businessFriday, June 16, 2017 HeraldTimesOnline.comD

ON THE ROAD

Brewer to market sour ales in nation’s capital

Upland Brewing Co. re-cently partnered with Madidus to make its wood-aged sour ales available in Washington D.C., after previous East Coast expansions.

Hopsynth, Iridescent and a limited supply of Cursed Kettles, a collaboration beer with Prairie Artisan Ales out

of Oklahoma, will be the first products from Upland’s sour line available in the D.C. area.

Area fi nancial planner attends corporate event

Ryan Pitner, a financial rep-resentative with Bill C. Brown

Associates, recently at-tended the OneAmerica Summit.

The event focused on advanced retirement in-come stream planning and

analysis. Pitner, a National

Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors member, has been with Bill C. Brown Associates for 10 years.

AWARDS

Solsberry museum gets national recognition

The Sloss Furnace Founda-tion of Birmingham recently honored Gerry Masse, founder of Sculpture Trails Outdoor Museum in Solsberry, with the Charles Hook award.

The award recognizes dedication to iron casting, the community and creativity with a National Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art and Practices scholarship,

a solo exhibition at the Sloss Furnace facility and $500 in credits for materials and ship-ping costs.

Kelley School programs recognized for innovation

Indiana University’s Kel-ley School of Business was recently recognized through Association to Advance Col-legiate Schools of Business International’s Entrepreneur-ial Spotlight Challenge for its academic programs fostering innovation.

The Kelley School of Business is one of 15 schools worldwide that were recog-nized.

The panel of judges identi-fied Kelley’s “Spine Sweat” experiences, which require certain students to develop business plans and present them to experienced inves-tors.

Area locksmith earns recognition for sales

J&S Locksmith in Bloom-ington recently earned a Sum-mit Club Residential award for 2016 from Toro Co. in recogni-tion of outstanding residential lawn equipment sales.

LOCAL BUSINESSFrom Hoosier Times reports

CHRIS HOWELL | HERALD-TIMES

FROM LEFT: Alex Root, who works in sales for Liscio and Rootworks; Meredith Root, director of operations for Rootworks and chief experience offi cer for Liscio; Wade Shultz, chief creative offi cer for Rootworks; Darren Root, chief executive offi cer of RootAdvisors and Liscio; Ryan Deckard, managing partner of Rootworks and chief fi nancial offi cer for Liscio; Andy Root, director of sales for Rootworks and Liscio; and Chris Farrell, chief operating offi cer for Liscio.

From Silicon Valley to Silicon Prai-rie, a new software company born from a decades-old Bloomington business aims to rally a sedentary accounting industry with a cross-country marriage between Bloomington and San Fran-cisco.

Around for 30 years, RootAdvisors has been an presence on South Walnut Street and an accounting resource for medical and service-based busi-nesses in Bloomington. The company spawned Rootworks, an educational and consulting resource for other accounting firms, about 11 years ago. Liscio, a software-as-a-service com-pany that modernizes the interactions between accountant and client, is CEO Darren Root, COO Chris Farrell and CTO Sekhar Palli’s newest venture.

“There’s an allure to San Francisco and tech in Silicon Valley, and we’re trying to bring that back to Blooming-ton in our own way,” Root said.

“We have this marrying of a big voice and developing solutions. A lot of times you hear big voices just speaking — we’re trying to do some-thing about it,” Root said.

Liscio will be split between offices in California and 1508 S. Walnut St., a building Root jokes is one of the few

new developments in Bloomington to not contain apartments. The building next door to Root’s other companies and Liscio’s website, liscio.me, will officially launch on July 1.

Rootworks has already taken a tech-forward approach to incubating and managing accounting firms, but Liscio will bring an external interface to the accounting profession.

Liscio facilitates online interactions between an accounting firm and the firm’s clients, a response to how other industries have eliminated physi-cal paperwork in favor of electronic signatures, online engagement letter organization and other streamlined accounting services.

Farrell, a technology executive

Silicon Valley . . . eastBy Kurt Christian812-331-4350 | kchristian@heraldt.com

CHRIS HOWELL | HERALD-TIMES

Darren Root, founder of RootAdvisors, left, talks with Ryan Deckard in their new building Wednesday on South Walnut Street in Bloomington.

SEE SILICON VALLEY | PAGE D4

PITNER

SEE BRIEFS | PAGE D4

New software company has ties to West Coast

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D4 | FRIDAY, JUNE 16, 2017 | THE HERALD-TIMES | BUSINESS

It seems like every day there is a new article on “discovering” the Mid-west as a great place to start and grow a company. Entrepreneurs are realizing that it isn’t necessary to go to one of the coasts to find capital and people as has been the case in the past.

Now, places like Bloomington, Indiana, have all the factors that lead to business success and are poised to take advantage of the new mobile economy. Attraction of talented people to work in companies in Bloomington and in Indiana is becoming easier, as they understand that participating in the coastal cultures can mean a higher cost of living, longer commutes and lesser access to quality education and other amenities for families.

From the Midwest, their busi-ness can still compete in the global economy, but with better access to the lifestyle they desire.

