The Long Goodbye (1973)

Cremation Funerals

It’s not everyday that compassion and business savvy interact, but when they do, watch out. And if you own a funeral home that sits surrounded by conglomerate competitors, it’s not only helpful, but necessary. Timothy E. Ryan is just that man, with just those qualities, and he owns and operates not one family owned funeral home but seven, strategically located throughout the New Jersey shore. Ryan’s business, which has been blossoming since 1984 and now does 600 funerals a year, was named the 2004 New Jersey Family Business of the Year, for businesses with less than $10 million in revenue, by New Jersey Monthly magazine and the Rothman Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Ryan proudly displays this achievement in one of the rooms at the firm’s main location in Toms River-among dozens of other shiny plaques and framed newspaper articles that line the walls.

Nothing Succeeds Like Success

Although the early years were not easy, Ryan never doubted his decision. In fact his desire to own and operate his own funeral home was rooted at a very young age. His uncle, John J. Ryan entered the funeral business in 1947 with a funeral home in Monmouth County, N.J., planting the seeds for the Timothy E. Ryan Home for Funerals. He opened his business in 1947 and that was the inspiration as a young man, as a boy actually, to become a funeral director, said Ryan. Watching him interact with families. Ryan continued to work with his uncle, and that business was eventually taken over by his cousin, Jacqueline, who passed away two years ago. Her daughter, Catherine, will follow in her mother’s footsteps as soon as she finishes mortuary science school. In the meantime, Tim Ryan is temporarily managing the home until Catherine is fully licensed. In 1973, Ryan began working for Colonial Funeral Homes which, at the time, was opening a new branch and the owner, John Cutaio, asked Ryan to manage it. He did. And 10 years later, he bought it along with one other branch. Ryan credits much of his success in business to Cutaio, who was one of Ryan’s great mentors. Added Ryan, “If he hadn’t sold me those funeral homes, I wouldn’t be where I am today.” While Ryan accredits his business acumen to Cutaio, he will never forget the man who taught him the important technical aspects of the job. William L. Everett at Poulson and Vanhise Funeral Directors in Trenton, N.J., where Ryan did his apprenticeship was also an important mentor in his life. After purchasing the two funeral homes from John Cutaio, Ryan knew he could own and operate these two locations and “have a nice little business with 100 funerals a year.” However in the late 1980’s and early 90’s when the conglomerates were becoming key players, Ryan also knew that if he was going to compete, he had to grow. “That’s when I made the decision to expand,” he said. And the key to his successful growth: “I saw what was happening in Ocean County with the retirement villages so I came out here to St. Catherine Blvd.” In order to create a business like the Timothy E. Ryan Home for Funerals, someone at the helm must be equal parts visionary and risk taker. Ryan fits that bill. He understands his market, he researches his market, and he is willing to take the necessary actions when he sees opportunity. His next purchase became the Fisher Blvd. location; the building had been of all things a bank. I knew from being involved in local politics that the East Dover section of Toms River was the most densely populated and there was no funeral home there, he said. Ryan always believed that the bank building, strategically located next to the second largest Catholic Church in the area, would be perfect. However, he joked, back then banks didn’t just go out of business. But he always kept his eye on the location and in 1995 the bank merged and the building went on the market. After Ryan purchased and renovated the bank building into a funeral home, he heard “through the rumor mill that Service Corporation International (SCI) was divesting properties. “ Ryan called SCI’s headquarters in Houston, who put him through to an office in Canada, where he was ultimately told that, yes, the company was trying to get rid of a funeral home in Bayville, N.J., the O’Connell funeral Home, which was family run before SCI took over. Ryan purchased the funeral home and returned it to family ownership. That location is now called the Timothy E. Ryan Home for Funerals-O’Connell Chapel. “Nothing succeeds like success,” said Ryan and my ego is not shattered by that. As the county grew and the retirement community grew, Ryan’s business also grew. He purchased the DeBow Funeral Home in Jackson, N.J. I went to Jackson because I saw the growth-101 square miles and there was only one competitor. Realizing the need for a funeral home in an area with a heavy Hispanic population, Ryan at one time owned a funeral home in Perth Amboy, N.J. A woman, Ana Maria Zevallos, was running the funeral home, and Ryan said, “Was developing a nice clientele. It was a great service to the community.” However, the city’s board of education purchased the funeral home and all the other buildings on the block to construct a new school.

