Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly - July 26, 2013

Business Weekly GREATER

FORT WAYNE

JULY 26-AUGUST 1, 2013

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LOCAL NEWS

Passing the bar?

Law school gets ready for students

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When a loved one suffers from dementia, family members often step into the role of caregiver — sometimes to the detriment of their own health

BY LINDA LIPP

Hoosiers increasingly are sliding into poverty as wages fail to keep up llipp@kpcmedia.com

BY RICK FARRANT rfarrant@kpcmedia.com

Jane Hill has been slowly losing her husband to Alzheimer’s disease for the last four years in a final dance that is for her heart-wrenching and exhausting.

She still loves her husband and best friend of 45 years, and Bob Hill still loves her. She knows the enduring commitment of his heart intuitively. She also knows he loves her because he still tells her how fond is he of her, although not as often as he once did.

And yet, she no longer considers herself a wife exactly. She is, in her words, a “caregiver” nearly round the clock, helping her husband do normally routine things such as eating, showering and shaving while she meticulously keeps track in a notepad the deadly march of the disease.

“When you become the caregiver, you lose your identity,” Jane Hill said in her sweet, still slightly Southern voice. “You’re not a wife anymore. You’re just trying to explain simple daily tasks, how to perform those tasks. It’s very difficult. And it’s very difficult trying to stay ahead of the next issue that’s going to arise.”

The emotional and physical strain of caring for her n

See FORGET on PAGE 24

n

INSIDE

Vol. 9 Issue 30

RICK FARRANT

An Alzheimer’s client at Birchwood adult daycare in Fort Wayne participates in an exercise class led by Birchwood’s Amy Chilcote.

While the state and national economies have seen some improvement since the Great Recession, that slowly rising tide has not lifted all Stevenson boats.

Many of those who lost jobs in the wake of the 2007 financial crisis that precipitated the recession have not been able to find new work that affords them anywhere near the same income as they had before, while others are mired in low-wage positions with no prospect of advancement.

Indiana’s overall unemployment rate has been above the national average for 11 straight months, with more than a third of the unemployed out of work for more than 26 weeks. An estimated 67 percent of those out of work, as of late 2012, weren’t even receiving unemployment benefits, according to a new study by Derek Thomas, a senior policy analyst with the Indiana Institute for Working Families.

Public assistance is the only way many families can keep the wolves at bay. In June, according to data from the Indiana Business Research Center, 43,754 households in Indiana’s Region 3 economic-development area (11 northeast Indiana counties) received food stamps, a number that n

See POVERTY on PAGE 23

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July 26-August 1, 2013

n GREATER FORT WAYNE Business Weekly

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Jury’s out on law school Just 22 students have enrolled in Indiana Tech’s new degree program

BY RICK FARRANT rfarrant@kpcmedia.com

If nothing changes in the next month, the new Indiana Tech Law School will have more faculty and staff than students when the inaugural freshman class begins studies Aug. 26.

School officials had hoped to start with a 100-member class. As of July 23, just 22 students had paid deposits. The $16-million, 70,000-square-foot school, meanwhile, will have 25 faculty and staff when its doors open.

Founding dean Peter Alexander said it’s possible the number of students could climb to 30.

All along, skeptics have questioned the wisdom of opening a new law school at a time when law-school enrollments around the country are declining.

All along, Alexander has remained stead-

RICK FARRANT

The Indiana Supreme Court may visit the new $16-million Indiana Tech Law School.

fast in the belief that the school’s nontraditional focus on experiential learning, relatively low cost ($29,500 a year) and a desire by some people to get a law-school degree to augment other careers will serve the school well in the long run.

The less-than-desired size of this year’s freshman class has not deterred him.

“We were optimistic because we thought the downturn in (law-school applications) nationwide would correct itself,” Alexander n

See LAW SCHOOL on PAGE 7

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GREATER FORT WAYNE Business Weekly n

fwbusiness.com

July 26-August 1, 2013

Pathfinder partners with Lancia on home project Lancia Homes

Generous gift Thanks to a gift from Auburn native Don Steininger and his wife, Kathy, the Community Foundation of DeKalb County will construct a new office building on a portion of the former site of McIntosh High School and the Alumni Gymnasium.

The total cost of the project, including adjacent parking and landscaping, is expected to be $400,000. It will be named the Steininger Center for the Community Foundation of DeKalb County.

The building will house offices for the community foundation and two meeting rooms available to local charitable organizations at no charge. One room will accommodate up to 30 people; another will seat 12.

The building site recently was given to the community foundation by DeKalb Central School Corp.

recently broke ground on three new supported independent-living homes for Pathfinder

n

Reporter’s

NOTEBOOK

Services

on Ash Street in Huntington.

Each singlestory, handicapped-accessible home will be about 2,000 square feet in size and accommodate four individuals, each of whom will have a separate suite with Linda Lipp a bedroom, small living area and bathroom. They will share a larger living area, kitchen, laundry room and porch and patio space.

“The homes have been designed specifically to provide an individual living space for individuals with developmental disabilities that we serve while allowing them

REAL ESTATE & RETAIL

Local Experts. Global Resources.

Congratulations Kroger Limited to Partnership in the purchase of an

located at the nort outlot in Dupont Village Shopping Ce hw Mike Dahm repres est corner of Dupont Road and Co nter, ld en w build a fuel center ted the seller in this transaction. Kr ater Road. oger plans to at this location.

Contact Mike Dahm for all your commer cial and industrial re al estate needs.

Mike Dahm Senior Broker mdahm@naihd. com

111 East Ludwig Road, Su Fort Wayne, IN 46 ite 101 825 260.423.4311 Visit our website w w w.n a ih d .c : om

to choose whether to use the supported common space,” said John Niederman, president of Pathfinder Services.

The three homes, made possible through a grant from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis’ Affordable Housing Program through 1st Source Bank, are scheduled to open in 2014.

STREBIG CONSTRUCTION Strebig Construction Inc. has been awarded a contract for a 9,000-squarefoot renovation and addition to Pine Hills Learning Place on Coldwater Road. The expansion will add a new classroom and emergency egress for the second-floor classrooms. The three-phase project will be finished around the beginning of 2014.

DIRIG SHEET METAL Dirig Sheet Metal was awarded a contract to install heating, ventilation and air-conditioning ductwork for MetalX’s new 25,000-square-foot maintenance building in Waterloo.

FELDERMAN DESIGN-BUILD Felderman Design-Build was awarded a construction contract by Pizza Hut of Noblesville Inc. for a complete tenant build-out of a new Pizza Hut Wing Street restaurant in Noblesville.

NAI HARDING DAHM Mike Dahm represented the seller, BKFW LLC, in the sale of a 6,200-square-

foot retail building on 4.6 acres at 3710 E. State Blvd. Myanmar Indigenous Church was the buyer.

John Caffray represented the landlord, Falstaff Properties LLC, and Tyler Binkley represented the tenant, We Care Counseling Center, in the lease of 1,326 square feet of office space at 2020 E. Washington Blvd.

Binkley represented the landlord, Statewood Plaza LLC, and the tenant, Roxie Photography, in the lease of 1,470 square feet of retail space at 3903 E. State Blvd.

Carl Diehm represented the landlord, Cenway, in the lease of retail space at 901 Cardinal Court.

Stan Phillips represented the landlord, Shoppes of Illinois Road, and Russ Jehl represented the tenant, Thai Diner, in the GREATER FORT WAYNE

Business Weekly (USPS 024-494) Periodicals postage paid at Fort Wayne, IN 46802

lease of 1,308 square feet of retail space at 5129 Illinois Road, Suite 123.

Binkley represented the seller, Daniel Lawrence, in the sale of a 14,700-squarefoot industrial building at 3805 New Haven Ave. to K&T Leasing LLC.

HANCOCK FABRICS RELOCATES Hancock Fabrics was set to reopen its Fort Wayne store July 27 at its new location in Apple Glen.

The fabric store moved from its location in Glenbrook Commons to 1730 Apple Glen Boulevard and adapted a format that is new to the Mississippi-based chain of 261 stores in 37 states. The new concept is designed to maximize the selection of fabrics and sewing accessories while providing a more comfortable shopping experience.

The Saturday grand opening will include one-day sales specials and drawings for gift cards.

CRESTWOODS GALLERY Crestwoods Gallery will showcase the work of Stephanie and David Carpenter and Nick Fenstermaker at an exhibit Aug. 17 through Sept. 20.

An opening event at the gallery at 314 N. Main St., Roanoke, will be held from 4-8 p.m. Aug. 17. Food and wine will be served.

For information, visit www.crestwoodsgallery.com.

SUMMER CONCERT SERIES ENTERS FINAL SIX WEEKS The Friday Nites Live free concert series at Jefferson Pointe will wind up the summer with five performances in August and a final concert on Sept. 6.

Performances are 6:30-8:30 p.m. on Fridays at the courtyard fountain. The schedule is: New Millennium Orchestra, Aug. 2; Big Daddy Caddy, Aug. 9; Ty Causey, Aug. 16; Fawn Liebowitz, Aug. 23; Rosemary Gates, Aug. 30; and Goodnight Gracie, Sept. 6.

If you have items for the real estate and retail column, please contact Linda Lipp by e-mail at llipp@kpcmedia.com, by phone at (260) 426-2640, ext. 307, or by mail at Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly, 3306 Independence Drive, Fort Wayne, IN 46808.

3306 Independence Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46808 (260) 426-2640 Fax: (260) 426-2503 www.fwbusiness.com

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to 3306 Independence Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46808 Published weekly every Friday, the annual subscription rate is $49.

July 26-August 1, 2013

n GREATER FORT WAYNE Business Weekly

fwbusiness.com

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Academy makes pitch for Legacy funding The World B a s e b a l l Academy is getting

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out in front of a youth sports public input session July 30 by marketing to the media its $6.5-million capital campaign to improve facilities and expand programs.

Academy Executive Director Caleb Kimmel said the step is unusual in the midst of the early silent stages of a fundraising Rick Farrant campaign, but it has became necessary as Fort Wayne moves forward in assessing the use of $75 million in Legacy Fort Wayne funds from the proceeds of the sale of City Light utility to Indiana Michigan Power.

Initially, Kimmel said, a Legacy Fort Wayne committee recommended the academy on 26 acres at the ASH Centre along Freeman Street receive $2 million of that money in a match that would require the academy raise $4 million.

Kimmel said the organization’s capital campaign has thus far raised $500,000, and he believes definitive city support of its improvement project would bring in more investors.

“Right now, when we go around and talk to prospective donors, we’re getting very positive feedback that this makes sense for the community, makes sense economically,” Kimmel said. “But then they’ll ask the question: “Where’s Legacy at?’ “ Kimmel said the academy, which started in 2003 as Between the Lines LLC, transitioned to a nonprofit in 2009 and took ownership of the ASH Centre property in 2012, aims to use youth baseball as a tool to build leadership and character.

The organization said recently it will generate a more than $1-million economic impact for Fort Wayne this summer through Hoosier Classic baseball tournaments, which draw 160 teams and 2,000 players.

Kimmel said upgrading the existing three fields, building a new one that will serve as the home field for the University of Saint Francis and improving the roughly 40,000-square-foot indoor facility will lead to more participation and have an economic impact of $21.4 million in the first 10 years.

The academy also hosts baseball camps run by Fort Wayne native and Seattle Mariners manager Eric Wedge, personalized

MEDIA & MARKETING

RICK FARRANT

World Baseball Academy Executive Director said Caleb Kimmel upgrades to the complex along Freeman Street in Fort Wayne could have a multimillion-dollar economic impact.

instruction, programs for at-risk youths and international travel in which players and adults visit other countries to teach the game of baseball.

Determining Legacy funding for sports projects still has a ways to go. There is the public input session from 5-8:30 p.m. July 30 at Citizens Square. The city has also retained Aquarius Sports and Entertainment to conduct a youth sports community assessment and market potential study.

But Kimmel is convinced the upgrades planned for the academy are perfect uses for Legacy funds.

“With this project here, we can become an international destination for youth baseball, which is a billion-dollar-a-year industry,” he said. “We’re serving our own community and complementing that with the impact of tournaments. That’s something Fort Wayne can hang its hat on.”

FERGUSON STARTS YMCA, CANCER SERVICES CAMPAIGNS Ferguson Advertising has launched separate awareness and education marketing campaigns for the YMCA of Greater Fort Wayne and Cancer Services of Northeast Indiana.

The “Find Yourself at the Y” campaign includes outdoor advertising, 30-second television public service announcements, radio spots and online videos at www.findyourselfatthey.org.

A “Cancer Exposed” campaign is designed to promote a better understanding of cancers that primarily or solely affect men. The campaign includes outdoor advertising, print ads and a dedicated website, www.cancer-services.org/cancer-exposed.

If you have items of interest for the media and marketing column, please contact Rick Farrant at rfarrant@kpcmedia.com, (260) 426-2640, ext. 308, or at Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly, 3306 Independence Drive, Fort Wayne, IN 46808.

LINDA LIPP

Main Street Bistro and Martini Lounge in the 1st Source Center is expected to open in September.

Cheers: Martini lounge to open

BY LINDA LIPP llipp@kpcmedia.com

Todd Smith thinks there are too few dining and entertainment options for the over-30 crowd in Fort Wayne. That’s why he has decided to open the Main Street Bistro and Martini Lounge in the long-vacant restaurant space on the first floor of the 1st Source Center in downtown Fort Wayne.

It’s not a club, Smith cautioned, although it probably will offer late-night entertainment three days a week. It’s going to be a place where the underserved, over-30 residents of the city can enjoy themselves in the hours after dinner “without a lot of teenyboppers around.”

Smith, who owns Trolley Steaks & Seafood, Early Bird’s Ultra Lounge, Flashback on the Landing and the YOLO Event Center, will be a 50/50 partner in the new restaurant with 1st Source Center owner and real-estate developer Bill Bean.

The bistro, which will feature West Coast-style cuisine with a Midwest twist, is expected to open sometime in September, Smith said. The chef will be Johnny Michael Bojinoff, who has worked at several restaurants in Fort Wayne and most recently was executive chef at Old Crown on North Anthony Boulevard.

Bojinoff started cooking while doing a

turn in the U.S. Navy and later attended and graduated from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Portland, Ore. The upscale new establishment will have a house menu of items available every day. But Bojinoff will also create new menus weekly that feature fresh, in-season ingredients in everything from soups and salads to main dishes.

Hours will be 11 a.m. to 9 a.m.

Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; and probably 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. the next morning on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. After 9 p.m. on those late nights, the restaurant will convert to a martini lounge strictly for those over 30. The type of entertainment will vary — probably blues on Thursday nights — and will include live bands and DJs. “I think it’s something we definitely need in Fort Wayne,” said Smith, who acknowledged he’d been eyeing the former location of Park Place Grill and later, L’Asiatique, for more than a year.

The conversion of the nearby Anthony Wayne building to condos and the resurgence of other activities and interest in downtown make this a good time for a new restaurant and entertainment concept, Smith said.

“I think a lot is happening, and I think I’m getting in at the right time,” he said.

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July 26-August 1, 2013

First Defiance earnings rise as loan loss provision falls A substan- n tial reduction in its loan loss provision increased First

Reporter’s

NOTEBOOK

Defiance Financial Corp.’s second-

quarter earnings 56 percent.

