CROWN POINT | Small business owners in Northwest Indiana can learn how to become successful at a new Business Academy.

The Crossroads Regional Chamber of Commerce, which serves the Crown Point and Merrillville areas, established a Business Academy to give small business owners the knowledge they need to grow their companies. They can get academically structured but hands-on training in various disciplines, including marketing and leadership.

Crossroads President and CEO Sue Reed wants to make the chamber a resource for strengthening Northwest Indiana businesses, and believes strong businesses can only help the entire region.

A 15-week Ultimate Marketing Boot Camp taught by Purdue University North Central professor Ceren Ekebas-Turedi will cover marketing strategies, social media and consumer behaviors. A class will take place every three weeks starting April 9.

“We want each series to be implementable, and not just theoretical discussions,” said Rick Riddering, chamber planning committee chairperson. “As a result, each participant will end the series with a complete marketing plan tailored to meet their individual business growth needs.”

The next course will cover leadership management over four, three-hour sessions. Two Purdue University North Central professors will go over subjects like leading in changing times and communication skills for leaders.

Anyone who’s interested can register for the Ultimate Marketing Boot Camp, which costs $600 for members and $750 for the general public. The cost and the start date of the leadership management class haven’t been determined yet.

For information call (219) 769-8180 or visit www.crossroadschamber.org.

Find the full article at: http://www.nwitimes.com/business/local/crossroads-chamber-launches-business-academy-marketing-boot-camp/article_280f75fd-7fe0-532a-8206-0d6d4f6cc391.html

EAST CHICAGO | Raising the minimum wage was the focus of a town hall meeting held last night at the main branch of the East Chicago Public Library.

The meeting was organized by Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare Illinois & Indiana and featured speakers from the fields of labor, faith, academics and the NAACP.

The crowd of about 15 people was encouraged to continue efforts to support an increase of the current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour and to hold elected representatives accountable if they do not work to do so.

“For too long, working families and working people in Indiana have suffered because of low minimum wage, and the goal is to get our legislators to pay attention to the cry from working people that the wage needs to be raised so that families can survive,” said James Muhammad, communications director for SEIU Healthcare Illinois & Indiana.

Dennis McCafferty spoke on behalf of the Northwest Indiana Federation of Labor.

Prior to the meeting, he said he would like to see the minimum wage raised to at least $13 an hour.

He said doing so would provide people with disposable income they would reinvest into the economy.

Mark Lopez, chief of staff for U.S Rep. Peter Visclosky, spoke to the crowd and told how legislation in the previous Congress that would have raised the minimum wage to $10.10 over a period of two years, and then an amount based on inflation in following years, had 197 co-sponsors in the House but was not brought up for a vote on the floor.

He said similar legislation in the Senate had 33 co-sponsors but also did not come up for a vote.

Lopez said Visclosky will support any future legislation introduced along those lines.

“Nobody’s asking for a handout,” Lopez said. “People are asking for a living wage.”

Merrillville resident Clustus Harris worked for a local steel mill but is now retired.

He attended the meeting and said he thinks $15 an hour would not be too much to ask for based on the current cost of living.

“Unless you make a good wage, everybody in your family is gonna have to work,” Harris said.

Find the full article at: http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/east-chicago/minimum-wage-debate-focus-of-town-hall-meeting/article_c2b339ec-97f7-58d9-82b0-1d7586f040ae.html

A bill adopted by the Indiana House of Representatives would have direct benefits for the region by extending the life of urban enterprise zones that help with job creation and reversing blight statewide, according to its backers.

The bill, authored by state Rep. Tom Dermody, R-LaPorte, would allow urban enterprise zones to be extended another five years. It passed the House 94-0 and is next up before the Senate Commerce and Technology Committee. State Sen. Jim Arnold, D-LaPorte, is a co-sponsor.

In LaPorte and Hammond, large areas of those cities are in urban enterprise zones, which are due to expire under current state law in 2016.

Without an urban enterprise zone, some of the incentives used to entice investment by manufacturers, small businesses and homeowners would be gone, making the challenges of urban renewal even more difficult, according to economic development officials.

”We would lose a major tool we have in our tool box for encouraging companies to invest in our community and for redeveloping our downtown and the urban enterprise zone area,” said Bert Cook, executive director of the Greater LaPorte Economic Development Corp.

In Hammond, the city touts its urban enterprise zone that formed in 1984 as helping to create $500 million of private investment and 4,000 new jobs within its boundaries that primarily span the downtown and industrial areas.

Sue Anderson, program director for the Hammond Development Corp., said more recent successes include Munster Steel Co. relocating to Hammond, facade improvements to downtown buildings and a program that puts college interns to work in small businesses within the zone.

Other positive developments include two separate business incubators that help small businesses take root and grow.

In both communities, the urban enterprise zone extends a 100 percent property tax credit for 10 years on new investment and, in exchange, 35 percent of the tax savings is paid by the company and reinvested within the zone, according to Anderson and Cook.

In LaPorte, some of those dollars are used to pay the property taxes of any new retail business or restaurant that opens in the downtown for the first six months, Cook said.

Anderson said urban enterprise zones are a way to direct tax money that would otherwise go into the city’s general fund to specific areas like downtowns and industrial areas that have the biggest need for help with redevelopment.

”Those areas are the areas that move the other areas forward. It’s all tied in together,” Anderson said.

Find the full article at: http://www.nwitimes.com/business/local/city-officials-pin-hopes-on-urban-enterprise-zone-extension/article_58d08c2d-05d0-5238-a78c-6d3c842021c8.html

Indiana has a reputation for manufacturing, warehousing and farming, but a study found it actually has a high number of jobs in high-tech fields.

The state ranked fourth nationally for its amount of employment in advanced industries that include automotive and aerospace manufacturing, energy, computer system design, telecommunications and software development, according to the Brookings Institution. The Washington, D.C.-based think tank says industries that employ a lot of workers in research and development and science, technology, engineering and math — or STEM — will be critical to future prosperity in the 21st century, both nationally and regionally.

The study found 344,400 Indiana residents — 11.4 percent — work in advanced industries such as life sciences. Only seven states in the country have more than 10 percent of workers in advanced fields.

“Our research makes clear that Indiana is no longer just a manufacturing province; the state’s metropolitan economies are increasingly diversified, with material, digital and genomic specializations all at once,” said Senior Fellow Mark Muro, the lead researcher.

Roughly 65 percent of new jobs created since the Great Recession are in industries that invest in research and development. The average worker in such industries earns an average of $90,000 a year, more than twice as much as average workers in other sectors, according to the Brookings Institution.

Find the full article at: http://www.nwitimes.com/business/local/more-than-one-out-of-every-hoosiers-work-in-high/article_5f800267-0eca-59f3-991a-e9842917136b.html