The Chamber of Commerce of Southwest Indiana and the Gibson County Chamber of Commerce have established a closer working relationship by signing a memorandum of understanding with each other.

The agreement, signed today at Toyota in Princeton, Ind., is for a one-year term that will automatically renew each year.

Under the agreement, both groups will cross-promote each other’s programs and events, and members of each chamber will be eligible to pay the discounted members’ rate for those events and programs.

Each chamber will also have two members of its board of directors serve as non-voting members of the other chamber’s board.

Gibson County’s chamber of commerce also becomes the newest member of the Regional Chamber Alliance.

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I remember how wonderful I felt at first when I was hired to run a national company. I was thrilled with my new title and excited to take on the challenge of resurrecting a company that was doing poorly. I was up for the challenge.

The position meant a move to Chicago from the east coast and a departure from my comfort zone of colleagues, family, and friends. My management skills were on the line since the company had 210 on site employees and another couple of hundred employees working around the country. I needed to constantly assure them all that they could trust my leadership ability to move the company forward. Creating that credibility and trust was almost a full time job in itself. I needed to be visible at all times.

My office had glass walls and I felt like I was in a fish bowl most of the time. Of course, the glass walls were meant to enhance the “open door” policy and open management style, but what I remember most is never having that private time to reflect and be creative. I a

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Grand Buffet in Eastland Shoppes retail center

EVANSVILLE — An international buffet, called The Grand Buffet, has opened in Eastland Shoppes, off North Green River Road just south of Morgan Avenue.

Owner Tony Dong said the 300-seat restaurant offers American, Japanese and Chinese cuisine, among other international flavors. It includes 9,000 square feet of space, which recently was vacant.

Dong also owns restaurants in Ohio.

The previous tenant in the Eastand Shoppes space was the Asian Super Buffet, which opened in January 2010 and closed a short while later.

The space originally housed the Old Country Buffet, which abruptly closed in October 2005 after operating there for 16 years. The Old Country Buffet was an original tenant of Eastland Shoppes.

German American Bancorp’s earnings in 2010 were the best in the company’s history, the company reported Wednesday.

The Jasper, Ind.-based bank reported net income of $13.4 million ($1.21 per share) for the year, a 10 percent increase over 2009. Net income for the fourth quarter was $3.2 million (28 cents per share), down from $3.3 million (30 cents per share) during the same period a year earlier.

Earnings last year were driven by increases in both net interest income and noninterest income, the bank said.

“We are truly gratified that, in this our company’s 100th anniversary year, we have been able to achieve this all-time record level of performance. In fact, the past three years have been the best three-year period in our history,” Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mark Schroeder said in a statement.

Nobel Peace laureate, Mohamed ElBaradei took a stand in Tahrir, or Liberation Square on Sunday calling for the ruling Mubarak regime to resign.

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Fragments of the opposition group including the Muslim Brotherhood have grouped behind ElBaradei chanting the unified slogan “leave”.

“You are the owners of this revolution. You are the future,” the Associated Press quoted ElBaradei addressing the crowd after nightfall. “Our essential demand is the departure of the regime and the beginning of a new Egypt in which every Egyptian lives in virtue, freedom and dignity.”

The former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, ElBaradei has steered the association that organized the protests to pressurize the regime to quit. Full story…