The Defiance, Ohio-based holding company for First Federal Bank of the Midwest and First Insurance Group

BANKING & FINANCE

cut its second-quarter loan loss provision to $448,000 from $4.1 million for the same period last year.

Doug LeDuc “We are pleased with the significant improvement in asset quality during the quarter including significant declines in nonperforming loans, net charge-offs and classified loans,” William Small, First Defiance chairman, president and chief executive officer, said in a prepared statement.

“We also saw improvement in delinquency levels in all categories of our loan

portfolio,” he said. “As a result of this progress, provision expense was well below the level recorded in the 2012 second quarter.”

First Defiance second-quarter earnings increased to $6.1 million, or 60 cents per share, from $3.9 million, or 38 cents per share, for the year-ago period. Its net interest income of $16.9 million was down from $17. 2 million, and its noninterest income of $7.8 million was down from $8 million.

INCREASED EXPENSES REDUCE PEOPLES BANCORP EARNINGS Increased expenses contributed to a 4-percent second-quarter earnings decline for Peoples Bancorp.

The Auburn-based parent company of Peoples Federal Savings Bank reported second-quarter earnings of $753,000, or 32 cents per share, down from $786,000, or 33 cents per share for the same period last year.

Its provision for loan losses fell to $60,000 from $75,000.

The company’s second-quarter net interest income rose to $2.9 million from $2.8 million a year earlier, and its noninterest income rose to $1.9 million from $1 million.

Its second-quarter noninterest expenses increased to $3.9 million from $3 million for the prior-year quarter.

“During the quarter we did a balancesheet restructuring by selling some longerterm investment securities and prepaying Federal Home Loan Bank borrowings,” Maurice Winkler, president of Peoples, said in a prepared statement.

EARNINGS INCREASE 27% AT NORTHEAST INDIANA BANCORP A 27-percent gain in noninterest income contributed to a 2-percent increase in second-quarter earnings for Northeast Indiana Bancorp.

The Huntington-based parent company of First Federal Savings Bank reported second-quarter earnings of $669,000, or 54 cents per share, which was up from $656,000, or 53 cents per share for the same period last year. Its provision for loan losses was unchanged at $300,000.

The company’s second-quarter net interest income of $2.1 million was down 9 percent from $2.3 million a year earlier, and its noninterest income of $838,000 was up from $659,000.

“We are pleased with our continued financial success,” Michael Zahn, chief executive officer for Northeast Indiana Bancorp, said in an earnings announcement.

WELLS FARGO, PATHFINDER PROMOTE FINANCIAL LITERACY

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Wells Fargo & Co. is helping Pathfinder Community Connections NeighborWorks HomeOwnership Center teach financial

literacy basics to Allen County youths of middle-school age.

The megabank with operations in northeast Indiana has made its “Hands on Banking” curriculum available for the group’s 2013 Youth Financial Literacy Program, which was scheduled for 10 a.m. to noon July 29 through Aug. 2 at the Pathfinder offices at 1005 W. Rudisill Blvd., Suite 301, in Fort Wayne.

In addition to classroom instruction on earning, budgeting and saving money, “Hands on Banking” offers youths who have attended all of five classes a chance to put some of the concepts they have learned into practice through a small matched savings program.

There is no charge for the program, but participants must have the consent of a parent or guardian to complete an application, which is available at www.cchomes.org.

If you have items for the banking and finance column, please contact Doug LeDuc by e-mail at dleduc@kpcmedia.com, by phone at (260) 426-2640, ext. 309, or by mail at Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly, 3306 Independence Drive, Fort Wayne, IN 46808.

DOUG LEDUC

Mark Becker speaks at a press conference July 19, during which he was announced as the new CEO of Greater Fort Wayne Inc.

At GFW, still work to be done

BY RICK FARRANT rfarrant@kpcmedia.com

The new CEO of the recently formed Greater Fort Wayne Inc. economic-development entity will have his hands full shaping the structure and specific goals of organization.

When the formation of GFW was announced in April, it was billed as a melding of the Fort Wayne-Allen County Economic Development Alliance and the Greater Fort Wayne Chamber of Commerce. The general mission: serving as a single point of contact for economic growth in Allen County.

But combining the organizations is not as simple as it sounds, and the preliminary work is far from over.

New CEO Mark Becker, most recently deputy mayor of Fort Wayne, said in an interview with Business Weekly that the chamber was essentially absorbed by GFW, which will assume the membership responsibilities of the chamber. The chamber’s 16 employees have already become employees of GFW. The nonprofit alliance, meanwhile, likely will become largely a portal through which charitable contributions can be made for GFW’s use. The nine alliance employees would become employees of GFW, Becker said. And the alliance, although existing in name n

See GFW on PAGE 7

July 26-August 1, 2013

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LAW SCHOOL: Enrollment falling everywhere

Continued from PAGE 3

said. “It’s actually gotten worse.

“I think we’re getting as many students in the pool this year as we can identify. I think there are fewer students in the pool who are choosing to go to law school.

“We would like more in the first year.

We may not have more. But we built this building for the future and, even if we have 30 students in that first class, we have a law school. And they’re going to get a first-class education.”

According to statistics from the Law School Admission Council, the number of people taking law-school admission tests between 2009 and 2012 dropped from 171,000 to 112,000. The number of applicants vying for places at American Bar Association-accredited law schools slipped from 86,600 to 67,900.

Every region in the country has been affected by the downturn. In the Great Lakes Region, which includes Indiana Tech, law-school applications fell 13.1 percent between 2011 and 2012.

Observers have said the drop in interest in law schools stems from the cost of an education coupled with declining salaries for lawyers, people finding other ways to obtain legal assistance and retrenchment at large law firms.

Alexander said the persistent negative publicity about the trends has exacerbated the situation.

“I think it is now in the consciousness of the pre-law students in a way like it has never been before,” he said. “They are being bombarded on the Internet, in the newspapers, on television and on the radio with constant messages that this is not a good investment.

“And they’re waking up and saying, ‘Before I go ahead and do this, let me think this through.’ We hear from students, ‘Why should I go? Why should I spend X number of dollars over the next three years?’ I didn’t hear that 10 years ago from people.”

He said Indiana Tech may also be at a disadvantage because it cannot be accredited until its second year — a circumstance all new law schools face.

“I think we all believe that once we’re accredited, applications will go up if the

Q

program turns out to be the kind of program we’ve been advertising,” he said. “I think everyone recognizes this is a very difficult time in legal education across the country to open a school.”

Alexander said Indiana Tech worked hard to recruit students, and in the last 15 months he and two other staff members scoured an area stretching from central Pennsylvania to central Iowa, from Michigan’s upper peninsula to central Mississippi.

“We’ve covered almost every school in that area,” he said. “It’s pretty remarkable how much ground we’ve covered.”

He said Indiana Tech has also received roughly 1,400 inquiries from students considering a law-school education.

Moving forward, it is his hope that the incoming crop of freshmen will help recruit students and lead Indiana Tech toward its eventual goal of having 350 students enrolled in the law-school’s three-year program.

“If we do what we have promised to do and deliver a new, different kind of education,” he said, “and if (the students) tell that to prospective students, I think that will go longer in getting students to come here than us saying it.”

In the meantime, organizations are scheduling use of the Indiana Tech Law School facility for such things as continuing-education programs. And Alexander said there may even be a visit at some point by the Indiana Supreme Court to the law school’s state-of-the-art courtroom.

The modest freshmen class, meanwhile, is “going to get a lot of attention — something that most law students would die for,” Alexander said. “And we think that’s a plus.

We want to reward the students who have taken a chance on us by having a collegial environment where they have access to their professors.

“I think (Indiana Tech President Arthur Snyder) and the senior leadership are very optimistic we will hit our longer-term goal of 350 students in five years. But right now, it is what it is. We can’t hide it.

“At some point, people will see them all lined up and we’ll say, ‘That’s all we’ve got.’”

BRIEFLY

A L LE N C O U N T Y

U.S. NEWS: PARKVIEW 10TH-BEST HOSPITAL IN STATE Parkview Regional Medical Center and Parkview Hospital Randallia have jointly been named the 10th best hospital in Indiana

by U.S. News & World Report.

The top hospital in the state, according to U.S. News’ annual rankings, is Indiana University Health’s Academic Health Center in Indianapolis. In addition to the top-10 ranking, Parkview received high-performing marks for two adult specialties: nephrology and pulmonology.

Nationally, Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore was named the top hospital.

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GFW: DID may contract for services

Continued from PAGE 6

and having a three-member board, would have no governing authority.

The alliance arrangement, Becker said, is still subject to final approval of an affiliation agreement.

Also in the wind are discussions about involving a third economic-development-related group: the Downtown Improvement District.

Becker said because DID’s governance is dictated by state statute; it cannot formally become part of GFW. However, Becker said, there are talks about DID entering into a contract service agreement with GFW that would allow DID to continue to perform the work it does now. DID employees, he said, would be paid by GFW, but DID would continue to have a board and maintain its own office.

DID would also have representation on the eventual GFW board.

“It’s sort of tracking that way,” said DID President Bill Brown, “but it’s not done.”

He said the DID board executive committee is developing a proposed contract agreement and will present it to the full 16-member DID board in August.

On the surface, Brown said, the idea of bringing DID into the alignment mix would seem to be a good one.

“There are a lot of people playing in the downtown sandbox now,” Brown said. “The whole notion of unifying and strengthening our outcomes, I think, makes a lot of sense.”

Becker said the new and proposed arrangements involving GFW will require a determination of optimal organizational structure, including assessing personnel responsibilities.

“There’s going to be a thorough analysis of everything as we look at the combining of staffs and roles and responsibilities,” Becker said. “That will be the next step.”

Also left to be decided is how orga-

nizational funding will be collected and utilized. The alliance, chamber and DID have received funding from a variety of sources. In the case of DID and the alliance, city and county money has been a substantial source of funding.

Becker said GFW organizers believe the new entity will need more money than is presently being generated, and GFW soon will announce a fundraising campaign.

“We want to be more aggressive in what we’re doing and play a stronger role in what we’re doing and that will require additional resources,” Becker said. “Private-sector support for the alliance has not been as strong as it needs to be.”

Other matters on the table, according to Becker: • Assembling a GFW board of between 50 and 60 members. Becker said a large board is needed to ensure an adequate diversity of representation. The board, he said, will have a strong committee structure.

• Moving GFW into the eighth floor of the 1st Source Center on Main Street by early November.

• Crafting by the end of the year a strategic plan for GFW that includes specific goals and outcome measurements.

“We’re being very careful in every decision that we’re making,” Becker said.

But when everything is in place, he said, the alignment of functions will improve Allen County’s economic-development efforts, as well as quality-of-life enhancements.

“We want to be one of the top 100 cities in America,” he said, “so that means we have to be operating at a level of excellence. What we’ve learned from other communities is the value of one organization, one voice.

“I think what we’ve said all along through this process is that we have the ability to do more working together than we do working by ourselves.”

n

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Training could lift incomes

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GREATER FORT WAYNE Business Weekly n

July 26-August 1, 2013

Testing for a better society

Terry Housholder

dleduc@kpcmedia.com

n

Indiana’s economy has come a long way back from the depths of the recession.

But a new report says we still have a long way to go. Indiana fell harder than almost any other state during the downturn. The median income of Hoosier families slumped by 27 percent from 2000 to 2011.

As a result, one-third of Hoosiers officially rank as low-income residents, and more than 45 percent of Indiana’s children live in low-income families.

Those numbers come from the Indiana Institute for Working Families, an organization that aims to fight poverty.

The Institute for Working Families report does more than just point out Indiana’s problems. It also offers constructive ideas for raising our state’s fortunes.

Most significantly, the institute calls for the state to train more “middle-skill” workers, helping them earn certificates that lead to good jobs.

Hoosier workers need training beyond high school — but not necessarily college degrees — to qualify for jobs that will make their lives rewarding, the institute says. Plus,

n

EDITORIAL

Indiana employers are crying for workers with more skills.

It sounds as if new Gov. Mike Pence is right on target with his push to increase job-specific training for Hoosiers.

The state could encourage the process by providing more financial aid to students who enroll in technical training, the institute says.

But on the topic of taxes, the institute suggests that Pence could have used more imagination on tax reform than his simple cut in income tax rates.

The report says Indiana has the ninth most regressive tax system in the nation, with the seventh-highest taxes on poor people. A regressive tax policy puts a heavier burden on low incomes than on higher incomes.

In spite of our gloomy statistics on poverty, Indiana has managed to build a healthy state budget surplus.

Training Hoosiers for better jobs would be a smart way to spend it.

This editorial originally was published by Business Weekly parent company KPC Media Group Inc.

WHAT’S YOUR VIEW? Want to hshare your thoughts on something you’ve read? Business Weekly welcomes letters to the editor and guest columns. E-mail them to news@fwbusiness. com, fax them to (260) 426-2503 or mail them to Business Weekly, 3306 Independence Drive, Fort Wayne, IN 46808. Business Weekly reserves the right to edit submissions for clarity and length.

“Do you believe in testing?” asked Eugenia Evergreen in her extra earnest voice. It was as if I were being asked if I believed in abortion, the right to choose or the Grand Canyon.

I did not know if I would shock her or gain her approval when I said, “Yes.” Clearly, she was disappointed. “Subjecting children to the anxiety of adults is wrong,” she declared.

“You are right,” I agreed. “However, testing is necessary to increase the probability of desired results. I believe in testing applicants for driver’s licenses to make sure they know some of the rules of the road and can manage a vehicle in traffic.”

“You know I’m not talking about that kind of testing,” Genie said with what passes for flirtation in her book. “I’m talking about ISTEP+ or some other statewide test afflicting young children.”

“I know that’s your concern,” I responded with sympathy, “but testing is the best way to gather n information about a whole host of issues. If we want to find out how third-graders are reading, then testing them at the end of the third grade or the beginning of the fourth makes sense.

“If we want our future voters to know the basics of civic literacy, then we need to teach the subject with the basics in mind. To find out if we are succeeding, then we should test the students.

Testing verifies outputs rather than relying on inputs like hours taught.”

“It is stressful for everyone,” Genie insisted.

“Stress is something everyone needs to learn how to handle,” I responded. “Should we stop playing Little League baseball because each at-bat is a stressful experience for the batter, the Morton J. pitcher and the fielders?”

Marcus In the following silence, I said, “How do you feel about drug testing for recipients of welfare, disability and unemployment compensation?

“That is barbaric,” Genie declared. “People in need should not be disgraced by intrusive tests. It’s a violation of one’s civil liberties.”

“Tell me an alternative,” I said, “to drug testing when employers persistently complain about the numbers of applicants they must reject when they administer drug tests. Why should an addict continue to receive unemployment compensation when his/her behavior is the reason he/she is not able to get a job?

“We need strong drug-relief programs that help people return to society. The time seems to be at hand when the citizenry is tired of supporting drug addiction with tax money.”

“Would you extend testing to other groups? It is very expensive, you know,” Genie asked, continuing the contest.

“I would require,” I answered, “those who seek election to public office to demonstrate competence in the affairs of that office. They should know the basics of local, state or federal government organization and history. It is laughable how little legislators know of government when they take office. They are necessarily dependent on staff and senior party members because they are so unfamiliar with their responsibilities.”

