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September 7, 2003Casket salesman takes to the roadBuyers weren't coming to him so he travelsByRecord-Eagle staff writer MANISTEE - He has a unique product - fiberglass caskets. Now, Enduroglas LLC president Matt Davis says he has an equally unique way to sell it - a 42-foot mobile showroom called the Casket Coach. Davis, who worked for Oak Grove International in Manistee, recently bought the company's 11-year-old casket-making operation from Jim Kieszkowski and renamed it Enduroglas, after its main brand. The company employs 20 people and sells about 900 caskets a year. Davis and business partner Dennis Wilson think that can be boosted to 1,200 to 1,500. That's where the $200,000 Casket Coach comes in, with its walk-through display of eight sample caskets. "I don't think anyone has done this before," Davis said. "We used to use trucks that you had to pack and unpack at each site." It was hard to get funeral directors to visit the Manistee plant, so he now visits them. The company sells five model lines in 29 colors. They look like traditional upper- to middle-priced metal or hardwood caskets and sell for about the same prices - $2,500 to $3,000 retail. The coach has a wireless computer network, a laser printer, a tablet computer for entering orders and a bedroom. Davis took the coach out on its maiden selling voyage on Tuesday. Enduroglas is a small industry, bringing in under $1.3 billion a year. More than 40 companies sell about 1.8 million caskets a year, said George Lemke, executive director of the Casket and Funeral Supply Association of America. Still, Enduroglas may have a good niche, he said. "The main market challenge is that there is a perception that a fiberglass casket is inexpensive, but it really isn't," Lemke said. So Enduroglas has to base its pitch on something else, he said. The name says it all, Davis said. Fiberglass caskets are lighter, won't rot, rust or leak and can't be damaged by embalming chemicals, so if customers want durability and traditional styling, Enduroglas is the way to go, he said. Some environmentalists object. The company was chided in a story about the small but growing "green burial movement" on a British environmental Web site, E-Magazine.com. The story advocated burial of bodies directly in the earth, without caskets or embalming. Wilson responded that fiberglass caskets actually protect the environment by keeping embalming chemicals from getting into the groundwater. Unless a body is buried within 24 hours, it must be embalmed or cremated, he said, and most burials don't take place that quickly. Beyond the security angle, Enduroglas has found another niche market: alumni caskets. Jim Hapner and his partner Jim Humston own the Eternal Fan Specialty Caskets distributorship in Fairborn, Ohio. They sell Enduroglas caskets emblazoned with Ohio State logos to families of diehard Buckeye fans. The company pays licensing fees to colleges and universities in Kansas, Ohio, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Texas, Iowa and Indiana. So far, Enduroglas hasn't been able to get Michigan universities to sign up.
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