IBJ columnist Peter Dunn, aka Pete the Planner, returns to the podcast this week to sift through the data and help us get a footing in this economic limbo. He also takes a closer look at the decision to resume collecting on defaulted student loans and the possible consequences.

To take stock of the latest budget-writing session and how it will affect Hoosiers, we’ve invited a panel of reporters who covered some or all of the General Assembly to share their insights on fiscal issues and a few surprises. From the Indianapolis Business Journal, we have Cate Charron and Daniel Lee. And they’re joined by Casey Smith of Indiana Capital Chronicle.

Joey Graziano was an executive vice president for the NBA with global responsibilities when he began working with Pacers Sports & Entertainment on the 2024 NBA All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis. The way he tells it, Graziano soon became convinced that the Indiana Pacers, Indiana Fever and the city of Indianapolis on the whole presented enormous potential for growth. Six months ago, he left the NBA and became the executive vice president of strategy and new business ventures for Pacers Sports & Entertainment. Just to refresh your memory, that’s the company controlled by the Herb Simon family that owns the Pacers and Fever. Last month, PS&E announced a deal with Hartbeat, the production company founded by comedian and actor Kevin Hart, to produce live entertainment in conjunction with key dates on the schedules of the Pacers and Fever, as well as big events downtown. The first Hartbeat production, a music and comedy festival, will take place during WNBA All-Star Weekend in July in Indianapolis. In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Graziano discusses preparations for the All-Star Weekend, the deal with Hartbeat, how Caitlin Clark and the rest of the Fever can make big strides in her second season, and how PS&E views several new projects by Gainbridge Fieldhouse as part of an overreaching strategy. He also talk about growing up as the son of a New York City fireman, who instilled the value of offering your help where its most needed.

Scott Lingle grew up in Indianapolis with parents who were always looking for ways to bring in extra money and eliminate debt. Their entrepreneurial pursuits included flipping more than a dozen houses and rehabilitating a host of other products for resale. Scott Lingle knew early on that he wanted to be in sales. After a distinguished career in the insurance industry, he took a big entrepreneurial leap. In 2015, he co-founded Remodel Health, which after initial growing pains became one of fasting-growing firms in Indianapolis throughout the early 2020s. It was ranked 13th on IBJ’s list in 2024, with a 123% increase in annual revenue between 2021 and 2023, topping out at nearly $15 million. Lingle stepped down as CEO several years ago but stayed as board chairman while pursuing other interests and investing opportunities. Among his projects, he co-founded High School Hustle, an initiative to encourage Indianapolis students to start and grow businesses with the guidance of mentors who have done the same. It’s now in its second year and available at nearly 20 high schools. There’s a secondary goal that could be of benefit for the Indianapolis startup community: creating networks of well-established entrepreneurs who fund the students work and the younger business leaders who coach them. In this week’s edition of the podcast, Lingle shares the lessons he learned about starting a business, building an elite team and embracing the quintessential entrepreneurial challenge of pivoting multiple times. He also lays out the strategy behind High School Hustle and plans for a national expansion.

Based in Indianapolis, the Schahet family has been managing and developing hotels since the 1960s. The family firm Schahet Hotels currently has nine properties in its portfolio, mostly in central Indiana, with a 10th hotel under construction in Muncie and an 11th in the final planning stages. There’s still room in the lodging industry for mom-and-pop hoteliers—although in this case it was father and son—who can amass significant holdings in particular niches and geographic areas. Family operators like the Schahets are an integral part of the Indy area’s hospitality fabric.   It is NOT an industry for the meek. Ask Greg Schahet, a third-generation Schahet hotelier who joined the family firm a few months before 9/11 and has since helped the company navigate the Great Recession, the pandemic and the current economic crunch from inflation and interest rates. As president and chief financial officer, he’s guiding development of the downtown Muncie project called The Cantio, a $43.5 million boutique-style hotel that represents a departure for the firm.   In this week’s edition of the podcast, Greg Schahet shares financial war stories from moments in the last three decades when it seemed like the industry had turned upside-down. He also talks strategy, including explaining why Schahet has such a high concentration of hotels near Indianapolis International Airport and why it went outside its comfort zone with the high-profile Cantio.

