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From left, at John B. Turner & Son mortuary are funeral directors John Wilkinson, Todd W. Van Beck and John B. Turner II. Behind them is a painting of Turner's grandfather, John B. Turner, by Grant Wood, called "John B. Turner, Pioneer." While in school, Wood was a night boy at the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, mortuary, answering phones after hours. John Turner's son, David, recognized his artistic talent and became one of his chief sponsors. Wood designed the mortuary's color scheme and had his paintings all through the building, Van Beck recalled, adding that the subjects for Wood's famous painting "American Gothic" were Wood's sister and a Cedar Rapids dentist.
ICFM: You were fired?
VAN BECK: I resigned. I mean, they would have thrown me out eventually anyway.
ICFM: You're working for a corporate again at Commonwealth Institute of Funeral Service in Houston, so apparently it didn't sour you on corporations.
VAN BECK: Actually not. Everybody thinks that Commonwealth is part of Service Corporation International, but it's a not-for-profit. The chairman of the SCI Board of Directors is the chairman of the board of the college, but we're off their balance sheet. But to the field, it's SCI. That's OK.
ICFM: Did you start speaking and writing while at Loewen?
VAN BECK: No, it was much earlier, during my first job as a teen-ager at Heafey & Heafey Mortuary in Omaha, Nebraska. One day I walked down to the basement of the funeral home and they were all sitting around the table. Duchesne Girls Academy, the Catholic girls school, had called. They were doing some lessons on death and dying and wanted one of the Heafey funeral directors to come over and talk to these girls, and I said, "I'll go."
ICFM: This is when you were 16?
VAN BECK: Yeh. And they said, "You got it; go talk to them." So I went over there. I knew it all, I was well versed, I'd read all the manuals.
ICFM: Sure, you had 11 years of experience.
VAN BECK: Yes, absolutely. And these girls, they were just out to lunch, most of them, and they were kids, too. And I found I just had a knack for it. I found I was able to talk without offending people, and I could explain things to them. And there were times I just made it up - I had no idea what I was talking about, but I'd just make it up, and it sounded good, and they invited me back.
Then I went to Cincinnati and started teaching, and here's a miracle - students looked forward to coming to my lectures. I've only had two or three professors in my life who were able to pull that one off. And then when I went to Loewen, it just polevaulted.
I don't live in a dreamworld; I know there's not a long line of speakers on this subject. So I know with some of these re-invitations it's, "Well, who else is out there?"
The writing really came because I was interested in documenting historical incidences in funeral service that made the funeral director come out a hero. So I decided I would do all the presidential funerals, which is my project now. Those articles have gone over very well, and the slide program's gone over even better.
I feel I've enjoyed a good level of popularity and recognition, of respect from my peers. I think they know I'm not bull****ing them.
ICFM: You no longer have to make things up.
VAN BECK: Right! I don't have to make the story up, I can give them the factual stuff. And there's something nice about having your name recognized. I suppose part of that is vanity, because of getting no recognition when I was a child from that funeral director who just jerked me around.
I also think I've tried hard to make a positive contribution, that the information I give is not just hype, there's substance to it and that it's able to be used in a loving, kind way to help families. Because you know, when it's all said and done, that's it. If you pull that away from the funeral profession, you've got nothing. You can hire BFI to take care of the dead. But, the ethics of that - they tried that in Nazi Germany, and I don't think anybody would want to go back to the days of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, rolling people over into ditches and incinerating bodies.
ICFM: You mentioned management guru Dr. W. Edwards Deming as being another big influence on your career.
VAN BECK: I'll give you an example of doing what Deming says about focusing on the customer.
At the funeral homes in Omaha, this is what we would do: Before the family went into the casket selection room, we would say: "We're sorry about your situation and we want you to know that, but we want you to tune to this very carefully, that this is a business transaction. We're going to ask you to sign a contract with co-signers at the end of these arrangements, and we're here to help you, but we want you to know this is a business transaction.
"Second thing: We do not want you to overspend on this funeral. You've already spent" - and we would give them, right to the dollar, what they'd already spent - and then we would say, "I want you to promise me that when you make your decision on the casket that's right for your mother and you, you will walk out of this funeral home with money in your pocket."
That's what we said to them. It was right. It was ethical. It was kind. It was honest. It was helpful.
Families would say to me, "We've never picked a casket out." And I'd say, "Well, that's understandable, most people haven't." They'd say, "How do we do this?"