“That won’t keep us from electing fools,” Genie said.

I had no comeback for that.

EYE ON THE PIE

MORTON J. MARCUS is an independent economist, writer and speaker formerly with Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. He can be reached at mortonjmarcus@yahoo.com.

n July 26-August 1, 2013

n GREATER FORT WAYNE Business Weekly

PersonalBusiness

n fwbusiness.com

PAGE 9

‘What I find satisfaction in is problem solving’ CAREER PATH

Name: Gerrett Stier Age: 32 Company: GMS Distribution Title: founder and owner Location: Northeast Indiana Innovation Center, 3201 Stellhorn Road Founded: 2009 Website: www. gmdist.com Education: earned a journeyman electrician license and water restoration technology and applied structural drying certifications

n

How would you describe GMS Distribution?

product at a great price I would be able to sell it to distributors.

I approached distributors and they said, “We don’t know who you are and you don’t have a proven product,” and they wouldn’t represent me.

So I started approaching companies that could use it, basically going door to door.

I would bring a sample power box and leave it with a secretary and ask her to show it when people had time and arranged to pick it back up in three to four days. I started in Fort Wayne and then took it to Indianapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Ohio, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, N.C., Charlotte, N.C., Nashville, St. Louis and Kansas City.

In July of 2011, a distributor I had approached previously called and said we needed to talk and they wanted to start distributing this and think it’s a great product. They had heard from some of their top customers what a great product it was and how much they needed it.

Getting the first national distributor had a huge impact. I’m working with five national distributors now.

We manufacture and supply a temporary, portable power box — an electrical device that provides access to more power, more amperage on a specific job for a certain amount of time.

The box has an adapter that will plug into a 220-volt dryer or range outlet, and it converts that power into 110 volts, the same amount as a standard home outlet. The box has four receptacles or eight places to plug into.

The box is four times lighter and smaller than a conventional metal portable power box and it doesn’t require any grounding because it is made out of plastic.

How did you start and develop GMS Distribution?

My dad is an electrical contractor. He owns Ultimate Electric. I got a journeyman electrician license when I was 19 and worked for Ultimate Electric for nine years full time.

One of our main accounts was a water-damage restoration contractor. When they would get a job where they needed more power, I would tap into a main electrical panel and get extra circuits to where they needed power on the job.

Over years of doing that, I thought of how we could do it better. Power boxes have always been around, but what I did was make one for the residential restoration contractor that would fit his needs.

The metal portable power boxes on the market were too bulky and too big, and when they were used in houses built prior to 1997, those houses didn’t have the proper grounding for them. There was a safety issue.

I wanted to make a smaller, lighter, plastic portable power box, and when I approached Accutech Mold & Machine in Fort Wayne with the

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

Gerrett Stier developed a plastic portable power box that initially found a market with contractors doing water-damage restoration work, but demand has since expanded into other areas.

challenge, they stepped up to the plate and did it.

It took about six months for them to draw up the mold and do the tooling we needed to do. Once the product was finished, I submitted it to Underwriters Laboratory, and they subjected it to testing for about eight months.

My product costs 30 to 40 percent less than its main competitor, and I thought if I offered a great

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

TOWER BANK Nate Glenn was hired as associate broker/case manager at Tower Private Advisors in Fort Wayne. He most recently was an annuity customer service representative at Lincoln National Corp.

Jennifer Poiry was hired as an executive assistant at Tower Private Advisors.

Jeremy Dye was hired as a mortgage underwriter at Tower Bank. He has several years of underwriting experience and most recently worked at White’s Residential.

Blake Music and James Prentice were hired as senior loan officers at Ruoff Home Mortgage in Fort Wayne. Music will work

We weren’t using Facebook or LinkedIn when we started, and now social media is definitely a big part of any marketing plan.

Our main market and the first market this was developed for was water-damage restoration contractors, and we’re expanding into new markets.

Pest control is another market where my product is a necessity, and we’re now looking into the market of audio and video installation in worship centers where they have bands on a worship stage and need to be able to move power around. n

See STIER on PAGE 10

E-mail your People on the Move items to news@fwbusiness.com.

with Realtors and other referral partners, focusing on first-time homebuyers. Prentice will focus on VA loans for veterans and serve homebuyers in Allen and Whitley counties.

In addition, Ruoff added several staff members recently. They are: Angie Matthews, marketing manager; Cara Finn, post closing; Sherry Thomas, underwriter; Teresa Kovach, pre-closing auditor; Stephanie Coe, underwriter; and Vanessa Meadows, underwriter.

IVY TECH-NORTHEAST RUOFF HOME MORTGAGE

What is ahead for the business?

Heather Copen was promoted to health

information technology program chair at Ivy Tech Community College-Northeast

in Fort Wayne.

Glenn

Poiry

Music

ANTHONY WAYNE REHABILITATION CENTER Paula Hughes was elected chair of the Anthony Wayne Rehabilitation Center Inc. board of directors.

Prentice

Barker

ONE LUCKY GUITAR Jonathan Barker was hired as art director at One Lucky Guitar in Fort Wayne. He has 10 years of experience in print design, typography and illustration.

PAGE 10

n

STIER: There’s a

lot of work involved in generating demand Continued from PAGE 9

What do you like about this work?

What I find satisfaction in is problem solving. The problem was there for the restoration contractors and we were able to come up with a solution for that. The problem was there for the bed-bug treatment people and we were able to help them come up with a solution for that.

Do any moments there stand out?

Getting national distribution was a great moment. I can remember where I was and what I was wearing and what I did. It was something I will never forget.

What have you learned from starting and growing GMS Distribution?

If people can’t find you and don’t know you exist, it doesn’t matter how great anything you have is, it will be sitting on the shelf if they don’t know it’s there.

I thought if I made this great product people would buy it and I would be very busy manufacturing the power box, and my biggest struggle would be to keep up with sales. I thought I was going to be a warehouse manager and now I’m a marketing director, and that was a big surprise for me.

I keep up with the contacts and keep up with the social-media marketing and keep taking it to trade shows. You have to drive that demand every day.

By Doug LeDuc. To suggest an idea for “Career Path,” call (260) 426-2640.

n

GREATER FORT WAYNE Business Weekly n

fwbusiness.com

July 26-August 1, 2013

Want more sales? Then seize the opportunity I recently talked n about the power of sales success and gave you the first 10 personal powers you need to possess in order to have all of the sales success you desire. As a professional salesperson, you want more selling power, and this two-part article reveals the sources.

Let me share with you the remaining powers you do possess and how you might be able to use them: 11. The power of relatable example.

Please don’t tell me how the product works. Rather, tell me how someone else is using it and winning right now as a result of it.

12. The power of truth. It’s sad I have to write about this. The elusiveness of truth has caused more business deals and more relationships to be lost to lack of it than to lowest bid. Truth starts with you.

13. The power of trust. Trust is built slowly over time by taking consistent, value-based actions. Trust is lost in a minute by taking inappropriate actions, telling untruths or failure to deliver as promised.

14. The power of service. The power of service is realized through actions, not advertisements. There is no power in telling me how great your service is; there is power in delivering it, and there is huge power in having your customers talk about it and brag about it on social media.

15. The power of a relationship. Real

JEFFREY GITOMER

relationships mean there is no bidding involved and no proposals involved in earning a sale. Relationships are based on mutual value provided, mutual loyalty exchanged, truth and trust. Take a moment right now and list the 10 customers that fall into this category. If there are less than 10, your power isn’t close to what it could be.

16. The power of loyalty. I define loyal customers two ways: Will a customer do business with me again? And will they refer someone to me? Many customers may never be satisfied, but they continue to do business with you. That’s loyalty.

Repeat business and unsolicited referrals are the report card indicating everything else in the relationship is excellent. Keep in mind that loyal customers are also your most profitable customers.

17. The power of reputation and social brand. Social-media presence is no longer an option. And the most powerful part of it is the fact that your customers can interact with you one on one. They have access to your Facebook page. They can tweet about you with a hashtag. They can post a video about how great you are on YouTube.

Social media can make you a fortune or cost you a fortune.

18. The power of proof. When you make statements or claims about yourself, it’s bragging. When your customers say the same thing about you, it’s proof. Proof is a reputation builder, proof is a sales tool and proof reinforces the belief of everyone in your company that you are who you say you are, and you do what you say you’ll do.

19. The power and joy of rejection.

It’s amazing what you can learn when someone says no to you. Much more than when someone says yes. In both cases you

need to understand why the yes or the no occurred. Celebrate the no. It will help you understand why and ultimately get to more yeses. The power of rejection — and learning from it — is the foundation for your resilience and your success.

20. The power, joy and celebration of victory. When you’re in sales, nothing feels better than making one. The power comes one minute after the celebration.

That’s when you start making the next one. Most salespeople stop after one. Big mistake. Once you learn that the best time to make a sale is right after you have just made a sale, you’re on the path to doubling your sales.

20.5. The power of opportunity. The most important realization in sales is the one you give to yourself. You do not have a job. You have an opportunity. An opportunity to earn while you’re learning. An opportunity to earn based on your results.

And an opportunity to grow without limits.

If you look at your present position as an opportunity, then all barriers and all negatives will fall by the wayside as you challenge yourself to be your best regardless of your circumstance, regardless of your boss, regardless of the marketplace and regardless of any obstacle that is in your way. I challenge you to take full advantage of your opportunity.

Note well: These powers do not act alone. Rather, they act in harmony with one another. One power will not put you over the top. It’s important to know them all and it is equally important to execute them all at their highest level.

JEFFREY GITOMER, a syndicated columnist, can be reached at salesman@gitomer.com.

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE

HOCH ASSOCIATES Mark Darrall joined Hoch Associates PC in Fort Wayne as project manager. In

addition to project management, he will be involved in all aspects of the firm’s organization, including planning, quality, marketing and staff development.

LEARN RESOURCE CENTER Julie Grindstaff and Sharon Wilson of Learn Resource Center in New Haven earned Indiana Youth Development credentials through the Indiana YouthPro Association. Wilson is executive director of Learn and Grindstaff is a site director.

SALIN BANK Michelle Miller joined Salin Bank in

Fort Wayne as a mortgage consultant. She previously was a mortgage banker at Star Financial Bank.

YWCA NORTHEAST INDIANA Mary Jo Hardiman was promoted from director of community programs to chief program officer at YWCA Northern Indiana. She joined the organization in 2007 as an education advocate.

Stephanie Feldman was promoted from case coordinator to director of case management services. She joined the organization in 2011 as a case manager in community programs.

EDWARD JONES Justin Moon joined financial adviser Brian Clay’s Edward Jones office in New

Haven.

Moon will work out of Clay’s office for the next year.

NATIONAL COLLEGE Tavara Phillips and Helen were Starks

Miller

Hardiman

recognized as outstanding employees of the year at National College’s Fort Wayne campus.

REP. MARLIN STUTZMAN Allison McSherry was appointed deputy district director for Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-3rd.

Feldman

McSherry

CITY SECURITIES David Johnson was hired as vice president, financial adviser in the Private Client Group at City Securities Corp. in Fort Wayne. He most recently worked at PNC Investments LLC. Also joining the firm was Johnson’s registered financial associate, Lorna Secunda.

Steuben County n

July 26-August 1, 2013

n GREATER FORT WAYNE Business Weekly

InFocus

n

fwbusiness.com

A SEED IS PLANTED Chapman’s Brewing Co. nears launch of new ale cider

BY BARRY ROCHFORD brochford@kpcmedia.com

The legend of John Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed, looms large in northeast Indiana. A minor-league baseball team is named for his distinctive — and multifunctional — choice of headware.

A park and annual festival in Fort Wayne bear his name. So popular is Chapman that he has not one but two grave sites.

And in about a month, beer lovers in the region may raise their pints to toast a new venture borne from the ever-wandering orchard planter’s legacy.

Inside the building at 300 Industrial Drive in Angola, a gleaming silver fermenting tank holds 3,100 gallons of Chapman Brewing Co.’s ale cider. Once production is fully up and running, the startup company hopes to take a small bite out of the U.S. beer-drinking market, in which 2,300 bottles are consumed every second of every day.

Chapman’s ale cider is exactly that — ale that is fermented with apple cider.

The end result is a beverage that has the coloring, head and complex flavors of an ale, but with the slight sweetness of apple.

Scott Fergusson, founder of Chapman’s and dean of the Ketner School of Business at Trine University in Angola, recalled how the, um, seed was planted.

“I was at a football game for the school and I was asking some of the local business leaders …, ‘Hey, what do we do around here? What are some of the things that this area is known for, other than the beautiful lakes and sort of resort culture?’

PAGE 11

Fremont is having a banner year

BY JENNIFER DECKER jdecker@kpcmedia.com

tish company looking to move into the United States, he and some of his business students visited Scotland and sampled its ciders. Most of them, he said, were similar to each other.

“Most of the different ones we tried really didn’t have anything distinctive about them,” he said. “At the end of the

In terms of economic development, Fremont has been moving at a decent clip in 2013.

Without a lot of fanfare, Fremont has had economic-development announcements this year and into late 2012 that will add some 150 jobs to the community that boasts a population of 2,138. A huge part of that is fostered by a combined $13.3-million investment in plants and equipment.

Fremont has handled seven requests within the last year, Town Manager Chris Snyder said. That in itself is unusual, as he said there is usually one request — if any — annually.

“To have seven is new. I think it has to be the improving economy and these operations are successful,” he said.

Abatements were granted to LaGrange Products, Swager Communications, Fremont Plastics Inc., Koester Metals and Ventures in Space. The two other requests from New Horizons Baking Co., 70 W. Water St., and Metaldyne, 307 S. Tillotson St., were OK’d July 16 by the Fremont Town Council. Combined, the seven companies, including some real-estate purchases, are making investments to continue operations in Fremont.

This year’s approved tax abatements were:

n

n

BARRY ROCHFORD

Chapman’s Brewing Co. founder Scott Fergusson, right, and product managers Andrew Laycock, left and Sean Sullivan are shown inside the company’s Angola brewery.

“And then one guy in the group said, ‘Well, apples. We grow a lot of apples here.’ And I didn’t know that.”

Fergusson, a Trine alumnus and entrepreneur who had started a financial-services technology company in Fort Wayne that he wound up selling to a firm in New York City, began thinking. Maybe he could start a cider business. Through a relationship Trine had forged with a Scot-

See CHAPMAN’S on PAGE 16

See FREMONT on PAGE 12

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July 26-August 1, 2013

FREMONT: Metaldyne will add equipment

Continued from PAGE 11

• Fremont Plastics, 500 W. Water St.: seven-year abatement on $670,000 of equipment and a seven-year abatement on a $700,000 building addition, 26 employees retained and four new to be added; • LaGrange Products, 607 S. Wayne St.: two-year vacant building deduction at a cost of $750,000 in building and renovations and a seven-year abatement on equipment, $348,300, with 102 employees retained and 15 added; • Koester Metals, 301 W. Water St.: 10-year abatement on $850,000 in equipment and a building purchase with 21 employees retained and 54 new to be added; • Swager Communications, 501 E. Swager Drive: six-year abatement on $201,000 in equipment, with 21 employees retained and two more to be added; and • Ventures in Space (Rupp Enterprises), 600 W. Swager Drive: 10 years on real property improvements of $600,000 with a building purchase for $400,000 and no new jobs until the building is leased or sold and some construction jobs for rehabilitation.

