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 cr...
Feb 27, 2023•33 min•Ep. 242
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 abo...
Feb 17, 2023•42 min•Ep. 241
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 ...
Feb 13, 2023•46 min•Ep. 240
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 ...
Feb 06, 2023•36 min•Ep. 239
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 a...
Jan 30, 2023•40 min•Ep. 238
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 a...
Jan 23, 2023•39 min•Ep. 237
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...
Jan 16, 2023•33 min•Ep. 236
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...
Jan 09, 2023•29 min•Ep. 235
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 ...
Jan 03, 2023•29 min•Ep. 234
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 w...
Dec 19, 2022•32 min•Ep. 233
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 ...
Dec 12, 2022•39 min•Ep. 232
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 ...
Dec 05, 2022•47 min•Ep. 231
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 peo...
Nov 21, 2022•31 min•Ep. 230
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 sta...
Nov 14, 2022•33 min•Ep. 229
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 ...
Nov 07, 2022•33 min•Ep. 228
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 ...
Oct 31, 2022•47 min•Ep. 227
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 ...
Oct 24, 2022•37 min•Ep. 226
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 ...
Oct 17, 2022•34 min•Ep. 225
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 ...
Oct 10, 2022•42 min•Ep. 224
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, bu...
Oct 03, 2022•33 min•Ep. 223
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 t...
Sep 26, 2022•39 min•Ep. 222
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 th...
Sep 19, 2022•36 min•Ep. 221
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 Indianapo...
Sep 12, 2022•20 min•Ep. 220
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 qua...
Sep 06, 2022•37 min•Ep. 219
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 ...
Aug 29, 2022•41 min•Ep. 218
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 foundatio...
Aug 22, 2022•33 min•Ep. 217
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 ...
Aug 15, 2022•36 min•Ep. 216
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 i...
Aug 08, 2022•40 min•Ep. 215
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 inc...
Aug 01, 2022•32 min•Ep. 214
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...
Jul 25, 2022•30 min•Ep. 213
