Who Gets What?

Ryan Vaughn heads The Indiana Sports Corporation that provides services throughout the state, including "Exchange," a web site on which sports directors and others exchange information and locate resources.  Another service, "Sports Indiana," is an association of community sports agencies in many cities and towns, all interested in creating sporting opportunities locally.   In Indianapolis, the co...

Indianapolis will inaugurate new service transportation in September, starting with a north/south route called the Red Line.   Bryan Luellen, Vice President of Public Affairs of IndyGo, tells all.  Parking, route selection, future routes, accessibility and more, are part of this timely conversation. 

Steve Spence of Indianapolis is president of The Society of American Magicians.  He also is a professional mediador, and active member of Kiwanis International. The craft of magic as well as required skills and business issues are covered in this podcast.  

Kit Williams directs preparation and management of the stage.  He is the manager who makes sure that directors of sound, light, and  trucks to carry their equipment, are in the right place at the right time. And here we learn about computer mice (mouses?) that direct robot lights and robot cameras, all from an invisible trailer behind the action.  The emergence of modern speakers that do not splas...

Phillip and his son operate Ramsey Pyrotechics in Frankfort, Indiana. He started voluntarily shooting shows, but then he learned that The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra wanted safe fireworks displays for The Fourth of July.  From there, word of mouth led the company to produce more than 70 shows a year. This conversation includes details of firework shell construction and launching.    

Diane Richards is an Indianapolis graphic designer whose early work was for Walt Disney.  She and her colleagues designed signs utilized in all the parks, including Tokyo and Paris.   Diane describes how projects start and how concepts evolve from draft, to model, to final installation. Diane also has designed signs around Indianapolis  

Artistic director, fund raiser and stellar professional pianist Clare Longendyke talks about the Music in Bloom festival, inaugurated this May in Bloomington, In., and in nearby Brown County State Park. The conversation includes her ideas and impressions of modern music, much including emerging technologies, as well as her love and admiration of living composers.   Clare will be an important contr...

Bill Clouse has been processing mortgages more than three decades.  He knows how borrowers qualify, how credit scores apply (even The Karma Score), background of The Big Short (a movie about the recession of 2007-2009), as well as how to deal with one of our hosts, Morton Marcus.    This recording opens with sounds of a haunted house.  Bill knows how to remove the fear.  

Angelo Pizzo (Hoosiers, and Rudy), raised two blocks from The Indiana University Basketball Arena, loves sports, films, and creativity.   He is working on three projects.  The first is about the Maynard (Iowa) girls championship basketball team of 1957.  Another is a coming of age romance set in The Civil War.  The last is about fire horses in 19th century New York City, all trained to overcome th...

The enduring topic of vaccinations is covered in this conversation, and a new program is presented. The new program is an effort by The State of Indiana to provide counseling to pregnant women.  This program is proven to have reduced infant mortality.   (And Indiana is 7th among the states in infant mortality.)

Scholar, Dean, founder of The Indiana German Heritage Society, a facilitator of The Indianapolis-Cologne Sister City Committee, and teacher, Giles Hoyt knows the history and culture as well as anyone. Here we learn about The Athenaeum, fine bakeries in Indianapolis, as well as about the skill of teaching and differences among students at different campuses.  

Having served as a judge, mayor, county historian and teacher of government and political science, Joe Castelo has observed directly, personally, painfully, the slow demise of rural, small town Indiana. Here we learn about departure of young people, the absence of state support for beneficial highway routes, slow internet speeds, the powerful role of "community spirit," and disappearance of locall...

This conversation with Ed Richardson, President & CEO of Thomas & Skinner, Inc., is a detailed discussion about management of a business, in this case, a manufacturer of ALNICO magnets. The magnets are used in satellites, missiles, aircraft, and even watt meters in homes.   Subjects are skilled and unskilled labor, Indiana's business environment, hiring and creating U.S. citizens, tariffs, and dea...

With thirty six years of advocacy, The Hoosier Environmental Council has protected our state's most valuable asset, the place where we live. Led by our guest, The Council has worked to protect rural areas from animal factory pollution, inventoried and proposed methods to limit the dangers of coal ash dumps (Indiana has more than any other state), worked for more protected land and for sustainable...

With pending termination of a national forestry act, The Indiana Forest Alliance is advocating protection and reforestation.   Trees, it says, begin to solve the problem of climate change because they remove offending particles from the air.  Urban forestry both lowers temperatures and raises home values.   And a program of classified forests, areas of 10 acres or more, privately held, pay taxes o...

Listen to the end , where you will hear a piano solo by Emmet Cohen, the 2019 American Pianists Award Winner.  For this, we thank our guest, Joel Harrison, President, CEO and Artistic Director, from whom we learn about The Jazz Competition, The Classical Competition, and his personal history managing the association since 2001.   Joel has a big job:  organizing, raising funds, managing money, and...

Experienced opinion-gatherer Jeff Lewis talks about two Indiana statesmen, Senators Bayh and Lugar, both having recently passed away. Among topics are challenges facing polling organizations, how salience affects responses, whether the census (and, by extension, polling organizations) will find utility by using the internet, and dysfunction in present-day Washington, D.C. 

Ray Moistner is Executive Director of The Indiana Hardwood Lumbermens Association which represents wood from start to finish:  planting, extracting, replacing, cutting, shipping, protecting and manufacturing into finish products. Much here that John and Morton did not know:  that Indiana, for example, replaces 2.3 trees for every tree removed, that we are not deforesting like Brazil, that out-of-s...

Carol Rogers helps to manage Stats America, used by more than 1 million persons a year to quickly find practical data for decision making.   In Indianapolis, even up-to-the-minute pot hole data is available. Data, of course, provides information, but not always answers.  Why, for example, is Indiana in the top three states attracting incoming college freshman, but most of them leave us. This conve...

Our guest, Glen Kwok, CEO of The International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, is a world leader in developing and promoting the finest emerging violinists. In this stimulating interview he talks about careers of violinists,  modern violins which duplicate the sounds and effectiveness of those made by the old masters, as well as the unique phenomenon that the Indianapolis competition, schedule...

James Glass has spent most of his life studying and protecting historic buildings. As one of the first staff members of The Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission, and as a doctoral student whose thesis topic was the history of one of the first preservation acts of Congress, James knows his stuff. Naturally, Morton challenges assumptions about the value of old properties, a common element i...

Tom Akins was principal timpanist of The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra from 1965 to 1991.  He wrote a history of the ISO called "Crecsendo"  (1930-2005) and "Behind The Copper Fence" about the dynamics of an orchestra, playing his instrument, working with other musicians, tuning, and even the ISO softball team. He told us how a person with only two arms and two legs manages four drums in a conce...

Judge Judy, interesting estates, classic automobiles, women in the law, trailers, the Wabash river, litigation, are some of the topics covered in this wide-ranging conversation with 50-year attorney John Gambs of Lafayette, Indiana. Not mentioned is the restaurant menu item, The Gambs Burger.  (Yes, a real restaurant offered this real burger.)

Mike Furnish is a "white hat," a referee of Indiana high school football games.  Within the profession, he is a leader, having been active in associations and as a teacher of rules to new officials. Mike also is past president of Special Olympics Indiana. Here we learn how a crew operates, the personal challenges and rewards, and how Peyton Manning butchered a coin toss.

James Johnson, CEO of The Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, converses with Morton and John about hiring musicians, the correlation between young persons who played an instrument and their love of music as adults, how musicians are hired, the role of video images, and financial dynamics between management and musicians.   In his view, transparency and pizza make a difference.