The most recent — and biggest investments are: • New Horizons: Officials are planning to add $1.5 million in new equipment to

accommodate a new muffin line, which would be the fourth line for the company that produces baked goods for McDonald’s.

In addition, the company plans to retain 87 employees and create 23 jobs by 2016.

• Metaldyne: The company is adding $18.66 million in new manufacturing equipment to supplement a new engine product from Chrysler Group LLC. In addition, Metaldyne wants to retain 133 jobs, but projects an additional 27 positions.

All that investment has Snyder and Fremont officials pleased with how economic development is progressing.

“They save us money,” Snyder said about the advantage of a town granting a tax abatement. “If they didn’t get it, they would pay 100 percent. It helps them to be competitive. We get the investment and additional jobs here. It helps our tax base.”

Typically, over the life of a tax abatement, an entity will pay about 50 percent of their total tax bill before the full tax rate kicks in. Tax abatements are scored on a variety of factors, such as jobs created and investment made, to determine the length of the abatement period.

This story originally appeared in The Herald Republican, which is published by Business Weekly owner KPC Media Group Inc.

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July 26-August 1, 2013

n GREATER FORT WAYNE Business Weekly

fwbusiness.com

PAGE 13

Form, function, production center stage at 4 Corners studio

BY MIKE MARTURELLO mikem@kpcmedia.com

When Rebecca Graves started collaborating with potter Steve Smith on producing works at Smith’s new studio, it was a relatively slow-paced arrangement.

This was, after all, supposed to be the retirement studio of the art professor from Defiance College in Defiance, Ohio. Graves had her own studio in Ohio and worked with Smith there.

Graves had recently left a career in corporate retail visual merchandising. She likes art and creating, and likes to produce in quantities that some in pottery might not enjoy doing.

“For me, it was kind of a puzzle all the time,” she said.

Then things changed.

Last fall, Smith entered into an agreement to create 1,200 beer mugs for Mad Anthony Brewing, an order that grew to 1,400 mugs due to their popularity at the Lakeview Ale House, which opened in time for the summer season on Lake James.

Graves and Jennifer Creighton worked with The 2013

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Rebecca Graves carves a cup in the studio at the 4 Corners Gallery near Lake James. Graves is working to make a production studio out of the facility.

Smith to crank out the order.

“It was a fun opportunity to see how well we worked together on a big project,” Graves said. “That’s the largest to come out of here so far.”

Now with Smith’s blessing, Graves is turning the studio at 4 Corners Gallery into a production facility. n

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75 Lane 150 Crooked Lake, Angola, IN

Tickets available at all Parade homes.

Details available at ba-ni.com

Since

Over 100 Years

1911 THE PROFESSIONAL LUMBERYARD

Wabash was the ĮƌƐƚ electrically lighted city in the world! Visitors are astonished by the interacƟve exhibits featured at the tĂďĂƐŚ Ž͘ ,ŝƐƚŽƌŝĐĂů DƵƐĞƵŵ, the Dr. James Ford Historic Home and the Center for History.

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Just 45 minutes south of Ft. Wayne on US Hwy 24.

www.visitwabashcounty.com tourism@visitwabashcounty.com

PAGE 14

GREATER FORT WAYNE Business Weekly n

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Q

n

BRIEFLY

N O RTH E A ST I N D I A N A

2 miles West of I-69 on US 20

• Lakefront (Pigeon River Chain of Lakes) • Boat Rentals • Fishing • Swimming • Full Hook-ups • 50 Amp Service • WiFi • Camp Store • Cabins

JOHNSON NAMED CHAIRMAN OF FARMERS & MERCHANTS Archbold, Ohio-based Farmers & Merchants Bancorp named Jack Johnson as the new chairman of its board of directors, replacing David Rupp, who retired.

According to an announcement from the parent company of Farmers & Merchants State Bank, Rupp had been a board member since 2001 and was named chairman in 2009. Johnson has been on the board since 1991 and served on a number of board committees.

In addition, the board elected Jo Ellen Hornish to fill the vacancy caused by Rupp’s retirement. Hornish is president of Advantage Powder Coating Inc., Hornish Bros Inc. and Fountain City Leasing Inc. She lives in Defiance, Ohio, with her husband, Samuel Hornish Sr. Farmers & Merchants State Bank, which was founded in 1897, has more than 20 branches in northwest Ohio, and DeKalb and Steuben counties in Indiana.

Winter Sites Available

260-665-5353 Website: www.circlebpark.com

facebook.com/ businessweekly

STEUBEN COUNTY PROFILE

POPULATION Population (2012) ....................................34,124 Growth since 1990...................................24.3% Unemployment rate (2012) .......................8.9% Unemployment rate (June 2013) .............8.7%

6WHXEHQ &RXQW\ Economic Development &RUSRUDWLRQ

- Intersection of I-69 & I-80 - Home of Trine University - 101 natural lakes

Phone: (260) 665-6889 ( PDLO RI¿FH#VWHXEHQHGF FRP :HEVLWH ZZZ VWHXEHQHGF FRP )LQG 8V

-69 (33 @6<9 9,(3 ,:;(;, 5,,+: Residential • Commercial • Lake Property

Kirk Kohart Managing Broker

Office: 260-665-2182 Cell: 260-466-5917 kkohart@cbrwg.com www.kkohart.cbrwg.com North of Caruso’s 2535 N. 200 W, Angola, IN

Shipshewana Angola

Elkhart County

LaGrange County

Steuben County

LaGrange

Bryan

Goshen

Williams County Kendallville Albion

POPULATION ESTIMATES

BY AGE IN 2012 Preschool (0 to 4) ...................................... 1,730 School age (5 to 17) ................................. 5,626 College age (18 to 24) ............................. 3,676 Young adult (25 to 44) ............................. 7,583 Older adult(45 to 64) ................................ 9,961 Older (65 plus) ............................................ 5,548 Median age ......................................................41.4

DeKalb County

Noble County

Auburn

Defiance

Defiance County Kosciusko County

Columbia City Paulding

Warsaw

Whitley County

Allen County

Paulding County

Fort Wayne

Wabash County

Wabash

Huntington

Van Wert

Van Wert County Huntington County

Blufton

Wells County

Adams County Decatur

POPULATION ESTIMATES BY RACE, HISPANIC ORIGIN IN 2012 Number % in county American Indian or Alaskan Native alone........... 112 ................0.3% Asian alone ............................ 198 ................0.6% Black alone ............................ 242 ................0.7% Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander alone.............14 ....................0% White alone .....................33,231 .............. 97.4% Non-Hispanic or Latino............................33,058 ............. 96.9% Hispanic or Latino.............1,066 ................3.1%

HOUSEHOLDS

You'd be nuts not to check us out...

July 26-August 1, 2013

Households (2011)..................................13,943 Number % in county Family households ...........9,961 ............ 71.4% Married with children ......2,842 ............ 20.4% Married without children ...............................5,323 ............ 38.2% Single parents...................1,288 ...............9.2% Other .......................................508 ...............3.6% Non-family households ...3,982 ............ 28.6% Living alone ........................3,216 ............ 23.1% Average household size............................. 2.37 Average family household size................. 2.82 Total housing units (2011).................... 19,342 Number % in county Owner occupied .......... 10,968...............56.7% Renter occupied .............2,975...............15.4% Vacant ................................5,399...............27.9%

INCOME Per-capita personal income (2011) ........................................$31,284 Median household income (2011) ........................................$45,957 Median household income in 2000 (adjusted for inflation) ..........$58,222 Change 2000 to 2011 .......................... -21.1% Poverty rate (2011) ...................................... 13%

EDUCATION (ADULTS 25+ IN 2011) Have H.S. diploma or more ....................90.2% Bachelor’s degree or more .....................19.9%

EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT: ACS 2011 Total population 25 and older...............22,605 Less than ninth grade ................................ 2.7% Ninth to 12th, no diploma ......................... 7.1% High-school graduate or equivalent ................................................42.2% Some college, no degree ........................19.5% Associate degree........................................ 8.5% Bachelor’s degree .....................................12.7% Graduate or professional degree .................................... 7.2%

LABOR FORCE Labor force (persons 2012) ................. 16,033 BLS covered employment..................... 14,515 Average wage per job ..........................$30,534 Employed (2012)..................................... 14,602 Five-year change .........................................-3.5% Unemployed .................................................1,431 Five-year change ........................................42.8% Number of jobs % in county Manufacturing ................. 4,312 ...............29.7% Average wage ............$39,480 Retail trade....................... 2,009 ...............13.8% Average wage ............$19,764 Accommodation and food services ............................. 1,439 ..................9.9% Average wage ............$11,840 Administrative, waste services .................................898 ..................6.2% Average wage ............$27,433 Educational services .........653 ................. 4.5% Average wage ............$31,473 Transportation, warehousing ........................593 ................. 4.1% Average wage ............$47,845 Public administration.........452 ................. 3.1% Average wage ............$33,306 Other services ....................423 ................. 2.9% Average wage ............$21,642 Source: Stats Indiana

July 26-August 1, 2013

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n GREATER FORT WAYNE Business Weekly

fwbusiness.com

STUDIO: Spoon rest becomes unique ashtray

Continued from PAGE 13

FOR MORE INFORMATION

“It’s been really fun working with Steve because he enjoys it on the production level,” Graves said. “Function and form are our first thing, then we come in and make it pretty.”

Graves, primarily working in her carved pottery style, has geared up to start mass producing — if such a thing can be said about pottery — her work for national shows that will, she hopes, get it in the doors of specialty boutiques, art-museum gift shops and the like.

These national shows, in places like Nappanee and Philadelphia, will determine whether this will be turned into a full-time career.

There’s hope that a full-time potter will have to be brought in to create the pieces.

“I’ll be the one who’s sitting here carving all of that,” Graves said.

Graves’ style is to take hand-thrown pottery and carve it, leaving a contrast between the natural clay and a glaze. Some of the pieces have creative sayings. Some are PG-13.

Already a collaboration of hers and Creighton’s has found a niche in the Middle East. What started as a spoon rest was converted to a unique line of cigar ashtrays

Q To learn more about 4 Corners Gallery, go to 4cornersstudio.com or call (419) 769-4271.

that is being showcased by a cigar producer in Dubai.

Whether that will take off remains to be seen, but it is Graves’ often whimsical work — tiles, plates, bowls, lamps and more — that is being marketed on a national scale.

That’s not to say the crew at 4 Corners has lost touch with their roots. Smith is instrumental in the arts and crafts show that was held July 20 in conjunction with the Lake James Antique Boat Show off of Jimmerson Creek at the four corners. Graves and Creighton have worked local shows, like those at Satek Winery and Old Mill Shoppes at Clear Lake.

So, is it art?

“Sometimes. Sometimes I see it as craft, sometimes I see it as art, if I have this serendipitous moment,” Graves said. “We rarely have been guilty of taking ourselves too seriously.”

This story originally appeared in The Herald Republican, which is published by Business Weekly owner KPC Media Group Inc.

august 8, 2013 · coyote creek golf club · fort wayne

You are cordially invited to the golf event of the season.

The golf tournament by The Chamber (now part of Greater Fort Wayne, Inc.) is the can’t-miss golf event each year. Coyote Creek Golf Club and its staff provide a first-class experience that is enhanced by interactive networking activities. At just $125 per member and $150 per nonmember for the day, this is an outing you won’t want to miss.

Register today: www.fwchamber.org/classic

g re e n s s p o n s o r

e ag l e s p o n s o r s

PAGE 15

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And along came a spider Innovation n surrounds us. Look around and you will see innovation’s amazing effects, having placed its mark on every product and service we use. These tidbits of intellectual property work hard to improve our living standards, provide opportunities for business creation and growth, enable Kristina greater efficiencies Johnson and provide us with more advanced technology.

Innovation also exists in that which cannot be seen. Seen or not, we benefit just the same. One area leader has demonstrated how his customers benefit from unseen innovation, with the use of radio waves. Radio waves transmit music, conversation, images and data through the air. Even though radio waves are invisible to humans, they have totally

IN THE KNOW

changed society.

In 2008, Steve Swick, owner of Swick Broadcasting in Angola, acquired a radio broadcasting group consisting of five stations. These stations — now totaling nine — are peppered throughout Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. Swick has made innovative advances using his already existing radio towers to provide wireless Internet service to the region.

Welcome ZipSpider. ZipSpider is spinning the Web to become the tri-state area’s premiere wireless Internet service provider. It will deliver enormous bandwidth and advanced networking with the fastest speeds in the region. Additionally, ZipSpider will provide secure Web access to ensure the safest email around by supplying both spam and virus filtering protection built-in.

“By expanding our wireless coverage in rural areas, ZipSpider will create highspeed connections available to more people in our community than ever before,” Swick said. “ZipSpider will replace unreliable dial-up, satellite or slow cable connections.”

How does this all work? “ZipSpider n

See JOHNSON on PAGE 17

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July 26-August 1, 2013

CHAPMAN’S: Will be sold in four-packs

Continued from PAGE 11

day, it’s apples and yeast.”

Yet cider, because of its sweetness, is a growing part of the overall beer market.

So Fergusson talked to John Wagner, head of the chemical engineering department at Trine and a home brewer, explaining his desire to create a more sophisticated take on cider, something that would appeal to craft-beer enthusiasts. Wagner put on his R&D hat and went to work. With his fourth attempt, Fergusson knew they’d hit on something special.

At the same time, Fergusson had been talking about some of his business ideas — including the ale cider — with Dan Caruso, co-owner of Caruso Enterprises and Caruso’s Restaurant, who now serves as Chapman’s vice president of product.

“This one just really got traction with me,” Caruso said. “I felt I had a pretty good understanding of the retail market side of the alcohol industry and how undersupplied in craft brewing northeast Indiana was.

“The melding of the two (ale and cider) just really intrigued me.”

Fergusson approached investors, raising $500,000 by selling a 10-percent stake in the company. He donated 5 percent of the company to Trine.

Earlier this year, Chapman’s received tax abatements totaling $550,000 from the city of Angola on its building and equipment investments, which Fergusson said have surpassed $1 million. The business plan for Chapman’s, Fergusson said, is to have the necessary equipment in place to quickly scale up production, and the company’s facility has room for expansion.

Through a process guided by head brewer Dan Case, Chapman’s begins making its ale cider by turning malted barley into a wort, pumping the wort into a brew kettle and then adding hops. The mixture is then transferred to a fermentor, where the cider is added.

Chapman’s ale cider undergoes two stages of fermentation, with the yeast first feeding on the simple sugars in the cider before moving on to the complex sugars of the ale.

“That’s what gives it the complexity, the fuller, more sophisticated taste,” Fergusson said.

The apples used for Chapman’s cider primarily come from Michigan and Washington. The malted barley is from the United Kingdom, the hops hail from the Pacific Northwest and the water is from the city of Angola, which is then softened and

BARRY ROCHFORD

Chapman’s Brewing Co. will start producing its ale cider in about a month.

put through reverse-osmosis filtration.

Fergusson said in the future, Chapman’s would like to come out with limited releases of ale cider showcasing locally grown apples, and the company could produce other fruit-infused ales.

“We think that we’ve got something that we can riff off of in a number of different ways,” he said.