The Business Of Family

Not only does Ryan understand his market and how to grow within it, he also believes in the power of the independent, family run funeral business. “I have this thing about family businesses,” he said. “I don’t want to see family run funeral homes go the way of the local pharmacy, or the local hardware store.” At one time, he reminisced, the local pharmacist would stay after 5 p.m. to fill a prescription, and the local hardware owner would “not only sell you the washer, he’d tell you how to fix the leak too.” I would hate to see what traditionally has been a mom and pop business to lose that image. That is very important to me, said Ryan. Is it a coincidence that in the name, Timothy E. Ryan Home for Funerals, the word “home” comes before the word “funeral?” This firm’s long history and reputation as a compassionate and welcoming family run business would suggest absolutely not. Ryan’s firm may be the largest family run funeral business in New Jersey, but in size does not deter from its personal touch. Ryan’s two sisters, Mary and Alice, as well as his daughter, Erin, work at the funeral home. And although he manages all seven locations, Ryan attends most viewings and funerals, even if one of his other six funeral directors have arranged the funeral. He explained that if the business has grown so big that the manager is no longer a hand’s on member of the team, the very model he and his wife created is lost. Ryan’s wife passed away at the age of 42, but early in their career, she came up with an idea that epitomized all that was important to them. “She said, let’s do something that lets the families know we appreciate their faith in us,” said Ryan. Since so many of their client families have two viewings, one from 2-4 p.m. and another from 7-9 p.m., she came up with the idea to offer each family a cooked turkey to take home with them so they would have a nice dinner between the two viewings. She cooked each turkey herself. Today, Ryan has someone else do the cooking, but the tradition remains the same and is very much appreciated by the families. “It’s a little thing but it goes a long way,” he said. Also apropos to the family touch: none of the funeral homes use answering machine. “Everyone takes turns answering the phones,” explained Ryan. “I live above the Seaside Park branch. There are times when I answer the phone at 3 a.m. and people are surprised that they got me that means a whole lot.”

The Business Of The Business

All the telephones also ring at the mail location. In fact, everyday begins there too. “Everyone reports here first every morning. Deliveries are dispatched through here,” said Ryan. “All the embalming is done here, all the preparation. We bring (the bodies) to the other locations in the caskets.” Although Ryan is the manager of all seven locations, he has six other funeral directors on the staff and a total of 41 staff members. And what does Timothy Ryan look for when hiring individuals to a firm with such a good reputation that has been in his words, “built over decades?” “I look at funeral service as a vocation, not just a job and I expect the funeral directors who work with me to have the same mindset,” said Ryan. It is a demanding profession. You are on call 24/7. Ryan has given complete ownership of the work schedule to his employees. The funeral directors are on call one full weekend every five weeks, and they can work the rest of the schedule out with each other. “We’ve been very fortunate that we have a low turn over. We don’t have a revolving door, said Ryan, something he partly contributes to the benefits he is able to offer. Ryan belongs to Thanezus, a co-op of funeral homes that is part of the New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association (NJSFDA). As a past president of the association, Ryan is an advocate of this program and was one of the first funeral directors to join. As a member of Thanexus, Ryan actually leases his employees from the co-op. The employees will only work for Ryan, but “the co-op affords us to relieve the staff of some of the paperwork, reduce our health insurance cost and property casualty insurance.”

Service With A Capital “S”

