Business

By: Mike Rhodes— Muncie, IN—Chef Megan VanDerHeide will join the Horizon Convention Center as the new Executive Chef on January 1, 2018. Chef Megan VanDerHeide is a Muncie Central graduate and has an Associates Degree in Hospitality Administration with a concentration in Culinary Arts and Event Management from Ivy Tech Community College. She received her Chef Certification from the American Culinary Federation in 2011.  ACF certified chefs have gone through numerous practical and written examinations. A panel of ACF certified chefs tests a prospective chef and judges his or her food. There are about 14 levels of chefs in the culinary…

By: Mike Rhodes— Muncie, IN—When you think of branding your business, what comes to mind? Do you think about how you are perceived by others? How do you want to be perceived by others? What do you really do day-to-day in your business? Answers to these kinds of questions take time and considerable thought. But getting them answered is worth it, as your branding strategy is key to marketing your company and helps you define your on-going marketing tactics. About a year ago, Ted Baker, executive director of the Innovation Connector, decided to take a hard look at the Innovation Connector’s…

By: Joe Loughmiller— Cold weather with single-digit low temperatures is forecasted across much of the state for the Christmas week and Indiana American Water is urging customers to secure homes and businesses against freezing pipes to avoid costly repairs. “Although the winter season can pose many challenges to a homeowner, one of the biggest and most costly is the risk of frozen pipes. When ice expands inside pipes, it can crack and burst the pipe, leaving homeowners with a costly plumbing bill, and thousands of dollars in damages from water leaking inside the house,” said Indiana American Water president, Deborah…

By: Mike Rhodes, Publisher and Managing Editor— Muncie, IN—Economic development activity in Delaware County topped Muncie Journal’s most viewed stories list for 2017. Of the thousands of articles published in 2017, the announcement of the opening of the Daleville Town Park topped the list this year. The story was continually viewed daily for months. According to Trina Morgan, deputy clerk and park event coordinator for the Town of Daleville, an estimated 28-30,000 people attended the park throughout the inaugural 2017 season. You’ll find the rest of our most viewed stories below. You can click on any story headline to review the initial story and the date…

By: David McGuire— With all eyes on tax reform and a final bill that now seems imminent, businesses should begin focusing their attention on 2017 tax returns. With so many sweeping changes ahead, several strategies exist to realize the maximum tax benefit from the current system and its likely evolution. First, let’s look at what we know. Under both the House and Senate bills, corporate tax rates dropped to 20 percent, with the latest reports signaling a corporate rate of 21 percent in the reconciled bill. Pass-through rates will also drop, but the decrease will likely not be as dramatic. Recent news accounts…

By: Tracy Dishman— Muncie, IN—My trash is picked up on time, my inside plumbing flushes away what I don’t want, and I have little worry about flooded streets keeping me from my job on stormy days. As community members, we don’t often think about underground drainage systems or the logistics of getting storm water from one end of the city to the other, but a small group of very dedicated and passionate individuals do. “This Board of Directors has been busier in these past four years than the total twenty years that I’ve been a part of it,” said Nikki…

By: Todd Merickel— Muncie, IN—MITS (Muncie Indiana Transit System) is proud to announce a new partnership with Pay Less Supermarkets where two MITS buses will be fully wrapped with a design created by Pay Less to help promote their Grand Opening campaigns in Muncie. These are the first buses that have been allowed to be wrapped in advertising for MITS.   “Our General Manager has been with MITS from the start and he is very particular about how the look and branding of MITS has been projected in the community” says Todd Merickel, Assistant General Manager of MITS.   “This has been…