Chapman’s ale cider stays in the doubled-walled fermentor for two weeks before it’s canned or put in kegs, with a final alcohol by volume content of about 6 1/2 percent. Fegusson said the company settled on aluminum cans instead of bottles because of all the brewers he talked to, they all said if they could start over again they would choose cans as they eliminate light and oxygen, which can affect the taste of beer. In addition, cans are 100-percent recyclable, and a semiload of cans burns one-third less diesel fuel than a similar load of bottled beer.

And with modern, lined beer cans, there’s no unpleasant metallic aftertaste.

“When you have our product, you getting it as close to what the brewer wanted you to have as possible,” Fergusson said.

Chapman’s will sell its ale cider in four-packs of 16-ounce cans, smaller sixthbarrel kegs that can hold 40 pints and larger half-barrel kegs. Customers also will be able to visit the brewery in Angola to refill growlers with ale cider.

The company initially will target northeast Indiana and has tapped Five Star Distributing in Columbia City to get its product in front of about 850,000 potential consumers.

“The retailers are saying, ‘Get this to me because this is what everybody is asking for,’” Caruso said.

If Johnny Appleseed were still around, he’d probably ask for it, too.

Follow Business Weekly on Twitter: @fwbusiness

July 26-August 1, 2013

n

n GREATER FORT WAYNE Business Weekly

JOHNSON: ZipSpider covers wide area

Continued from PAGE 16

provides a connection as strong as a spider’s Web, free from limitations and issues that plague air cards, satellite and cable providers,” Swick answered. “ZipSpider delivers high-speed Internet access to your home or office via high-frequency radio.

The wireless network, based on wireless broadband platform, is completely owned and operated by ZipSpider. This eliminates the complications and limitations associated with using wires, equipment and services provided by multiple companies.”

What geographical area does ZipSpider cover? “ZipSpider has access to the communications infrastructure of Swick Broadcasting, allowing access to the tri-state area,” Swick said. “Additionally, I have established agreements for the use of additional tower locations, expanding ZipSpider’s service area south and west of Fort Wayne. By acquiring these locations, ZipSpider has gained entrance to 20 additional Indiana counties.”

ZipSpider’s coverage area includes lower Michigan, western Ohio and a good portion of Indiana, covering as far south as Kokomo.

“One of my most satisfying moments is when we can ‘shock and awe’ a customer,” Swick said. “Recently, ZipSpider was

able to meet a business customer’s need, providing wireless service with enormous bandwidth for streaming a live video conference in an area where my competitors — the majors — could not effectively provide adequate bandwidth. It’s a great feeling of satisfaction to provide a solid product over the competition.”

So, whether you are using radio waves to listen to one of Swick Broadcasting’s nine stations — WLKI 100.3, URock 101.3, ESPN Radio 92.7, Thunder Country 105.5, True Oldies WBET 99.3, WLZZ 104.5, WMYQ101.1, Classic Rock 92.3 and ESPN 1230 — or to take advantage of the unparalleled speed, reliability and savings offered

by ZipSpider, I hope you will appreciate the innovation behind radio waves, and the mindset of innovative leaders like Steve Swick who continually think of ways to use innovation in order to better meet our technology needs.

KRISTINA JOHNSON is the director of community engagement at Trine University, www.trine.edu, and teaches a variety of business classes. She also blogs about innovation at the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership’s Vision 2020 website, www.neindiana. com/vision/blog. She can be reached at (260) 665-4101 or johnsonk@trine.edu.

fwbusiness.com

PAGE 17

CDC, helping small businesses put people back to work.

The Community Development Corporation of Northeast Indiana is a non-profit organization sponsored by the City of Fort Wayne.

The CDC assists small businesses that are unable to obtain conventional financing for the capital needed for start-up or expansion projects.

Benefits of our loan programs include: • Reducing down payment to 10% for fixed assets • Financing Start-ups • Improving a bank’s loan to value on collateral • Fixed rate financing, some programs have below market interest rates

Call one of our loan specialists today!

Misty Ryan Loan Specialist 427-2111

Darren Renier Loan Specialist 427-2109

Community Development Corporation of Northeast Indiana 200 E. Berry St., Suite 320, FW 46802 (260) 427-1125 • www.cdcnein.org Like us on facebook at: www.facebook.com/cdcnein

PAGE 18

fwbusiness.com

GREATER FORT WAYNE Business Weekly n

July 26-August 1, 2013

3Rivers proudly celebrates the grand opening of our newly renovated Northland Branch and expanded Campus. Since 1935, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been dedicated to serving the money matters of our 67,000 members in Northeast Indiana and Northwest Ohio. The exciting redesign creates an innovative and efficient space for the 3Rivers team to delivering personalized and trusted ďŹ nancial solutions to the communities we serve. This centralized campus allows 3Rivers to continue helping members save time and money while helping them build their brighter tomorrows.

Experience growth. Experience convenience. Experience 3Rivers.

n

Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly Top List

July 26-August 1, 2013

n GREATER FORT WAYNE Business Weekly

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fwbusiness.com

PAGE 19

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n PAGE 20

fwbusiness.com

NEW BUSINESSES Blanks Enterprises LLC 2200 Lake Ave., Suite 260 Fort Wayne, IN 46805 John Blanks III Emerson Investment Group LLC 3525 Willowdale Road Fort Wayne, IN 46802 William M. Lengerich T.E.C.N. Corp.

3601 Hobson Road, Suite 202 Fort Wayne, IN 46815 Bojrab, Kaufman & Co. IRM Partnership LLC 971 E. Dupont Road Fort Wayne, IN 46845 Jerry Irving The Aviator Crew LLC 4124 Hessen Cassel Road Fort Wayne, IN 46896 Kendrick Royal Kalm Transport LLC 2712 Broadripple Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46809 Mark Atwood

READER’S GUIDE BizLeads is a collection of information gathered from northeast Indiana courthouses, state government offices and informational Web sites.

These listings are intended to help companies find new customers as well as stay on top of happenings with current customers, vendors and competitors.

New Businesses lists firms that were recently incorporated in the state of Indiana. Information is gathered from the Indiana Secretary of State.

Addresses listed may not be the actual address of the business.

Building Permits are issued by the Allen County Building Department during the specified period of time.

Real Estate is a list of agricultural, commercial, industrial, and residential real estate sales recorded by the state of Indiana.

Bankruptcies are from the United States Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of Indiana.

For complete data involving a particular filing please access the The PACER Service Center, the Federal Judiciary’s centralized registration, billing, and technical support center for electronic access to U.S. District, Bankruptcy, and Appellate court records. Its Web site URL is http://pacer. psc.uscourts.gov.

Tlderickson LLC 10418 Flutter Road Fort Wayne, IN 46885 Tammy Derickson

Patents include the following: Patent number, local inventor and assignee, brief description, filed date and approved date. Source: United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Freedom Auto LLC 12108 Chesterbrook Court Fort Wayne, IN 46845 Rodney Fillers

Listings may vary due to information availability and space constraints.

Favac 720 Sutton Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Chad E. Leggett Ohlemachers Wisconsin Meat and Cheese Products Inc. 1419 Traders Crossing Fort Wayne, IN 46845 Michael J. Nadeau Telefunds Fund Raising LLC 4634 Brook Hollow Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46814 Thomas K. Brodahl Tactical Technical Solutions LLC 4202 Winding Way Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46835 Allen Tietz McComb Realty Acquisition LLC 110 W. Berry St., Suite 1100 Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Vincent J. Backs Ranbaugh LLC 8303 Chapel Bend Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46835 Gary Harbaugh

Premier Waterbury Indiana LLC 444 E. Main St. Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Robert W. Eherenman Lisa M. Borton LLC 604 Archer Ave. Fort Wayne, IN 46808 Lisa Borton All-Terrain Finance LLC 2224 Blue Harbor Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Dan Rutherford Kerr’s Elite Shuttle Inc. 9036 Hickory Glen Trail Fort Wayne, IN 46825 Daniel Kerr Compassion Springs Home Health Care LLC 1049 Tennessee Ave. Fort Wayne, IN 46805 Samuel Gichuhi Mitchell Farm LLC 4119 Fieldbrook Pass Fort Wayne, IN 46815 Mary B. Hogan Everyday Counseling & Services LLC 7412 Charlesbury Court Fort Wayne, IN 46835 Heather N. Crow

Lodge Pole Enterprises LLC 310 W. Jefferson Blvd., Suite 200 Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Jon A. Bragalone Save Maumee Grassroots Organization Inc. 1901 Niagara Fort Wayne, IN 46805 Abigail King

BizLeads

Fantronics LLC 5917 Hallowell Place Fort Wayne, IN 46815 Centryad Enterprises LLC

Fenix Investments LLC 3630 Illinois Road, Suite 2 Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Kristi Triplett

Living Faith Minstries Church Co. 3127 Winter St. Fort Wayne, IN 46806 Devon Debase

Rockabilly Fat City LLC 3323 Ginko Cove Fort Wayne, IN 46818 John Neukam

Shark Tank Book LLC 1001 Chestnut Hills Parkway, Suite 2 Fort Wayne, IN 46814 Andrew Baker Bajpai Consulting LLC 7030 Pointe Inverness Way, Suite 330 Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Jeanne E. Longsworth S&J Capital LLC 6349 Constitution Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Joseph W. Walburn Bukoba LLC 125 Chestnut Hills Parkway Fort Wayne, IN 46814 Mulokozi K. Lugakingira

Five Star Store Inc. 1011 Coral Isle Cove Fort Wayne, IN 46845 Kuldeep Singh KS Transport LLC 4025 S. Calhoun Fort Wayne, IN 46807 Steve Holcomb Three Rivers Radiology LLC 6819 Lima Road Fort Wayne, IN 46818 William Hedrick Martha Vargas Clean LLC 7112 Decatur Road, Lot 8 Fort Wayne, IN 46816 Martha Vargas

JJ Anesthesia Inc. 803 S. Calhoun St., Suite 100 Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Konrad M. L. Urberg

Eoh Management Partners LLC 10339 Dawsons Creek Blvd.

Fort Wayne, IN 46825 Andy Pyle

New World Enterprise LLC 3633 Heron Preserve Trail Fort Wayne, IN 46814 Mohsin Hasnain

Dulcius Ex Asperis Holdings LLC 15727 Auburn Road Fort Wayne, IN 46845 Scott Fergusson

Segdwick-Ips LLC 825 S. Barr St., Second Floor Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Edwin Groenewegen

Kneedachef Inc. 7602 Diane Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46835 Eric A. Braun

Kustom Klean of Allen County LLC 201 W. Wayne St. Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Mark E. Witmer, Esq.

TB Entertainment LLC 5642 Coventry Lane Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Grant Schultz

Fort Wayne Oral Maxillofacial Surgery & Implant Center LLC 125 Chestnut Hills Parkway Fort Wayne, IN 46814 Mulokozi K. Lugakingira

Kos Marketing Inc. 125 Chestnut Hills Parkway Fort Wayne, IN 46814 Akosua H. Lugakingira

Peacheye Properties LLC 215 E. Berry St. Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Joshua C. Neal

HG Enterprises of Indiana LLC 4711 Glenmary Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46806 Thomas Smelser

Orthopaedic Innovations LLC 7030 Pointe Inverness Way, Suite 330 Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Jeanne E. Longsworth

Pure Clean LLC 130 W. Main St., Suite 25C Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Vonda & James CPA’s LLC

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Carmatch LLC 1510 Fairfield Ave., Suite 312 Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Belinda Correa

Donsuz Farm LLC 2001 Oakland St. Fort Wayne, IN 46808 Claire Pynchon Medpro Provider Solutions Inc. 5814 Reed Road Fort Wayne, IN 46835 Trent C. Heinemeyer Investment Drive LLC 4114 W. Dupont Road Fort Wayne, IN 46818 Kurt D. Henry Centered Jewelry LLC 2409 Sugar Tree Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46818 Leslie C. Druhot

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July 26-August 1, 2013

Ly Enterprise LLC 1040 Falcon Creek Parkway Fort Wayne, IN 46845 Linda Yager

Sweets Auto LLC 1510 Fairfield Ave., Suite 105 Fort Wayne, IN 46802 David Ward

Mind, Body, and Soul Coaching LLC 9509 Ledgewood Court Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Stephanie Amspaugh

Mathews and Sons Oil Services LLC 919 Wescott Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46818 Todd Mathews

Midtown Convenience Store LLC 3018 Canterbury Blvd., Apt. 5 Fort Wayne, IN 46835 Adel Yafai

Catholic Veterans of Indiana 3229 Lima Road Fort Wayne, IN 46805 Olivia Silvani

Northeast Indiana BMX Club Inc. 2029 Lathrop Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46808 Jason Wolfe

Landin Meadows Community Association Inc. 5623 Coventry Lane Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Philip Knapke

Sharemysky LLC 4415 Winding Brook Road Fort Wayne, IN 46814 Richard Whipp

Artistic Creations LLC 3614 New Haven Ave. Fort Wayne, IN 46803 Ralph Benson

Key Point Training LLC 1501 S. Clinton St. Fort Wayne, IN 46859 Janeann C. Perkins

Jamerica Media LLC 7418 Antebellum Blvd.

Fort Wayne, IN 46815 James C. Dee

110 Promotions Inc. 10355 Dawsons Creek Blvd., Suite B Fort Wayne, IN 46825 Josh Pugh

Easy Office Supplies LLC 2200 Lake Ave., Suite 260 Fort Wayne, IN 46805 John Blanks III

Grease Fighters LLC 2424 Abbey Drive, Apt. 5 Fort Wayne, IN 46835 Steven Sneary

COMMERCIAL BUILDING PERMITS

Veronica Reyes Lemus LLC 4333 Avondale Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46806 Veronica R. Lemus Jay Downam LLC 3005 W. Washington Center Road Fort Wayne, IN 46818 Jaydee Downam 1St Choice Lawn Pros LLC 215 E. Berry St. Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Joshua C. Neal Fingerle Farms LLC 301 W. Jefferson Blvd., Suite 200 Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Robert L. Nicholson Smart Productivity Group LLC 8708 Chinney Hill Place Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Samuel M. Legorreta Lawn Enforcement LLC 236 Emilie Pine Place Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Greg Cody Incipio Devices LLC 301 W. Jefferson Blvd., Suite 200 Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Robert L. Nicholson McKibben Photography LLC 6802 Nighthawk Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46835 Dustin Mckibben Jose Juan Carmona LLC 2205 Calhoun St. Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Jose J. Carmona 112 E. Masterson Avenue LLC 112 E. Masterson Ave. Fort Wayne, IN 46803 Leo B. Vodde

Shamrock Road LLC 4392 Bluffton Road Fort Wayne, IN 46809 Andy Peters

Lima Center Development LLC 14704 Coldwater Road Fort Wayne, IN 46845 Paul Vlaskamp

Prudential Properties Inc. 6917 Lotus Blossom Place Fort Wayne, IN 46835 Denver Rowland

Exotic Auto Import LLC 1510 Fairfield Ave., Suite 102 Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Ali Ahmed

Sawbill Preserve LLC 1701 Whittingham Lane Fort Wayne, IN 46814 Bob F. Jesse Ex-Men LLC 116 E. Berry St., Suite 302 Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Randall Kammeyer Epoch Wellness LLC 1214 Summit St. Fort Wayne, IN 46803 Keith Collins Live Healthy Hoosiers LLC 301 W Jefferson Blvd., Suite 200 Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Tyler J. Winkleman Midwest Custom Stone LLC 301 W. Jefferson Blvd., Suite 200 Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Jeremy V. Senk Juana Amaro LLC 4511 S. Antony Blvd.