To Ryan, customer service is the most important aspect of funeral service and is something that he learned at a very young age from his uncle. Today, he expects his employees to value the importance of service as much as he does. “It is absolutely clear to me that the singularly most important issue in funeral service is that of service with a capital “S”, said Ryan. “Nobody wants what we have to sell; however, sooner or later, we will need it.” Service starts with the way the buildings look on the outside. The facilities, if they are clean and cared for, become billboards for the business, explained Ryan. If the place looks like a fly by night operation, most families won’t even bother calling. “People want to go to a place where they feel they will be treated properly,” said Ryan, and that starts with the way the buildings look and the care they receive from the moment the phone is answered.” In order to continuously supply the best possible customer service, Ryan invests heavily in employee training programs. He is also a strong proponent of the community outreach and involvement, for himself as well as his employees. “I have always been extremely involved in the community and have been warmly received throughout my years of charity work and community support, said Ryan. Ryan and many of his employees are members of various groups, including the Elks, the Rotary and the Chambers of Commerce and business associations in multiple towns. The funeral home also has all kinds of outreach programs designed to educate members of the community about their choices in funeral service. Since the Timothy E. Ryan Home for Funerals is surrounded by conglomerate owned funeral homes-said Ryan, “we are the hole in the doughnut” Ryan and his employees have held programs to educate the public about dealing with independent funeral homes versus conglomerates. “Any programs where you go out to the community is good for business,” said Ryan. In addition, they have held lunches at various VFW’s , where they talk about preneed and veteran benefits. We are in the planning stages of putting together a program to discuss senior scams,” added Ryan. “Yes, we are very active in the community.” Another vehicle that has helped Ryan get his name out into the community: politics. He was a councilman in Seaside Park, N.J., and he also ran for state senate and was a candidate for Congress in 1992. What motivated him to enter politics in the first place? “Funeral directors politick everyday,” he said. And unlike many politicians, who dislike campaigning door to door, Ryan found the experience “inspiring.” “Everywhere I went I heard ‘you are Time Ryan, the funeral director,” he said. Through his campaigning, Ryan discovered how much trust the community had in him-how, in essence, the very words funeral director equaled trust in the minds of his community. In fact, when Ryan won his council seat, he was the first democrat to win in a republican county in many, many years. Further, he added, “in the Ocean County Freeholders race, democrats usually lose by 35,000 votes, I lost by only 6,000.” “This told me that name recognition was out there and trust was out there,” said Ryan. “It put my name out there and I thought that was important.” Ryan has also served as president of the New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association (NJSFDA) where he still serves in various committees. In the 1980’s he took a very proactive stance, when he served on the National Funeral Directors Association’s (NFDA) contagious and infectious disease committee. At a time when the AIDS epidemic was just entering the public consciousness, Ryan travelled across the county, educating funeral directors about universal precautions. “NFDA was very proactive at the time in making sure all families were served properly regardless of cause of death,” he said. “And I am very proud that we were able to get that message out.” Whatever message Ryan is working on getting out into the community, one thing is certain: it all comes back to making families aware of the Timothy E. Ryan Home for Funerals-and the service and compassion they will receive when they are most in need.

