The John and Mary Pappajohn Sculpture Park was featured today in a New York Times article by Betsy Rubiner. The article titled ‘Cure for urban blight: Plant lots of sculpture’ focuses on the positive effect the sculpture garden has had on a once dreary part of town. Read the article here.

The Business Record explored the sculpture park prior to its opening last month, with an article that aimed to see where the park ranks in comparison to the country’s best sculpture parks. Read the article here.

Rob Leary has been named CEO of ING Insurance U.S. The appointment follows ING’s Oct. 26 announcement that Tom McInerney, the current CEO of ING Insurance Americas, had been named COO of ING Insurance, effective Jan. 1. Leary will be one of six global insurance/investment management CEOs, including Ewout Steenbergen, who was named CFO of ING Insurance U.S., and Jeff Becker, who was named CEO of ING Investment Management, Americas, who will report to McInerney as part of ING’s new global insurance/investment management structure.

In an effort to raise awareness of pandemic flu, GeoLearning Inc. is offering no-cost access to courses on the subject. One curriculum, a Pandemic Flu Awareness course, is specifically designed to help companies implement disaster preparedness plans in order to minimize potential impact on day-to-day business operations. The courses cover how to identify risks and vulnerabilities, guidelines for stabilizing and restoring infrastructure, how to write a business continuity plan and more. For a complete overview, click here. www.geolearning.com/h1n1

The Greater Iowa Credit Union will host its first ProjectMoney financial literacy fair, a program designed to promote financial literacy education, from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday in the Scheman Building at Iowa State University. The initiative goes hand-in-hand with an Iowa Department of Education mandate to make financial literacy a core component of K-12 curriculum. About 30 students from Central Iowa will present solutions to common financial problems during the event. Students will be judged on their knowledge of the issue, creativity, research collection and the impact of their findings on the community. Iowa school districts are required to implement financial literacy into their core curriculums by 2012.