Fort Wayne, IN 46806 Juana Amaro Berger & Henry LLC 323 E. Berry St. Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Jerome F. Henry Jr. Landin Meadows Villas Association Inc. 5623 Coventry Lane Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Philip Knapke

ALLEN COUNTY PERRY TOWNSHIP Duane Dickes Construction 16615 Lima Road $65,000

FORT WAYNE WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP Witwer Construction Inc. 4640 Hillegas Road $5,750,000

RESIDENTIAL BUILDING PERMITS FORT WAYNE ABOITE TOWNSHIP Bob Buescher Homes 6425 Chase Creek Run $274,000 Bob Buescher Homes 2626 Fountain Blvd. $265,000 Millenium Development Inc. 10120 Kelsey Drive $300,000

ST. JOSEPH TOWNSHIP Granite Ridge Builders Inc. 3018 Caradoza Cove $437,234

July 26-August 1, 2013 NEW HAVEN ADAMS TOWNSHIP Granite Ridge Builders Inc. 9188 Landin Pointe Blvd. $223,272

ST. JOSEPH TOWNSHIP Stopher Builders Inc. 3430 Brantley Drive $176,849

ALLEN COUNTY ABOITE TOWNSHIP Bob Buescher Homes 1588 White Coral Court $294,500

EEL RIVER TOWNSHIP Granite Ridge Builders Inc. 4427 Great Hollow Court $267,959

JACKSON TOWNSHIP Garry Delagrange Construction Inc. 20323 Dawkins Road $271,500

LAFAYETTE TOWNSHIP Delagrange Homes LLC 11215 Blackwood Cove $193,100 Niemeyer Builders 11486 Yoder Road $304,000

n GREATER FORT WAYNE Business Weekly

46814 7009 Homestead Road From Jerry H. Bishop to James Anunda and Helen Mariera $195,000 705 Victoria Station Way From Granite Ridge Builders Inc. to Deborah Nickolson $192,071 3321 Buckeye Run From James E. and Carole C. West to Matthew and Jessie Millhouse $167,000 14718 Marlin Cove From Oakmont Development Co. LLC to Sharon R. Howard $59,400 14233 Briarcliff Point From John M. and Rebecca L. Caldwell to Robert A. Cole $700,000 7227 Wintergreen Drive From Paul D. Kirk and Nancee S. Loughedd to Brett R. and Davonna J. Kollin $220,000 14835 Sandstone Drive From Windsor Homes to Lorin and Kathy Andonian $45,600

841 Beal Brook Pass From Granite Ridge Builders Inc. to Mona K. Clapper $141,700

4230 Dalewood Drive From Kevin G. Jehl to Koutaiba F. and Basema S. Braish $93,000

5111 Maples Road From Tim Moser and Darla K. Baker to Chris Huguenard $25,000

15309 Firethorne Path From Austin D. and Mary B. Halter to Richard D. and Helen G. Carter $140,500

3527 Chancellor Drive From Kelly Richard to Paul C. Sykay and Mudah T. Laung $100,000

4301 Mirada Drive From HUD to Ali Pi $33,711

13715 Beal Brook Court From Illinois Development LLC to Granite Ridge Builders Inc. $29,610

2924 Woodstock Court From Bat Holdings Five LLC to Carmen A. Villavicencio $9,500

11128 Monte Vista Court From Lisa L. Hicks to James and Roberta Diller $500,000

5122 E. State Blvd.

From Halden E. Krauter to Mill Works LLC $64,000

5932 Hemingway Run From Westport Homes of Fort Wayne Inc. to Gregory C. Warner Sr. and Heather N. Warner $202,755

3114 Tonawanda Court From Edward W. Ulshafer III and Linda S. Ulshafer to Roy A. Salisbury and Lauern K. Offerle $123,000

46815

2802 Arch Tree Place From Justin M. and Alicia J. Grannell to William F. Christman II and Nicole M. Myers $108,250

2210 Greythorn Drive From Darla Baker to Gregory and Carolyn Farmer $210,000 6324 Birchdale Drive From Mark A. and Jennifer L. Neff to Stephanie Sanchez-Nakasen $105,000

LAKE TOWNSHIP Sterling Homes Inc. 2108 Othello Cove $110,000 Hawthorn Valley Enterprises Inc. 6921 King Lear Blvd. $94,769

PERRY TOWNSHIP Smothers/Schmucker 1261 Gateway Trail $135,000 Granite Ridge Builders Inc. 13532 Galloway Cove $364,900 Amstutz Homes Inc. 12659 Pentolina Cove $225,000

ST. JOSEPH TOWNSHIP Preston Allen Homes, LLC 9316 Arundel Run $165,000

REAL-ESTATE TRANSACTIONS 46809 3001 Sandpoint Road From Fannie Mae to Terry A. Vance $26,000

14821 Blue Reef Drive From Windsor Homes to Zachary and Laura Welch $41,900 14917 Remington Place From Heron Developers LLC to Scott and Ellen McCallum $90,000 12622 Chestnut Passway From Timothy P. and Jane A. Berner to Trent D. and Michele E. Karshner $350,000 14821 Blue Reef Drive From Seven LLC to Windsor Inc. $41,900 1509 Waxwing Court From Star Homes By Delagrange & Richhart Inc. to Brian D. and Rachel L. Mcmeeking $374,000 14509 Sand Pines Court From Gary A. and Catherine A. Dickerson to Dennis and Carol Yontz $242,750 12815 U.S. 24 West From Joseph L. and Jennifer C. Deal to Bradley J. and Barbara R. Stokes $210,000 5838 Balfour Circle From Ronald J. and Karen F. Ehmer to Kevin A. Kapelke $148,000

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2012 Coronet Drive From Christopher and Rebecca F. Jehl to Chase R. Wire $100,000 4905 Woodmark Court From Allen County sheriff to Freddie Mac $69,000 3501 Weston Ridge Place From Andrew S. and Phillip G. Fenker to Steven and Carole Whitlock $119,500 4104 Beaverbrook Drive From Cassandra A. Lehman to Timothy D. and Donald R. Jensen $91,500 7421 Valley Meadows Drive From HUD to Main Stream Mortgage Inc. $55,671 2415 Corby Drive From Freddie Mac to Alicia R. Williams $87,000 3827 Marigold Drive From HUD to Loko Properties LLC $48,900 4336 Oakhurst Drive From Kondaur Capital Corp. to Loko Properties LLC $68,950

6409 Winnebago Court From Bonnie J. Pearson to Paul Furness $80,000 7630 Trier Road From Rusty E. and Anita K. Alexander to Eric M. and Laura M. Urschel $121,600 5404 Monarch Drive From Michael and Anne F. Smith to Kelsey and Victoria Ackermann $100,000 2211 Forest Valley Drive From Sandy Armstrong to Patricia L. Jordan $115,000 3815 Darwood Court From Joan I. Sterling to John L. Hasch $78,000

46816 2914 Oakwood Drive From the estate of Oral M. McGraw to Aye Lwin $52,000 4429 E. Paulding Road From Lester Hubartt to Steven R. McCulloch $44,900 2715 Oakwood Drive From Allen County sheriff to GMAC Mortgage LLC $48,000 6112 Chatham Drive From HUD to Garcia-Martinez Rigoberto $26,660 6208 Holgate Drive From Victor Wagler to Jeremiah and Kaitlin E. Majorins $79,900

2507 Stinson Drive From Marcus Gooden to Ah Boo Khain $85,000

46818 4314 Great Hollow Court From Carroll Creek Development Co. Inc. to Windsor Inc. $44,000 4314 Great Hollow Court From Windsor Inc. to Kristopher and Brandy Young $44,000 3530 Charger Court From Thomas I. and Brooke Eikenberry to Maria A. Gerber $136,400 4614 Golfview Drive From Joseph L. and Henrietta V. Meszaros to Lee Kreager $154,000 11115 Lima Road From Salin Bank & Trust Co. to Titan Exchange #1 LLC $420,000 2709 Bearberry Court From Matthew R. Kurtz Jr. to Carl R. and Carol A. Ehinger $185,000 3918 Kingsbrook Way From David Gebert to Cheryl L. White $94,500 10919 Millstone Drive From Justin A. and Cori L. Gardner to Gregory L. and Donette L. Marden $128,500 8427 Backwater Drive From trustee of the Joan E. McClure trust to Kari S. Zollinger $137,000 5315 Downy Ave. From Tamara S. Nicoll to Jeffrey Hennin $122,900 10810 Goshen Road From the Arthur R. Lamle 2009 revocable trust to Donald G. Felger $626,110 1728 Wayside Drive From Franklin D. Stratton to JRM Realty LLC $60,000 Goshen Road From the Arthur R. Lamle 2009 revocable trust to Ronald E. Lamie $51,000

10810 Goshen Road From the Arthur R. Lamle 2009 revocable trust to Ronald E. Lamle life estate interest $96,000 4723 Kroemer Road From Cross Properties LLC to Sweetwater Holdings LLC $754,000 1927 Mark Anthony Crossing From Lancia Homes Inc. to Christopher C. and Angela R. Geimer $171,676 7210 Lewis Road From Richcreek Brandon to Haris Sabic $15,000 8610 Backwater Drive From Heller & Sons Inc. to Matthew C. and Dawn L. Etzel $168,900 4316 Kingsbrook Way From Josef R. and Jamie M. McGrath to Timothy J. and Tammy S. Rau $86,000 1005 Woodland Pass From Lancia Homes Inc. to Jason A. and Heather M. Carpenter $201,000 4215 Rockburn Drive From Kelly J. Kline to Amber M. Thwaites $108,000 12032 Tapered Bank Run From Scot R. Grostefon to Larry and Donna Smith $139,988 1836 Midsummer Night Cove From Hawthorn Valley Enterprises Inc. to Mikala M. Oswald $115,677 11232 St. Ives Drive From Thomas C. and Dana L. Trent to Joshua E. and Julia Crismore $197,251 7526 Haida Way From Westport Homes of Fort Wayne LLC to Roderick L. Waters $139,000 7736 Felger Road From William Lee Belcher to Jeremy Clark $160,000

46819 7304 Baylor Drive From Jane Czech to Lyndsey M. Chapman $74,900 1022 Clayburn Drive From Allen County sheriff to MidďŹ rst Bank $102,341

7431 Wohama Drive From HUD to Otho & Brough LLC $22,500 920 Crestway Drive From Michael A. Burton to Myat Saw Yu and Naing Than $73,500 5230 Winchester Road From Ryan J. Wiersema to Christopher J. Phillips $74,900

46825 5232 Riviera Drive From Murach Family Limited Partnership to Terrence S. Walker and Wendy N. Hein $47,000 1514 Cypress Lane From John A. Diamond to James Cameron and Gwen Colley $85,900 5307 S. Camden Drive From Francis E. and Donna S. Byanskie to Steven and Marsha Ratliff $76,500 8022 Spruce Creek Place From David P. and Elizabeth C. Meyers to David Elden $123,000 1514 Citation Lane From Chestnut Group Inc. to Delagrange Homes LLC $34,675 1829 Kelleys Landing From Cynthia K. Pond to John D. and Valerie L. Reynolds $222,550

BANKRUPTCIES ADAMS COUNTY Janelle L. Wilson P.O. Box 263 Ashley, IN 46705 Assets: $62,980 Liabilities: $173,252 Sandra D. Simerman 1034 Lewis St. Decatur, IN 46733 Assets: $4,702 Liabilities: $17,775

ALLEN COUNTY Markilo L. Gaines 3716 S. Anthony Blvd.

Fort Wayne, IN 46806 Assets: $850 Liabilities: $4,016 Melinda S. Lane 1432 N. Harrison St. Fort Wayne, IN 46808 Assets: $24,852 Liabilities: $25,334 Eugene R. and Sharon R. Scruggs 1804 W. Colonial Fort Wayne, IN 46806 Assets: $5,735 Liabilities: $139,280

PAGE 21

Ronda M. Buning 6510 Covington, Apt. 432E Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Assets: $21,353 Liabilities: $57,301 Wesley S. McCord 406 Violet Court Fort Wayne, IN 46807 Assets: $8,978 Liabilities: $25,434 Scott D. Matthews 4017 Irene Court Fort Wayne, IN 46808 Assets: $3,090 Liabilities: $65,856 Carol L. Gaff 3763 Claystone Cove New Haven, IN 46774 Assets: $143,225 Liabilities: $194,833 Keisha E. Huddleston 3015 Kentucky Ave. Fort Wayne, IN 46805 Assets: $7,896 Liabilities: $28,945 Brittany L. Houk 4913 Starboard Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46825 Assets: $4,315 Liabilities: $90,290 Andrea M. Davis 3210 Victor Lane Fort Wayne, IN 46818 Assets: $6,525 Liabilities: $33,222 Zachary F. Ault 6640 Ashbrook Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46835 Assets: $6,075 Liabilities: $17,652 Frances J. Mills 665 1/2 Huffman Fort Wayne, IN 46808 Assets: $64,250 Liabilities: $86,101 Dennis L. Cuney 2230 August Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46818 Assets: $101,200 Liabilities: $152,404 Sarah S. Chambers 930 Woodview Blvd.

