and his staff must address new fatalities, respond to questions that have no easy answer, and ask residents to make difficult sacrifices to beat an enemy we don’t totally understand.
This also happens to be an election year. On one hand, Holcomb has the opportunity to show voters how he can handle a dire crisis—and without having to spend a dime from his immense campaign war chest. On the other hand, if he makes an obvious mistake or miscalculates how quickly the state should reopen, it’ll be in front of millions of voters with a deep, vested interest in the outcome.
In this week’s edition of The IBJ Podcast, host Mason King examines the political risks and potential rewards of managing the state’s response to COVID-19 in real time and in the public eye nearly every day. His guests are reporter Lindsey Erdody, who has written about this topic in the latest issue of IBJ, and Robert Dion, associate political science professor at the University of Evansville.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Hundreds of thousands of couple who for months have been picking preachers, flowers, venues, bridesmaid dresses, reception menus and deejay playlists now find themselves making a no-win decision: Do we keep the dates for our spring 2020 wedding and scale it way down, or do we reschedule the whole shebang and hope we’re not in the middle of another wave of infections?
The coronavirus crisis and its social-distancing protocols have wreaked havoc on the multibillion-dollar wedding industry—not to mention the lives of an untold number of couples who thought they’d be betrothed by fall. In this week’s edition of The IBJ Podcast, host Mason King explores the tumult from the perspective of two Indianapolis women: a bride who decided to keep her wedding date—May 2—and scale the festivities way down (including an after-party with pizza); and a wedding planner who had 23 weddings on the books for this year but now spends much of her time working on Plan Bs and Plan Cs for clients.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Felix Mendelssohn's "Wedding March," from "A Midsummer's Night Dream," arranged for drunk organist (or sober organist pretending to be drunk) by Jonathan Mui.
As the economy swan-dives into a deep recession due to the coronavirus crisis, many of the people who live in apartments or rented homes find themselves in a frightening bind. Unemployment has surged in the working-class sectors, making it difficult for tens of thousands of tenants in Indiana to make their monthly rent payments. According to industry estimates, about 8% to 10% of renters were delinquent on their April rents, both in Indiana and nationwide.
Tenants in Indiana have been shielded from eviction since mid-March thanks to a moratorium issued by Gov. Eric Holcomb. But that doesn’t make their past-due rents go away. Advocates for both low-income residents and for landlords say more must be done to aid renters. Both sides are working their political connections to establish an emergency rental assistance program, that would help tenants cover the rent and keep revenue flowing for apartment owners.
For this week’s edition of The IBJ Podcast, host Mason King interviews Lynne Peterson, president of the Indiana Apartment Association, and Andrew Bradley, policy director for Prosperity Indiana, about the need for assistance and the fix that both tenants and landlords find themselves in.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Last week, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb told businesses they needed to start planning to reopen, although he didn’t set a particular date—or, what’s probably more likely, a schedule of how restrictions gradually would loosen. That process could start as soon as early May.
So, what do companies and restaurant think reopening will look like in a world still very wary of the coronavirus pandemic? How do they envision minimizing the risks for their employees and customers? Should restaurants still allow patrons to wait in lobbies? Should they be required to wear masks? How many people should be allowed in an elevator at once? Or in the office bathroom? Will 6-foot-tall cubicles make a comeback?
For this week’s edition of The IBJ Podcast, host Mason King and reporters Anthony Schoettle and Mickey Shuey focus on two of the biggest workplace sectors: offices and restaurants. There’s precious little consensus about the necessary precautions, although most decision-makers agree that we won’t get back to anything resembling “normal” until there’s a vaccine. And that could take a year or more.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Home sales in central Indiana have tumbled since the coronavirus crisis told hold in March. Home showings have cratered. The number of owners deciding to list their homes for sale has slumped well below average. That said, people are still buying and selling homes in central Indiana, even as public officials ask us to severely limit personal contact and any non-essential travel outside the home.
How are homes still moving? Good real estate agents are nothing if not entrepreneurial, and they’ve created some clever workarounds. What used to be a face-to-face, high-touch business has gone digital. Some owners are taking a more active role in marketing. Some closings now have more in common with the drive-through window at Portillo’s than a suit-and-tie office meeting.
To help explain these abrupt strategic maneuvers and what it will take to get the market back on track, IBJ Podcast host Mason King interviewed two of the best-connected people in the local real estate market: Shelley Specchio, CEO of MIBOR, and Jim Litten, president of F.C. Tucker Co. Inc.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Mason King, the host of The IBJ Podcast, focuses this week on the pressures and challenges of trying to fulfill your obligations as an employee, spouse and parent during the "new normal" of sequestration, in an environment where those responsibilities easily collide.
These dramas are playing out in a thousand different ways, so King invited local families to pose questions for his podcast interview with human resources expert Liz Malatestinic. One of the most common: “Is it reasonable for employers to expect their workers to put in eight- or 10 hours of work every day and be responsive within minutes under these circumstances?” The obvious follow-up: “What if my boss doesn’t care?”