Last week, the INX3 regional quali-fying competition for startup ideas was held in the Dimension Mill. It brought home how far we have come in realizing the culture of innovation and creativity we hope for here in Bloomington. Ten startups had 15 min-utes each to convince an expert panel that their ideas were worth support-

ing. Over 50 attendees gathered in the old warehouse, saw the presentations and had the chance to pre-view the Dimension Mill building before renovations begin. The mix of startups was exciting and fore-cast the potential for Bloomington’s future in such diverse areas as health care delivery,

beekeeping, education, painting and on and on. They were competing to go on to the final round and potentially win $100,000 in cash and other services for their ideas. There is no shortage of creativity and ambition in our com-munity.

When you couple this with the wonderful employers who are already established in Bloomington, we have the potential, with the necessary cooperation, planning and foresight, to create a stable future that can weather changes that are always looming on the horizon.

Lynn Coyne is president of the Bloomington Eco-nomic Development Corp.

Creativity, ambition shine in city

Lynn CoyneA VOICE FROM MONROE COUNTY

NEW FACES

Development center names new director

Steve Bryant, execu-tive director of the Gayle & Bill Cook Center for Entrepreneurship, was recently named regional director of the South Central Indiana Small Business Development Center after Troy Phelps left the center late last year to direct the center’s state network.

The South Central ISBDC was also recently named the Highest Per-forming Center for 2016 by the ISBDC in March at the annual statewide network meeting, for surpassing its goals for 2016 by a higher margin overall than any other

center in the state.

Hospital names new head of nursing

Kristin Crynes, RN, BSN, was recently named the executive director

of nursing at Greene County General Hospital.

Crynes has been an employee of the

hospital for more than 14 years and previously served as the hospital’s director of infection con-trol, employee health and environmental services.

In the new role, Crynes will oversee the hospital’s 85 nurses serving in departments that include emergency, obstetrics, medical/sur-gical, surgery, intensive care, specialties, and

more.

NEW BUSINESSES

Area auto mechanic adds rental items

Flextune Technolo-gies, an auto mechanic shop in Bloomington, is now offering U-Haul trucks, trailers, tow-ing equipment, support rental items and in-store pickup for boxes.

ANNIVERSARIES

Local chile business celebrates 25 years

The Chile Woman — a Bloomington business specializing in Hoo-sierganic chile pepper, sweet pepper, tomato and tomatillo plants — is celebrating its 25th year in business during 2017.

Email your business news, to business@heraldt.com.

CRYNES

BRIEFSCONTINUED FROM PAGE D1

native to San Francisco with more than 20 years of experience in finance and accounting, said Liscio fits into a modern movement of taking the drudgery out of daily interactions.

“The profession, by and large, is an aging profes-sion,” Root said. “They’re at the point in their career where they make the deci-sion, ‘Do I ride this out, or do I make some changes?’ Tech is changing so rapidly at this point that the risk of riding things out is a big risk, and not making the shift is more of a risk than making the shift.”

Calling Liscio a “two-headed beast,” Farrell said the company should work well in Blooming-

ton because Silicon Valley tends to act as an echo chamber of technology businesses interacting with other technology busi-nesses.

The Bloomington loca-tion will serve as Liscio’s primary hub, and has sev-eral hallmarks of a physi-cal tech headquarters. It is outfitted with a full kitchen,

exercise area, fireplace, projector and media pro-duction studio, and several of the walls and abundant windows are designed to be written on during brain-storming sessions. Eight to 10 workers will initially occupy the space next to

the future Switchyard Park, but Root said the company could create as many as 30 jobs in Bloomington.

Farrell identified Bloom-ington’s relatively lower cost of living and access to Indiana University’s talent as inviting qualities, but Root’s connection is more personal. His family grew up in Bedford, and despite traveling 100,000 miles a year, he said there’s no place like coming back to Bloom-ington. Root’s sons, Alex and Andy, work in sales for Liscio and Rootworks, while his daughter Mere-dith works as the director of operations for Rootworks and chief experience offi-cer for Liscio.

“We like to hire young, smart people, and one of the things I didn’t want to do was create multiple organizations,” Darren

Root said. “I wanted every-body to feel like part of the same team, just doing dif-ferent things.”

As the new building gets a fresh coat of white paint to match the existing Root brands next door, Liscio plans to be a tech-forward company that’s very much a part of the Bloomington business’s footprint.

“You don’t have to build tech companies in Sili-con Valley. It can be more effective to center yourself where there is industry knowledge. You build oil companies where there’s oil, and you build software companies where there’s talent,” Farrell said. “I think we’re taking deep DNA from both locations and marrying them, but the ability to provide for your employees is better here. Period.”

SILICON VALLEYCONTINUED FROM PAGE D1

CHRIS HOWELL | HERALD-TIMES

Founder Darren Root at RootAdvisors in Bloomington.

Meredith Root, one of the offi cers at Rootworks and Liscio, engages in deep conversation Wednesday at the Bloomington offi ces.CHRIS HOWELL | HERALD-TIMES

MOVIE REVIEW | D6

INSIDE: Girlfriends go crazy in ‘Rough Night’

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