The IBJ Podcast

Indiana Fever’s president on team’s 5-31 season and strategy for rebuilding

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.

Pete the Planner: Money lessons for your kids (and refreshers for adults)

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.

 

How do you solve a problem like Monument Circle?

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.

 

The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

 

Cake Bake Shop founder living Disney dream, but ‘leveraged’

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.

 

The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

 

After triple-bypass surgery, Chuck Lofton is doubling down on extending TV news career

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.

 

The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

 

Former school board member now drives bus for district

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.

The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

 

The audacious challenge of choosing leaders for the inaugural Indiana 250

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.

The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

 

The state has $6.1B in reserves. What will lawmakers do with it?

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.

The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

 

Pete The Planner: ‘The best thing you can do right now is stop spending money’

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.

 

What lies beneath downtown’s Diamond Chain site?

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.

The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.