"Well, it's very simple. I want you to think about your mother or your father, and when you see a casket that reminds you of them, that's pleasing to your eye, that fits your pocketbook - that's the casket you buy. We don't want all your money."
ICFM: That would be an interesting slogan for a business.
VAN BECK: We would tell them straight out: What we want is your patronage. What we want is for you to come back. Well, we wouldn't say that to them.
In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, we did 55 percent of the whole Linn County business. You know what our slogan was? It's wonderful: "Extraordinary service at a fair price. John B. Turner & Son." We'll break our ass for you, and you're going to have money in your pocket when you walk out of here. And you know what? We were the darlings of Cedar Rapids.
ICFM: You did how many calls a year?
VAN BECK: Eight hundred, out of one building. And people would wait for us. They'd call up and say, "Mother's passed away. We want the funeral on Wednesday." And I'd say, "We're very sorry, but we are all taken for Wednesday. We have funerals at 9, 10:30, noon, 1:30 and 3. I'd be very happy to call another funeral home for you." They'd say, "No. How about Thursday?" It was great. That was a period of my career I really enjoyed.
The other policy we had was to give free funerals for any person who died under the age of 12. Everybody told us we were absolutely nuts not even to recoup our costs. But you know, nothing good happens in a funeral home until something good happens in a funeral director's heart. All good things in our profession come from a funeral director's heart.
When I started there we had this stillbirth, and the mother and the father were maybe 15 and 18. His family rejected her because she was white; her family rejected him because he was black, and these kids were sitting there all alone.
I walked in that arrangement office and looked at those two and said, "OK, now we have some decisions to make." They were scared out of their minds. Two kids sitting in a mortuary with this big ole undertaker sitting there looking at them. I said, "Now, I don't mean to pry, but I notice that no family members are here. Now, I'm going to ask you what my grandmother used to say: Do you folks have trouble?"
And she started bawling and he started bawling. "Our parents won't talk to me and they told us we're on our own." And I said, "Do they know the baby died?" "Yes, they know, and they're not doing anything." And I said, "OK, well, let us help. First of all, no charge for our services. You will receive no bill from the Turner Mortuary. I want to suggest to you that we give your wife a couple days here to recoup. Let us embalm the baby."
Then to the mother, I said, "You can come in when you're ready. We will have clothes here. You can comb the baby's hair and if you want to dress the baby, that's fine. If you want to put the diaper on the baby, that's fine. We'll get you baby powder, anything you want."
Those kids walked out and two or three days later they came back in. The mother dressed the baby and we had a little rocking chair we set in the side room for her. She rocked the baby, combed the baby's hair. We had a little combination casket-vault, and I said, "You put the baby in the casket when you want. You just pretend this is a crib." I bet you she took the baby in and out of that "crib" 15 times. I told the night attendant, "If she's here all night long, she's here all night long. The funeral home does not close under these conditions. If she wants to stay here with her baby, she stays here with her baby."
That's true personalization - it's seeing the dead body and participating.
We had this huge picture of Christ in one room, and underneath it we had a little settee, and we placed the dead baby underneath that gigantic picture and had the funeral there. Some of their friends came, and the men were drunk - that's very common. So we had the funeral.
I knew as a funeral director, I knew we were doing the right thing. Had nothing to do with marketing. Had nothing to do with OSHA. Had nothing to do with the FTC. Had everything to do with human kindness. We set the whole thing up, because those kids were helpless.
Now, here's what came back, and I tell people this at seminars constantly: In the funeral profession you plant an ounce of kindness and you will reap a harvest of benefit. Because when that kid's grandmother died, guess who buried her? The grandfather, great-aunt, cousin, nephew? Within five years, I bet you we had buried seven people out of that family at an average of $5,000 a funeral. So because my staff and I went from our hearts with a situation that required it, we brought $35,000 worth of revenue stream into that funeral home. Because the families knew that we had treated them right, and nobody was strapped with an extravagant funeral bill.
I once had a veteran funeral director tell me, "You need to get the money for a funeral as fast as you possibly can, for their benefit."
I said, "What do you mean, sir?"
"Think of having an outstanding funeral bill hanging over your head while you're going through grief. You pay the funeral bill right up front and you've eliminated one of your problems." And then he looked at me and he said, "And the other side of it is, when the tears dry up, the cash dries up. The further they distance themselves from the experience - well, what are you going to do, dig up dad?"