Fort Wayne, IN 46806 Assets: $3,835 Liabilities: $15,600 Larry A. and Karen S. Love 3806 Yoder Road Yoder, IN 46798 Assets: $12,575 Liabilities: $112,517 Laurie M. Coyne 3956 Pebble Way New Haven, IN 46774 Assets: $93,141 Liabilities: $116,626 Loretta L. Fisher 847 Edgewater Ave. Fort Wayne, IN 46805 Assets: $17,805 Liabilities: $68,463

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Angela A. Brockhouse 20320 Pasada Drive Monroeville, IN 46773 Assets: $110,675 Liabilities: $158,641 Doris J. Reynolds 8202 Tewksbury Court Fort Wayne, IN 46835 Assets: $131,760 Liabilities: $215,130 Sandra K. Harrell 6729 Ramblewood Drive, Apt. F Fort Wayne, IN 46835 Assets: $57,850 Liabilities: $172,940 Ronald G. and Lisa D. Collins 7507 Saddlewood Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46825 Assets: $89,810 Liabilities: $135,776 Marilyn J. Ondersma 2410 Bolton Drive, Apt. 209 Fort Wayne, IN 46825 Assets: $52,120 Liabilities: $56,550

Lorene E. Cobb and Alicia A. Ottley 1417 Fisher St. Fort Wayne, IN 46803 Assets: $129,450 Liabilities: $173,334

Phyllis A. Merriweather 4960 Winchester Road, #101 Fort Wayne, IN 46816 Assets: $6,790 Liabilities: $88,888

Thomas C. and Veronica L. Stilley 500 E. 495 South Wolcottville, IN 46795 Assets: $9,005 Liabilities: $226,023

Cory W. and Nicki L. Tackett 7 Blue River Drive Columbia City, IN 46725 Assets: $10,439 Liabilities: $14,188

Tanya M. Carpenter 817 Madge Ave. Fort Wayne, IN 46803 Assets: $35,400 Liabilities: $30,035

Mitchell K. and Rebeka P. Finley 7508 Lakeridge Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46819 Assets: $20,199 Liabilities: $106,961

Matthew B. Cook 548 Maple Ridge Lagrange, IN 46761 Assets: $5,950 Liabilities: $41,221

Kara L Sheets 9815 S. 200 East Columbia City, IN 46725 Assets: $14,500 Liabilities: $46,638

NOBLE COUNTY Lisa R. Thomas 430 S. Oak St. Kendallville, IN 46755 Assets: $12,498 Liabilities: $39,187

Jason S. and Christina S. Austin 799 E. Keiser Road Columbia City, IN 46725 Assets: $97,094 Liabilities: $62,200

Douglas C. and Stephanie L. Thornton 2010 Woodhaven Drive, Apt. 4 Fort Wayne, IN 46819 Assets: $47,241 Liabilities: $116,847

Michael E. and Kerri L. Smothermon 6128 Kiwanis Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46835 Assets: $213,297 Liabilities: $309,659

Thay Morales 4211 Encino Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46816 Assets: $170,864 Liabilities: $199,333

Sarah E. Martin 7526 Ravens Stone Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46818 Assets: $31,996 Liabilities: $48,790

James H. and Melanie A. Robertson 642 E. North, #18 Kendallville, IN 46755 Assets: $1,590 Liabilities: $174,486

Jeffrey R. and Kelly A. Curless 114 Whispering Lane South Whitley, IN 46787 Assets: $167,163 Liabilities: $234,142

Brittain M. Smyser 1705 Wells St., Apt. B Fort Wayne, IN 46808 Assets: $1,535 Liabilities: $26,278

Chad M. and Mandie K. Anglin 8726 Green Meadow Drive New Haven, IN 46774 Assets: $22,850 Liabilities: $81,327

Kyle F. Cunningham 9274 Harper Lake Road Kimmell, IN 46760 Assets: $6,550 Liabilities: $86,402

Carl S. and Heather A. Brown 893 S. Archer Court Columbia City, IN 46725 Assets: $184,425 Liabilities: $238,389

John C. and Brandy L. Whitaker 718 S. Main St. Kendallville, IN 46755 Assets: $57,525 Liabilities: $91,519

Lawrence J. Gordon 7294 W. 900 South South Whitley, IN 46787 Assets: $4,775 Liabilities: $178,911

Danny E. and Tammy S. Doss 3925 Webster St. Fort Wayne, IN 46807 Assets: $116,255 Liabilities: $96,015

Dale C. and Jill A. Aspy 4052 Pebble Way New Haven, IN 46774 Assets: $122,574 Liabilities: $193,291

Michael R. Cunningham 415 W. Oakdale Fort Wayne, IN 46807 Assets: $246,219 Liabilities: $346,145

Timothy R. and Linda D. Hines 2738 S. Hanna St. Fort Wayne, IN 46806 Assets: $75,200 Liabilities: $76,533

Laura M. Purcell 5210 North Bend Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Assets: $68,720 Liabilities: $30,034

Jill A. Brandon 16505 Indianapolis Road Yoder, IN 46798 Assets: $179,210 Liabilities: $196,332

Beth A. Yurosko 1128 Barthold, Apt. 1 Fort Wayne, IN 46808 Assets: $4,200 Liabilities: $45,510

Christopher M. Chavez 1021 Forest Ave. Fort Wayne, IN 46805 Assets: $72,347 Liabilities: $98,890

Michael W. and Janice L. Westmoreland 1602 Sunshine Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46825 Assets: $41,600 Liabilities: $121,142

Blair R. Fremion P.O. Box 52 Yoder, IN 46798 Assets: $97,250 Liabilities: $99,610

Katherine E. Cochran 625 Autumn Ridge Lane Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Assets: $170,300 Liabilities: $162,460

Bajro and Senada Omeragic 5216 Whitewater Pass Fort Wayne, IN 46825 Assets: $136,800 Liabilities: $183,992

Bradley P. Jakacki 8430 Popp Road Fort Wayne, IN 46845 Assets: $6,280 Liabilities: $13,491

Leonardo J. Rivera 106 Scott St. New Haven, IN 46774 Assets: $3,208 Liabilities: $14,374

Juanita E. Colbert 4602 Bowser Ave. Fort Wayne, IN 46806 Assets: $1,399 Liabilities: $169,941

James L. and Lori D. Tiffner 1247 N. Glendale Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46804 Assets: $82,284 Liabilities: $186,292

James M. Chipasula 616 Wallen Hills Drive, Apt. 2 Fort Wayne, IN 46825 Assets: $9,376 Liabilities: $59,951

DEKALB COUNTY William H. and Linda C. Weaver 46 Castle Court Auburn, IN 46706 Assets: $5,590 Liabilities: $194,644 Linda L. Mann 106 S. Johnson St. Garrett, IN 46738 Assets: $54,200 Liabilities: $57,125

Bradley J. Halsey 1635 N. Shisler Road Albion, IN 46701 Assets: $9,820 Liabilities: $27,718

STEUBEN COUNTY

Sean A. Koskie 5760 C.R. 327, Lot 56 Garrett, IN 46738 Assets: $10,543 Liabilities: $18,966

James D. Hollifield Jr. and April L. Hollifield 3670 S. 1000 West Hudson, IN 46747 Assets: $112,840 Liabilities: $118,352

Charles and Staci L. Dobson 2000 Maple Lane Garrett, IN 46738 Assets: $175,350 Liabilities: $214,547

David W. and Deborah L. Nelson 439 Northcrest Road Angola, IN 46703 Assets: $136,780 Liabilities: $227,657

Crystal G. Hinkle 1303 S. Randolph St. Garrett, IN 46738 Assets: $89,200 Liabilities: $157,944 E.K. Newman III 211 S. Cleveland St. Auburn, IN 46706 Assets: $789 Liabilities: $110,153

LAGRANGE COUNTY Michael T. and Jenita M. Reed 4860 S. 900 East Wolcottville, IN 46795 Assets: $265,588 Liabilities: $467,322 Amanda J. Brake 502 W. County Line Road, Apt. 12 Wolcottville, IN 46795 Assets: $4,296 Liabilities: $17,016

WELLS COUNTY Travis L. Fate 3627 W. 800 South Poneto, IN 46781 Assets: $109,646 Liabilities: $193,280 William E. Runion 295 W. Logan St. Markle, IN 46770 Assets: $1,044 Liabilities: $32,534 Rachel I. Edmiston 404 Morton Lane Ossian, IN 46777 Assets: $132,475 Liabilities: $150,648

WHITLEY COUNTY Mallory A. Mikel 7884 E. D’Andre Drive, #92 Fort Wayne, IN 46818 Assets: $2,320 Liabilities: $17,451

PATENTS 8,489,607 Methods and system for providing context sensitive information Christopher S. Fuselier, Farmington, Conn.

John J. Dougherty, Collegeville, Pa. Joseph J. Fisher, Austin, Texas Thomas A. Digate, Fort Wayne Richard A. Carpenter, Charlottesville, Va. Bernardo Anger, Westborough, Mass.

General Electric Co., Schenectady, N.Y. Filed: Nov. 10, 2009 Approved: July 16, 2013

8,489,254 Control system for equipment on a vehicle with a hybrid-electric powertrain Jay E. Bissontz, Fort Wayne International Truck Intellectual Property Co. LLC, Lisle, Ill. Filed: Aug. 16, 2010 Approved: July 16, 2013

July 26-August 1, 2013

Fair warning: Come prepared

BY DOUG LEDUC dleduc@kpcmedia.com

The JobWorks office in Fort Wayne and a local university plan to provide interview training in a few weeks that some job seekers will be able to put into practice the same hour they have completed it.

The training will be offered by the career services department at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne and JobWorks in connection with a job fair scheduled for 1-4 p.m.

Aug. 16 in the university’s classic ballroom. The interview training will take place in the same building from noon to 3 p.m.

“It will help you learn to develop a conversation with the employer and learn how to highlight experiences and qualifications when speaking one-on-one with employers,” said Nicole Wilkins, the school’s chief communications officer.

“We’ll be helping job seekers understand how to impress employers by making themselves memorable and how to follow up afterwards.”

The free event is open to the public and no registration is required. In addition to students, the job fair is expected to attract job seekers of all ages who have no connection to the university, she said.

Employers who participate in the job fair will be required to have at least one open position within their work force when they register for exhibit space to explain the nature of their business and the demands of the work it requires.

“It’s definitely an opportunity for job seekers to meet employers who are hiring now,” Wilkins said. “It’s also an opportunity for employers to showcase their businesses and to network with other businesses in the area and to interview numerous (potential) employees at one time.”

Information was not available on the organizations registered for the job fair; similar events in the past have attracted some of the biggest employers in the area, she said.

Even with an unemployment rate of 8.2 percent reported for the Fort Wayne metropolitan statistical area in June, Joel Daas, area manager for the local Manpower employment agency, said many area employers face shortages of workers with specific skill sets.

“Basically it’s among the skilled trades, sales reps, drivers and IT (information technology) staff,” he said. “It’s the same here as it is across the country.

Some employers registering for the job fair could be looking for those types of workers, Daas said. Skilled trades positions have been the hardest to fill. There are plenty of openings for machinists and welders and electrical and mechanical maintenance workers.

Part of the problem is that technical skills can become outdated, he said. Employers also have encountered job candidate shortages when they have found that many openings they have cannot be filled by entry-level workers.

“When the economy took a dive in 2007 and 2008, companies tightened their belts and realized they had to work a lot leaner.

So they had one person doing the job of maybe two or three people who were wearing more hats and it became a more skilled economy,” he said.

“When they look to hire, they look for someone who can have a larger skill set,” Daas said. “A lot of employers are looking for the same type of skills. So if you have those skills, you have a lot more opportunity.”

Ashley Calderon, director of career services at IPFW, said the school hopes to have more than 50 employers from a wide variety of industries at the job fair.

Last year, a similar job fair with 50 employers attracted 900 job seekers.

July 26-August 1, 2013

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POVERTY: State had sixth-greatest increase in income inequality from 1990s to mid-2000s n

Continued from PAGE 1

has continued to increase year to year despite the economic recovery.

“There are many, many more people who are underemployed,” said Linda Fuller, assistant supervisor for St. Joseph Township in Allen County. Some have only been able to snag part-time jobs, and many lurch from one temporary position to another with no guarantee how long the work will last, and no insurance or benefits.

The demand for assistance provided through the township governments has been so great that some people are getting less so more people can get some, said Richard Stevenson Sr., trustee for Wayne Township in Allen County.

“I call it the peanut-butter syndrome. If you have 12 more people to give peanut butter, you have to spread it a little thinner,” Stevenson said.

A record 1,011,017 Hoosiers are living in poverty, and 2.24 million fall below 200 percent of the federal poverty guideline, the income level generally considered a requirement for self-sufficiency, the Working Families Institute reported. While Indiana’s poverty rate is on par with the national average, and lower than every neighboring state except Illinois, it grew 58.7 percent from 2000 through 2011, the fifth-highest increase in the United States.

As of 2011, 24 percent of Indiana jobs were in occupations that paid wages below the poverty level, and 71 percent were in low-income occupations, defined as producing wages between 100 percent and 200 percent of the poverty level. Only five states, none of them bordering Indiana, have seen a higher increase in low-income individuals since the recession began in 2007. And at $15.24, the median hourly wage in Indiana is less than all neighboring states except Kentucky, noted the study by the Working Families Institute, a program of the Indiana Community Action Association.

Allen County government and economic-development officials have long bemoaned the relative decline in wages here, compared to the nation, in the decades since International Harvester closed and the manufacturing sector as a whole began to decline.

The downward slide seemed to have stabilized, with the county’s average annual wages staying at about 82 percent of the national average for about four years, but it dropped again in 2012 to 80.8 percent, according to data compiled by the Community Research Institute at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.

“When we lost so many high-paying manufacturing jobs, that tended to take the average wage down,” said John Stafford,

“We’ve talked at CRI about the significance of the decline in per-capita income. That might come across as a uniform decline, that everyone is impacted equally, but that is not what’s going on. The pay differential is huge.”

John Stafford Community Research Institute

CRI’s outgoing director.

He’s the first to admit, however, that average wage numbers don’t tell the whole story.

“We’ve talked at CRI about the significance of the decline in per-capita income.

That might come across as a uniform decline, that everyone is impacted equally, but that is not what’s going on,” Stafford said. “The pay differential is huge.”

A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute, noted in the Working Families study, found that Indiana experienced the sixth-greatest increase in income inequality from the 1990s through mid-2000s, as measured by the change in ratio of incomes of the top and bottom fifths of households. In Indiana, the dramatic increase in inequality was largely due to the poor getting poorer.

Unemployment also has hit some segments of the population harder than others. The Working Families Institute reported that unemployment among African Americans increased from 15.5 percent in 2011 to 19.8 percent in 2012, and is nearly double that of whites. Unemployment among 16- to 19-year-olds increased from 19.6 percent in 2011 to 21.9 percent in 2012.

“Unable to begin earning valuable work experiences, unemployed teens stand to lose significant lifetime earnings and are more susceptible to higher unemployment in the future. These trends are likely explained, in part, by the continued expansion of low-wage jobs, and the fact that older Hoosiers, facing limited options, now work in industries that would have typically employed teens,” Thomas wrote in the Working Families study.

An estimated 23 percent of Hoosiers also are afflicted by what is known as “asset poverty.” This measure takes into account a family’s financial vulnerability to economic

shocks, such as the loss of income due to unemployment, a medical emergency or divorce.

During and since the job losses and pay cuts associated with the recession, “when people went through that, they burned through their asset base,” Stafford noted.

“We tend to look at income and wages, but the other part of that is accumulated assets. Any little bump in the road becomes a crisis. It just seems like there’s no way of (some people) getting their heads above water.”

While the state lost jobs across all skill levels due to the economic downturn, that has not fundamentally changed the structure of Indiana’s labor market. A majority (54 percent) of all jobs are still middle-skill jobs, requiring more than a high-school diploma but less than a four-year degree, the Working Families Institute reported.

Sadly, only 47 percent of Hoosier workers have the appropriate skills and credentials.

Education, therefore, is one avenue that may help disadvantaged workers improve their status. There was a time when employers provided workers the training they needed to do their jobs, and considered it a cost of doing business. Now, companies are more likely to seek government-sponsored training grants to fill that need.

“It’s part of the whole globally competitive world,” Stafford said. “If your competition has some form of assistance and you don’t, that’s a huge disadvantage.”

One of the long-standing debates in economic-development circles is whether to demand — as a condition of providing training assistance, tax abatements and other incentives — that companies create higher-paying jobs.

“In many communities, that is one of the cornerstones in developing an economic-development package, and I have been a proponent of that because that’s how

we’re going to turn around that per-capita income,” Stafford said.

In late 2011, both the city of Fort Wayne and Allen County approved so-called “super abatement” programs that would give larger, longer-term tax breaks to companies that created jobs paying at least 10 percent above the county average for any given job category. Thus far, Allen County has had no companies that have qualified, and Fort Wayne has had just two: Quake Manufacturing, an engineering firm that added equipment; and Voss Automotive, which is building a new facility.

