Dave Flessner is the business editor for the Times Free Press. A journalist for 35 years, Dave has been business editor and projects editor for the Chattanooga Times Free Press, city editor for The Chattanooga Times, business and county reporter for the Chattanooga Times, correspondent for the Lansing State Journal and Ingham County News in Michigan, staff writer for the Hastings Daily Tribune in Nebraska, and news director for WCBN-FM in Michigan. Dave, a native of Lansing, Mich., joined the Times Free Press in 1999 after working for 19 years at The Chattanooga Times. He covers energy, business and special projects, including the Tennessee Valley Authority. Dave has previously covered police, county government, politics and education. A 1979 graduate of the University of Michigan, Dave also studied economics at Michigan State University's Graduate School of Business. He has won more than a dozen journalism awards for business, breaking and investigatory reporting, including first place honors for education coverage in 2007 from the Tennessee Press Association, investigative reporting in 2006 and project reporting in 2005 from the East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists, deadlline reporting in 2002 from the Georgia Associated Press Association, and health care reporting in 2001 from the Tennessee Hospital Association. Contact Dave at 423-757-6340 or dflessner@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on twitter at twitter.com/chattreporter.
America's highest-paid federal employee got a 35% raise in pay during the past year, boosting his total compensation to a record high of nearly $9.9 million even though former President Donald Trump previously denounced such pay for a government employee as "ridiculous" and urged that it be cut "by a lot."
by Dave FlessnerChattanooga gas prices fell 4.7 cents per gallon in the past week, reversing the price hikes of the previous week, according to GasBuddy's daily survey of 170 stations in Chattanooga.
by Dave FlessnerIn the past decade and a half since he began working at the Hamilton County Business Development Center, Bill Lupia has seen scores of entrepreneurs "hatch" their ideas into successful businesses while being nurtured in the North Chattanooga business incubator.
by Dave FlessnerA growing physician-owned chain of pediatric urgent care clinics celebrated the opening of its second Chattanooga office on Friday, and the Alabama owners plan to return to Tennessee next week to open another clinic in Knoxville.
by Dave FlessnerAs world leaders this week negotiate global environmental policies at the Glasgow climate change conference in Scotland, the Tennessee Valley Authority adopted its own environmental policy to promote and sustain the biodiversity of the Tennessee Valley.
by Dave FlessnerLast month, new and former restaurants opened in Chattanooga along with new training schools, a fashion retailer and even a housing cluster for homeless people in hospice care.
by Dave FlessnerThe coronavirus may be curtailed in the next year, but the Tennessee Valley Authority is still extending its pandemic relief programs into 2023 after the federal utility reported record profits in the past year during the ongoing outbreak.
by Dave FlessnerDespite the coronavirus pandemic - or perhaps because of it - the Tennessee Valley is attracting a record number of jobs from new and expanding businesses.
by Dave FlessnerEnvironmental groups upset that the Tennessee Valley Authority isn't doing more to listen to public concerns and criticisms locked arms outside of a TVA board meeting Wednesday to protest what they claim is TVA locking them out of public meetings.
by Dave FlessnerDuring the coronavirus pandemic, a record number of people quit their jobs while many retail shops were forced to close their doors.
by Dave FlessnerSome Chattanooga area homeowners could see a steep increase in heating bills this winter as natural gas and other fossil fuel prices jump.
by Dave FlessnerA Lookout Mountain attraction famous for its overlook of seven states is also looking upward to the sun to help power its operation.
by Dave FlessnerTennessee's biggest health insurer will roll out its vaccination requirement for thousands more workers in the next month.
by Andy Sher and Dave FlessnerAfter printing and delivering daily newspapers for more than a century, the company that owns the Chattanooga Times Free Press began three years ago to convert its Arkansas publications from a paper to a digital format, except on Sunday.
by Dave FlessnerChattanooga is joining other towns along the Tennessee River in a partnership to promote paddling and other recreational activities in what backers hope will make the 652-mile waterway an internationally known destination for long-distance kayaking and canoeing, along with riverfront biking and hiking activities.
by Dave FlessnerAfter developing Jasper Mountain into one of the South's biggest mountaintop residential developments over the past decade, John "Thunder" Thornton is planning a similar development just 9 miles to the southwest atop Aetna Mountain.
by Dave FlessnerA Los Angeles real estate investment firm that has acquired nearly 250 apartment properties across the country over the past eight years is entering the Chattanooga market with a $35.7 million purchase of one of the biggest apartment complexes in Red Bank.
by Dave FlessnerDespite global labor and supply chain challenges and delays in Congressional approval of the infrastructure spending package, one of the world's biggest road-building equipment makers more than doubled its adjusted net income in the third quarter as road builders bought more equipment and the company's order backlog jumped to a record high.
by Dave FlessnerOne of America's oldest developers of shopping malls still sees a bright future for malls, even after last year's pandemic shutdowns and subsequent retail closings forced the developer to file for bankruptcy in November 2020.
by Dave FlessnerChattanooga consumers who began signing up Monday for Affordable Care Act health plans for next year have a record number of options to choose from with more modest premium increases than in most previous years.
by Dave Flessner