The families also shared some of the strategies they’ve employed to stay organized and ahead of potential meltdowns—either from children or the parents.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Just a few weeks ago, Indiana's new jobless claims numbered just a few thousand a week. Then the coronavirus shuttered the economy and Gov. Eric Holcomb ordered non-essential businesses to close. The result: The last week in March saw 146,243 new unemployment claims.
The surge has flooded the state's computer system and its call center, and the Department of Workforce Department is quickly hiring and training new staff to handle the workload and get unemployed Hoosiers answers and benefits as quickly as possible.
But the situation is complicated by the CARES Act, a law passed by Congress that expands who is eligible for payments and dramatically increases the amount workers can receive, moves that require the Department of Workforce Development to reprogram its software and retrain staff.
The DWD's chief of staff, Josh Richardson, talks with host Mason King about who is now eligible, how soon they'll begin receiving benefits and how the agency is adjusting to the flood of applicants.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Ed Sahm and his son, Eddie Sahm, started planning for the shutdown of the restaurant industry weeks before the coronavirus outbreak led city and state officials to order the closures.
And so they were a little more ready than most owners to refocus Sahm's 16 restaurants. The result is an operation to benefit the not-for-profit Second Helpings, offer takeout at some locations, and open a series of marketplaces, where customers can get grocery items, including produce, cleaning products and, yes, toilet paper.
Still, the effort is not profitable. It's just enough to put some of Sahm's employees back to work, help the community and keep the company afloat for a few more weeks.
Host Mason King talks with Eddie Sahm about how he and his dad made key decisions and how they're making it work.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
The economy is at a standstill thanks to closures caused by fear about the spread of COVID-19. But it will likely come roaring back once the nation gets the coronavirus outbreak under control, says Phil Powell, the associate dean of academics programs at the IU Kelley School of Business in Indianapolis.
Powell talks to podcast host Mason King about how companies should approach what he believes will be a deep but short recession and steps they should take now to shore up their financial situation.
"It's your job to survive and to make sure that when these social controls are lifted and everybody starts to come back out that you're ready for business," Powell said.
Click here to read IBJ stories about the effect of the coronavirus outbreak in central Indiana.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
IBJ's personal finance columnist Peter Dunn is more worried about what the global pandemic will do to the economy than he is about what it will do (or has done) to the stock market.
And he's most concerned about that economic impact on individuals and families—especially those who are vulnerable to layoffs. And so he talks with podcast host Mason King about what people can do to prepare for what he believes will soon be a recession. The goal, he said, is to "get lean."
He also talks about the power of fear, why you shouldn't try to time the market, and why the stock market crash does, in fact, hurt those who are either about to retire or are newly retired.
Click here to read Pete's latest column for IBJ and see all of his columns here.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Nineteen hotel projects have been announced for downtown. If every one of them opens, they would add 4,203 more rooms to the central district of Indianapolis—an increase of more than 50%.
But experts say it's unlikely all of those hotels will be built and opened. And in fact, three appear at least temporarily stalled.
Host Mason King talks with IBJ real estate reporter Mickey Shuey about which projects may be on the ropes and which ones appear most likely to make it.
And King interviews Drew Dimond, president of Indianapolis-based Dimond Hotel Consulting Group, about the hotel market and what determines whether a project comes to fruition. And Dimond explains what he sees as a weakness in the Indy market.
Read Shuey's story in this week's IBJ for more about the downtown hotel projects.
(IBJ photo/Eric Learned)
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
Jon Laramore served as chief counsel for two governors and spent 10 years at what was then Faegre Baker Daniels.
But he left in 2015 to become executive director at Indiana Legal Services, the state's largest, independent low-income law clinic, where he's expanded the number of people served as well as the organization's staff.
He talks with host Mason King about the legal needs of people in poverty, those who have been released from prison and clients facing health challenges.
And King questions Laramore about his experiences arguing—and winning—two cases at the U.S. Supreme Court.
You can read more about Laramore in John Russell's Q&A at IBJ.com.
(IBJ photo/Eric Learned)
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.
IBJ's Mickey Shuey headed to Chicago for the 2020 NBA All-Star Game to see how the Windy City hosted what has become one of sports' biggest weekends.
He wasn't alone, of course. Indy's All-Star Game host committee sent a big contingent to Chicago as well, to make sure they're as ready as possible to host some 100,000 fans when the game lands at Bankers Life Fieldhouse next year.
Shuey details what he and Indy officials learned in Chicago and explains how the local host committee plans to make the 2021 game special. One goal is to focus on Indiana's basketball heritage and celebrate the game—creating a sort of love letter to the sport, Shuey says.
To learn more, read Shuey's story about Indy's planning for the 2021 game.
The music in this podcast is "2 Hearts" and is compliments of Patrick Patrikios, who has made it available through a Creative Commons license on YouTube.
The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by the law firm Krieg DeVault.