In 2009, the Lilly Endowment awarded a $20-million training grant to a consortium headed by the Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne. Most of the funds went to public schools, both K-12 and post-secondary, and about $5.7 million was earmarked to provide retraining to workers in the defense and aerospace industries.

Indiana’s heavy reliance on the manufacturing sector has proved to be both a blessing and a curse. Although many of the better-wage jobs that were lost over the past few decades were in manufacturing, it also has been manufacturing that has led Indiana’s recovery. The state has gained 61,100 manufacturing jobs since the recession ended in 2009, the second-best performance in the nation. The automotive sector, a pillar of the northeast Indiana economy, has accounted for nearly half of those jobs.

Despite that gain, Indiana still has 56,600 fewer jobs than before the recession. And for many workers, particularly those in their late 40s, 50s and 60s who had expected to finish their working lives in the jobs that they lost, prospects for re-employment at a good wage are dim.

“They just have to learn to cut back.

That’s what we’re trying to educate people to do,” Stevenson said.

“The American Dream of the past is no longer with us,” he said. “The message is that we’re in transition. The world is in transition. And part of that transition is trying to adjust from a high income, well, I don’t want to say to a low income, but that’s what it is. A lesser income.”

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FORGET: Number of Hoosiers with Alzheimer’s disease will rise to 130,000 by 2025

Continued from PAGE 1

husband as his cognitive abilities declined almost became too much for her. And so about a year ago, Jane Hill began dropping her husband off at Birchwood, a newly named, relocated adult daycare in southwest Fort Wayne exclusively for people with Alzheimer’s disease. It was a step that was hard for her, is difficult for most relatives of people with Alzheimer’s, and is one of many circumstances the Greater Indiana Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association is intent on addressing.

The statewide chapter has developed an extensive four-year plan through 2017 that covers a wide range of topics, including: building awareness of the incurable form of dementia; improving early diagnosis and care coordination; expanding health care system capacity and funding; increasing research into slowing the progression of the disease; and assisting unpaid caregivers like Jane Hill.

Public input sessions conducted in Fort Wayne, Indianapolis and Bloomington contributed to the plan. Chief among the concerns from those attending the sessions were affordability of care, care service options, education and training, and support for families and caregivers.

At stake is not only bolstering support for family caregivers and adequacy of care for their loved ones but also getting a handle on the burgeoning cost of that care. The national Alzheimer’s Association estimated the direct costs of caring for people with Alzheimer’s in 2013 will reach $203 billion.

The stress exacted on unpaid caregivers, meanwhile, results in about $9.1 billion in additional annual health-care costs nationally and about $190 million in Indiana.

Stephanie Stilabower, co-founder and executive director of Birchwood, said the costs are bound to keep rising under any scenario as the population ages. And indeed, it is estimated that the number of people 65 and older in Indiana with Alzheimer’s will rise to 130,000 by 2025, according to the state chapter.

Linda Altmeyer, director of programs for the state chapter, and Michael Sullivan, director of public policy and advocacy, said education is one of the keys — if not the key — in improving the care network for Alzheimer’s and bringing the disease out of the shadows of an isolation brought on, in part, by family guilt, embarrassment, protectiveness or simply a lack of awareness for what services are available.

Altmeyer, Sullivan, Stilabower and Birchwood co-founder Becky Armstead

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TO LEARN MORE A conference for Alzheimer’s caregivers will be conducted from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Nov. 14 at the Holiday Inn on Paul Shaffer Drive in Fort Wayne.

The conference, for both professional and unpaid caregivers, will feature guest speaker Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle, author of “Ten Thousand Joys & Ten Thousand Sorrows,” which tells the story of a couple’s journey through Alzheimer’s.

People can call the northern Indiana office of the Alzheimer’s Association for more information at (260) 420-5547.

said caregivers don’t seek assistance for a variety of reasons, including that they want to protect their loved ones from public scrutiny or they believe no one else can care for their loved ones as well as they can.

Altmeyer said such reluctance was evidenced several years ago when the state chapter had difficulty finding takers for grant money intended to help people in the Indianapolis area secure Alzheimer’s daycare.

“We have to fight somehow to let people know it’s all right to ask for help,” Stilabower said. “And men are worse about it with their wives than women are with their husbands.

Men who are taking care of their wives, it’s like pulling teeth to get them to agree to ask for help. To say, ‘You know what, I’m really tired. I need help, too.’ ” Professional assistance — whether it is at an adult daycare, a longer-term facility or in the home — isn’t just beneficial for the caregivers. Interaction with others helps stimulate the person with Alzheimer’s.

“You’re not leaving your loved one,” Altmeyer said. “You’re giving them another avenue so they can be engaged socially.”

“We cannot change the trajectory of the disease,” Sullivan said, “but we can change the journey for the family. We can offer the support they need.”

The state plan calls for providing education and training resources for unpaid caregivers, encouraging employers to make caregiver support services part of benefit packages, and helping Alzheimer’s patients and their families find existing funding or service options or lobby for expanded funding options.

Education and training under the plan are not just reserved for families dealing with Alzheimer’s. The plan seeks to increase training for health care professionals and first responders.

Even simple things like teaching healthcare providers how to communicate with someone who has Alzheimer’s or having them give families information about available services would be helpful.

Physicians, Altmeyer and Sullivan said, often focus on treating other health problems affecting a person who has Alzheimer’s, but steer clear of dementia manifestations.

“We’re really trying to educate them on the care that’s available in the outlying community,” Altmeyer said. “To know where to send their patients so the patients can receive the care and support they need.”

Jane Hill said she might have been quicker to seek the assistance at Birchwood, formerly A Day Away, had she known about it earlier.

Then again, it wasn’t easy giving up care — even for a short time — for a man who had always taken care of her.

“He was a great husband, a great father,” she said. “He always took care of me.

Always. And he put both of our daughters through college. Both our daughters went to college debt-free. And they both had church weddings. Anytime they had a problem, he was right there for ‘em.”

He was there for Jane, too, when she needed help around the house.

Steady, she agreed. He was steady. Even in the beginning.

Jane Hill, now 66, and Bob, 72, met on a Greyhound bus while traveling from Fort Wayne to visit their families, hers in Kentucky, his in Tennessee.

She didn’t give him her phone number on that trip, but he looked her up at her job at a car dealership when he returned to Fort Wayne and they were married about a year later.

It wasn’t, she said, love at first sight. Just a comfortable melding of hearts and souls and minds.

“It was that he was from the South like I was and that he was a kind, gentle person,” she said. “I guess our personalities clicked.

I guess we just clicked.”

And life, she said, was good — until he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and had to retire from his electrician job at Dana Corp. at age 59. A little more than eight years later came the Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

She said she felt profoundly guilty the first time she took Bob to Birchwood, a 10,000-square-foot nonprofit built through a nearly completed $2-million capital campaign orchestrated by Vera Bradley Inc. co-founder Barbara Bradley Baekgaard and Vera Bradley executive Jill Nichols and her husband, John.

“It was hard for me to ask for help because I thought that would mean that I had failed,” Jane Hill said. “But as this disease progresses, you need to have more skills to know how to handle it. And, exhaustion can’t make wise decisions.

“As I kept going (to Birchwood) and n

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FORGET: ‘I just wish there was a cure …’

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started talking to these ladies (Stilabower and Armstead), I could see their love, their dedication,” Jane Hill said. “This wasn’t just a job to them. These ladies are angels.”

Moreover, the interior of the facility — designed by Baekgaard — was colorful, right down to the turquoise, orange, yellow, blue and white dining chairs; the staff was ever cheerful; and the clients, many of them comfortable if not happy, were kept engaged with a variety of activities.

There was, of course, a private anguish behind the sunny disposition of the place, and Stilabower and Armstead acknowledged they cry often with family members facing difficult circumstances or decisions.

There is the wife who is considering a nursing home placement for her husband after he walked away from the couple’s home at midnight and was found many hours later beside a road, bruised and dirty from falling. Another woman, Stilabower and Armstead said, wrestled with keeping an embarrassing secret from her children: Their father had begun urinating in trash cans.

Jane Hill also talks to Stilabower and Armstead about the challenges she faces with her husband. And the four days a week, six hours a day she leaves him at Birchwood have been a godsend for her and for him.

“This is a place where I don’t feel I have to be an advocate for Bob,” she said. “I can actually drop him off and I can go on and do doctor’s appointments and things for myself that I had neglected to do. I can go shopping or I can go have lunch with a friend. It’s given a little bit of normal back in my life.”

That, she said, allows her to be a better caregiver, something she said she will be until the very end because he would have done the same thing for her.

“I know for a fact he would have,” she said. “Not a doubt in my mind.”

She manages to stay strong through her faith, family, friends and physician, and through glimpses she gets of the old Bob — the one she knew before Alzheimer’s intruded. Her wait for those special moments sounds like something out of

GREATER

RICK FARRANT

Jane Hill, with husband Bob, says she is trying to make the best of a difficult situation: “I try to do something each day that makes us smile.”

“The Notebook” — that oft-referenced movie about a husband reading a story to his wife chronicling the life they shared in the hopes she’ll escape her dementia, even if only for a few minutes.

“He’ll say something complimentary or tell me that I look really nice,” Jane Hill said. “And that’s good. It gives you the strength to go on, is what it does.”

On a recent day at Birchwood, Jane and Bob Hill had another moment. They walked hand-in-hand across the Birchwood parking lot toward their car and the ride home, looking every bit the love birds they’ve been all these years. It was a small moment of togetherness — a moment, like all the rest, that will be gone forever one day.

Jane Hill doesn’t think about that inevitability and she has little idea what her life will look like when the end comes, other than being a grandmother to her three grandchildren.

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “I don’t know. I can’t go there. I just wish there was a cure that could buy us more time.”

FORT WAYNE

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Study finds Indiana attracting private equity

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Biomet, Bluffton Motor Works, Bowmar, cinda b, Fleetwood RV, General Growth Properties, Gold Shield, Intellectual Technologies, Jo-Ann Stores, Matilda Jane, National Recreation Systems, Shuttleworth, Summit Fiberglass, Tippmann Sports and WagnerMeinert.

There are more than a dozen companies with a headquarters or a significant presence in northeast Indiana that have attracted private equity investment. A number of the companies have been acquired by private-equity groups.

The Summit Fiberglass sale last year to the Fort Wayne-based Ellis Co. and Matilda Jane’s sale last year to Indianapolis-based CID Capital could have contributed a bit to Indiana’s ranking in the top third of the 50 states for private-equity and growth-capital investment in 2012.

The Washington, D.C.-based Private Equity Growth Capital Council ranked Indiana 15th among the states by investment value. Its research showed private equity invested $8.5 billion in 35 Indiana-based companies last year.

Noah Theran, a spokesman for the council, said the average amount of private equity invested in a state last year was $6.8 billion, and a PEGCC chart shows there was enough disparity among the amounts each state attracted that 32 of them fell below the average.

“It’s great news for Indiana’s economy that it attracted so much private-equity investment in 2012,” he said. “The cornerstone of the private-equity investment model is the strengthening of companies.

“Private equity is a long-term investment.

The average length of a private-equity investment is somewhere between three and seven years, which really allows the private-equity firms investing in Indiana to bring their operational expertise to the companies they own and strengthen them over time. It drives economic growth.”

The five states that did best in the PEGCC ranking attracted more than 40 percent of last year’s U.S. private-equity investment, which totaled $347.3 billion. Texas topped the ranking with $46.6 billion, followed by California with $35 billion, Colorado with $26.8 billion, Illinois with $19.1 billion and Florida with $17.3 billion.

About 85 percent of last year’s private-equity investment went to the top 20 states, and an analysis shows “this investment is

quite diverse; no one industry or sector of the economy was receiving the investment,” Theran said.

“There’s no one thing a region or state does to attract private-equity investment,” he said. “There’s investment in manufacturing and high-tech and natural resources and energy, so there’s no one secret formula to attracting private-equity investment.”

Texas matched its top ranking for private equity investment by placing highest in 2012 rankings where Site Selection magazine and Chief Executive magazine compared states as locations for doing business.

But four states PEGCC ranked among the 10 best for attracting private equity last year — California, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania — were ranked among the 10 worst states for doing business by Chief Executive magazine.

A fact sheet on Indiana prepared by PEGCC said private-equity firms invested an estimated $71 billion in the state during 2003 through 2012. It said 324 Indiana-based companies have private-equity backing, and they employ more than 121,180 workers.

“Private-equity investment ultimately leads to jobs,” said Mark Hagar, managing member of the Regional Angel Investment Network, which was started in Fort Wayne in 2009 to invest in early-stage, growth-stage and distressed companies that can demonstrate potential for superior profits and high growth.

“We deal with distressed businesses and if we can keep that business in the community and keep those jobs, however many there are, we’ve benefited the community. And if we can grow the business and add jobs, all the better,” he said.

Hagar said the conservative nature of northeast Indiana’s investment community can make it difficult to find funds for private-equity investment in the region.

There are at least half a dozen groups in northeast Indiana that do private-equity investing. Hagar said they are aware of each other but don’t have an efficient way to communicate with each other.

“If we find a deal we want to take an equity position in and raise some capital, in a lot of ways, we’re kind of on our own,” he said. “There’s no clearinghouse for this.

“With my group, we’ve never hit a home run, never found a startup company that suddenly hires a lot of people,” Hagar said.

“I think if there were a couple of high-profile stories that got people excited, there might be more (regional private equity investment) showing up.”

July 26-August 1, 2013

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BRIEFLY

INDIANA

Kosciusko, 7.5 percent.

UNEMPLOYMENT RATE RISES

A LLE N C O U NT Y

Indiana saw a slight increase in its seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in June, when it rose to 8.4 percent from 8.3 percent the previous month.

According to figures released July 18 by the Indiana Department of Workforce Development, the state added 5,300 private-sector jobs in June. The manufacturing sector alone accounted for 4,300 new jobs.

Other sectors posting gains were: trade, transportation and utilities, 4,200; and private educational and health services, 400. Sectors showing declines were: construction, which lost 2,600 jobs; professional and business services, which lost 1,900 jobs; and leisure and hospitality, which lost 600 jobs.

The national seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in June was 7.6 percent.

Unemployment rates for neighboring states were: Ohio, 7.2 percent; Kentucky, 8.4 percent; Michigan, 8.7 percent; and Illinois, 9.2 percent.

June nonseasonally adjusted unemployment rates for northeast Indiana counties were: Noble and Wabash, 8.8 percent; Steuben, 8.7 percent; DeKalb and Elkhart, 8.6 percent; Huntington, 8.5 percent; Allen, 8.3 percent; Adams, LaGrange and Whitley, 7.6 percent; Wells, 7.5 percent; and

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Earnings and revenue were in line with expectations but below the $44 million, or 20 cents per share, earned on net sales of $1.9 billion in the year-ago period.

“Specific to product pricing, the second quarter proved most challenging for our sheet and structural steel operations,” Mark Millett, SDI president and CEO, said in an announcement.

“Slower anticipated economic growth in China coupled with suppressed economic growth in the European community influenced near-term market sentiment. The persistent uncertainty in the domestic economic environment continued to influence customer buying patterns as they maintained low inventory levels. Domestic oversupply, coupled with increased quarter-over-quarter steel imports, resulted in decreased quarterly selling values.”

SDI is headquartered in Fort Wayne and has operations in Columbia City and Butler.

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