Indiana has been a national leader in historic preservation for decades. Hoosiers have a strong record for studying, cataloguing and saving homes, churches, farms, factories, covered bridges, monuments, courthouses, hotels, libraries and even entire commercial districts and neighborhoods deemed to have historic value. Since being founded in 1960, the nonprofit group Indiana Landmarks has promoted and supported historic preservation efforts, often positioned at or near the center of major projects or helping bring the right parties to the table and acting as an adviser. It has 43 full-time employees and nine field offices around Indiana and is considered the largest statewide historic preservation organization in America.Marsh Davis has worked for Indiana Landmarks for 37 years—the last 19 of which as the group’s president. He is retiring on April 15 but is headed right back into historic preservation as the new owner of a large Victorian home in New Harmony that needs a considerable amount of work. Leading by example has been one of the themes of his tenure. His legacy includes the $24 million restoration of the former Central Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church in Indianapolis. Finished in 2011, it became Lankmarks' statewide headquarters as well as a multi-space events venue in the city’s Old Northside Historic District.With a handful of weeks left in Davis' tenure, IBJ Podcast host Mason King sat down with the outgoing president to discuss the value of historic preservation and its influence on Indianapolis; the projects that stand out over four decades; the one that got away; and how he hopes his tenure as president will be remembered.

Podcast listeners might remember about three months ago when regular guest Pete the Planner predicted that President Donald Trump’s plans for tariffs could have a pronounced effect on some elements of Indiana’s economy. Trump wasted little time once his second term began last month, imposing or thratening to impose a barrage of tariffs on many of America’s trading partners—and in particular Canada, Mexico and China, who are among Indiana’s top six importers of goods. For example, on Feb. 1, Trump said he would implement a 25% additional tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico and a 10% additional tarif on imports from China. On Feb. 3, he agreed to a 30-day pause on tariffs against Mexico and Canada. On Feb. 9, Trump said he would impose 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports. Those tariffs aren’t set to go into effect until March 12. However, as IBJ has learned from Indiana companies in the last several weeks, simply the threat of tariffs against a trading partner can be disruptive for American companies.All of IBJ's reporters have been working on stories about tariffs, but we left the big picture to the newest addition to our reporting bullpen—someone who is uniquely qualified to investigate the interplay of tariffs and manufacturing. You might already be familiar with Daniel Lee, a longtime Indiana business journalist who also has significant experience in the state’s manufacturing sector. He’s making his debut on the IBJ Podcast this week to first give us a broad-based assessment of the risks posed by tariffs and then provide some specific examples of companies dealing with vulnerability to the effects of tariffs. That includes one major firm that largely has been able to inoculate itself against tariffs on important goods.

You don’t need to be too technically savvy to pick up on the charged atmosphere surrounding large-scale data centers. Various technology-heavy industries need data centers as a kind of way station and storage point for all the electronic information they generate and process. As technology evolves at a breakneck speed, the size of these centers grows. In October, the financial firm Blackstone forecast that over the next five years, the United States will see $1 trillion in data center investments. Indiana really wasn’t on the map of the big tech firms, at least in terms of building centers, until very recently. In the last 14 months, seven data center projects have been announced for the state representing more than $15 billion in potential investment. Some Indiana legislators see them as huge economic development opportunities. Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, has said, quote, “I want every data center that we can get in the state of Indiana.” But the sudden surge in announced centers has generated a lot of concern as well about their drain on Indiana utilities and, in some cases, their water-intensive cooling systems. Indiana lawmakers are considering a spate of bills regarding data centers in the current legislative session. IBJ technology reporter Susan Orr is our guest this week on the IBJ Podcast to get us current on the demand for data centers and how that’s manifesting in Indiana.