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." The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.  

Three weeks ago, we released an episode of the IBJ Podcast explaining the sudden, multilayered 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 joins the podcast to discuss his piece in the latest issue of IBJ about what an Indy-based stadium for Major League Soccer—America’s highest professional league—could look like. But first some history: 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 and support financing for a $1.5 billion mixed-use project that the stadium would anchor. Then Mayor Joe Hogsett announced that the city indeed had halted negotiations, claiming in part that 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. 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 estimated—about the human remains and gravesites that are buried on the 20-acre site Keystone has been trying to develop. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

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 negotiations to finalize the stadium deal and support financing for a $1.5 billion mixed use project that the stadium would anchor. Then Mayor Joe Hogsett announced that the city indeed had halted negotiations, claiming in part that 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 revealed 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 the $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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.  

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

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.The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.  

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.  

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.  

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.  

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.   The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.  

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.  

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. The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.