It's a fascinating line of work, because you have to juggle business, religion, psychology, ritual ceremony and service every day. It's like the head of a diamond, it's multifaceted; it never ceases to amaze me what opportunities there are for people to help each other in a funeral home. The sky's the limit.
ICFM: Between your time at Loewen and your move to Houston in mid-2002, you were at the New England Institute for a while, but mostly you've been traveling around to lecture and teach. You travel all over the world.
VAN BECK: I've been to Germany, I've been to Spain, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines. My firmest connections are with the funeral directors in Great Britain.
ICFM: Why?
VAN BECK: I don't know. One of my best friends is Domenic McGuire, who's a funeral director in Glasgow, Scotland, and he became president of the national association. He had seen me in action over here and invited me over. This was 10 years ago, and I was scared, because my friends over here in funeral service told me they were going to eat me for lunch over there because the British think Americans are crude and gauche.
But years ago, when I had started speaking nationally, I felt so inadequate. I thought people would make fun of my size or whatever - I knew I wasn't Robert Redford standing up in front of people. Then one day a friend of mine bought me videotapes on the biography of Winston Churchill. There's this tape of Churchill giving speeches, and I was riveted; Churchill had these people in the palm of his hands. I'm watching him, and he's spitting and stuttering and slurring his words, and all his S's kinda come out like this: "sssshhhss." Churchill was a stutterer. And I'm sitting there thinking, "He's the greatest orator of the 20th century and he's handicapped. If he can do it, I can do it."
Then I started watching tapes of FDR, and wow, he was just as good as Churchill, and he never moved his left hand, because if he did, he'd fall over. So here are the two greatest orators of the 20th century - one can't walk and the other's a stutterer.
When I went over to England, I was so self-conscious about being an American, I bought a pair of striped black pants and a black vest. I got myself a watch fob, a black and white bowtie, a black coat and put a white handkerchief in my pocket. I looked like a tall Churchill; I looked as British as you possibly could look.
The first thing I did was say, "Now you know, if I say something unbelievably stupid today, you've got to forgive me, because you must remember, I come from the Excited States of America." They loved that. I said, "You know, we all talk very loud over there, and we talk very fast, and none of us listens to anything the others are saying."
By the time I was done, they were buying me pints of bitter. I've been going over there now six years. I did the Scarborough lectures up on the North Sea. I've been to York, Glasgow, Edinboro, East Anglia, Winchester, London, Dover, Brighton, Plymouth. I spoke at their commencement for the British Institute of Embalmers. And it's, (mimics British accent) "Hi, Tohdd."
They're lovely people, and you know what? They have got a much better handle on this thing. There is no acrimony between the cemeteries and funeral directors over there, because the funeral directors have to use the cemeteries for their funerals - that's where the chapels are built.
ICFM: Their cremation rate is extremely high, isn't it?
VAN BECK: Oh, yes, 97 percent cremation, but also almost 97 percent funerals.
ICFM: Do you still enjoy traveling?
VAN BECK: I'm maxed out on travel, there's no doubt about it. I have no desire to do much more traveling. In fact, one reason I was interested in this job in Houston was to pull me off the road a bit. I'm doing my writing, trying to finish up a couple more books, and I'm looking to go back to school again.
But you know, I've had a fortuitous career. I think I've got 20 good more years left in it and I hope the last 20 will be as good as the first 30. What I want to do is, when you hear Van Beck is dead is when you'll hear he's retired. I want to keep going and I want people to say I contributed to helping this profession.
ICFM: What specifically are you hoping to do with the mortuary school?
VAN BECK: I want to create a center for ministerial development. I want to set up the National Funeral Historical Society. I want to set up state-of-the-art advisory committees to come up with a new curriculum. And also I want to set up a solid funeral service management training program similar to what I do at ICFA University.
I want to get the school to a point where people will find an environment where they will be able to grow spiritually as funeral directors, and morally as funeral directors, just as well as academically. I want to try to create an environment where the spirit of service and mission is indelibly planted in their souls. And maybe we won't see the fruit of that until they've been out in the field for 10 years.
Todd W. Van Beck is president of the Commonwealth Institute of Funeral Service in Houston, Texas. He is a licensed funeral director and embalmer and is dean of two colleges of ICFA University, the Funeral and Commemorative Services College and the new College of Embalming and Restorative Arts.. He can be reached at (281) 873-0262 and at tvanbeck@yahoo.com.
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