Market To The Market

Most funeral directors understand the importance of good-no, great-customer service. But what goes hand in hand with service is something that Ryan truly understands, and that is his market. Anyone can attend a conference and network with others for tips, and ideas; anyone can read how to articles. And all that is significant. But if someone doesn’t understand, truly understand, his market, how can any of that knowledge be practiced in any practical, lucrative way. Tim Ryan knows his market. Take cremation for example. Ryan is in a very traditional Catholic area. With 90 percent of the families he serves being Catholic, it is not a surprise that his cremation rate is a slight 18 percent, a figure lower than the state’s average. “Even though the church allows cremation today, the mindset of the older Catholics is that’s not a method that they choose,” said Ryan. That said, with the cremations Ryan does, he has noticed that in the past few years, there has been a decrease in direct cremations. “We are seeing more and more of a trend backwards to cremations that include full funeralizations,” he said. “It is clear, that while crematory with little or no service is not serving the needs of the survivors or of the wishes of those who have died.” Ryan attributes this trend to increased process.” Obviously, educating the cremation consumer must be done gently and must be “done in a way that (the funeral directors) are not pushing them,” said Ryan. “We tell people that if they are thinking about cremation because of money, not to think that way, that we will accommodate them as best we can but we want them to have the opportunity to say goodbye or have a service that will help them with the grief process.” Oftentimes, even if the family does ultimately choose cremation after a discussion, they will also choose some type of memorial service. “The body may not be present all the time but there will be a memorial service here or somewhere else of a viewing for an hour, then the service, then the cremation,” said Ryan. However, unless the family fully trusts the funeral home and the funeral director, no amount of education will be enough. In Ryan’s case, over the past three decades, families have come to expect nothing but trust from him. This trust affords the funeral directors the time and ability to sit down and discuss options with cremation families and discuss the value of a funeral. Also, at a time when several crematory, scandals have rocked the industry, Ryan can assure hi families that they can trust him on the logistical side as well. He only uses one, local crematory which is, said Ryan, “a first class operation.” Many of our larger competitors ship bodies virtually (en masse) to crematories in other parts of the state in order to achieve economics of scale,” said Ryan. “We find this to be not only distasteful abut fundamentally dangerous when it comes to the careful care and management of the remains of those who have died.” Someone from the funeral home accompanies every body to the crematory, witnesses the body being placed in the retort and returns to pick up the cremated remains. In addition, Ryan creates a paper trail of forms: one that is filled out by the funeral director and signed by the cremation operator, including what type of container the body was in and what time it got to the crematory: another form is filled out and signed when the remains are picked up from the crematory and one more form is signed by the family when they pick up the remains. “We have a paper flow from the place of death to the family pickup,” said Ryan. Although the state of New Jersey does not allow funeral homes to operate their own crematories, under Title 8a, Ryan would not have it any other way. “Competitively, it would be a good thing to have a retort,” admitted Ryan, “but I wouldn’t want to upset (the law).” Only cemeteries can operate crematories and Ryan thinks “this is good for the funeral homes and good for the cemeteries.” The law, which is an old one, is written into the New Jersey constitution, where cemeteries are named as charitable trusts. All cemeteries are non profit and therefore, pay no taxes. They cannot perform funerals or sell funeral merchandise. They do, however, have the monopoly on cremations. But this doesn’t bother Ryan, who has a good working relationship with the crematory he uses and, as he explained, “if cemeteries were able to compete with us on the funeral side, it would not be a level playing field because they wouldn’t pay taxes.” As far as pricing goes, Ryan’s philosophy is fairly simple and reiterates the values of customer service and trust: “Whether a family pays $10,000, $20,000 or $5,000, if they leave and they feel they got the value for what they paid, then we did a good job.” Just as “everyone’s idea of expensive is different,” so too is everyone’s idea of memorialization. Ryan’s clientele is traditional, for the most part, but he is open to all kinds of memorialization. “Unique memorialization,” said Ryan, “tends to run in fits and spells….but we will offer whatever the family wants to make it personal.” People do come up with all kinds of requests and Ryan does whatever he can to make it happen. Remember, he said “We do this everyday but they don’t and we can’t lose sight of that.” The casket selection room is located at Ryan’s main location and includes both a slat wall and full sized caskets. He decided to keep the full sized caskets for two reasons: for one, he has learned that many people want a better visual; they want to be able to touch the casket. Also, a third party casket store went in down the street and it carried full caskets. Ryan didn’t want the customers to come to his funeral home and only see ends. That said, Ryan has yet to experience any third party companies cutting into his sales. “I think this is something that funeral directors lose sight of,” he said. “We have been the purveyors of funeral merchandise for the grieving public for centuries. Why should that change now? If we do it in a fair, competitive way, we have nothing to fear.” Ryan does utilize some traditional advertising methods to bring families into the funeral home, such as radio and television ads and in the past, direct mail campaigns, but mostly he relies on his reputation. And again, he knows what works and what doesn’t work in his market. “Aggressive advertising might work on Florida or Arizona, he said, “where no one has roots…but here much of the (family) still lives in the area. Aggressive sales tactics don’t work either, according to Ryan. In fact, his competitors’ hard actually helped his own business. He added, “we are dealing with blue collar, traditional people who understand the value of a funeral, and we are very fortunate for that but it is a two way street—we have also helped to promote that.” The one segment of his business where he did use a direct mail approach was with preneed, but he ultimately felt that method “de-personalizes the service to such an extent that value is lost on the target market.” Ryan has found, too, that the attitude toward preneed has changed. “As more and more people are spending down their assets in the last years of their lives, as a requirement to qualify for Medicaid,” he said, “the preneed purchase option provided by the Medicaid program has driven this product in recent years.” Also, he added, “the senior community got so hit over the head with mailers and flyers, that it had a negative effect rather than a positive effect.” He does use direct mail to notify people of a new funeral home or an event taking place, but he does not “directly make an appeal in those direct mail pieces.” And he doesn’t need to. Ryan has a good reputation and he believes in the power of his brand. “I came up with the idea to brand the Ryan name so that when people saw a gray and maroon banner, they know it is us,” said Ryan. “Our logo is on everything. All the signs are alike, the buildings are all the same color.” Even the hand towels in the restrooms are designed with Ryan’s stylized “R” logo.

Peace Of Mind And Heart

Ryan’s motto on his marketing material-”Peace of Mind and Heart Before, During and Beyond”-is understood through his aftercare program, an example of his compassion and loyalty as a funeral director. “We had a retired clergyman on our staff who would visit every family after the service,” he explained. This man, Rev. Joseph Pouliot, went above and beyond any call of duty. He made his visits with extra thank you cards in his pocket, and a willing spirit to listen and assist with the grieving process. “He was very understanding,” said Ryan. He even taught one woman how to drive after her husband passed away. Rev. Pouliot recently passed away. His position was invaluable to the Timothy E. Ryan Home for Funerals but Ryan is not rushing to replace him. “It is difficult because he did such a great dynamic job,” said Ryan. “It’s not a job you can just give to anyone.”

About the Author

Cremation Options is proud to be a family owned and operated company dedicated to providing dignified cremation services at an affordable price. Established in 2002; we are a non-denominational firm providing a variety of Cremation, merchandise, and services to families of all ages, creeds, and ethnic backgrounds.Call us toll free @ 1-877-989-9090.

The Long Goodbye (1973) Part 1

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