Brothers Lead Brunner Sanden Deitrick into Third Generation

Editor's note: This article was updated at 8:15 a.m.

The Brunner, Sanden and Deitrick families don't hire people simply because of relation.

Adam Sanden, now a partner, chief financial officer and human resources manager, learned that the hard way about six years ago when he asked his father, James, if he could return to the company after trying his hand in another industry. The patriarch initially denied him for about six months.

"That was a sobering moment, man," Adam said. "I'm sitting downtown (working as a CPA) feeling like I'm on 'Exile Island' while they're back here running a business that I'd always dreamt of coming back to."

Adam eventually got his chance to return, and in 2012 he and his brother, Jason, joined his mother, Nancy, uncle, Chuck, and aunt, Martha Deitrick, in the partnership of the business. The brothers stepped up late last year after their father retired following 47 years as a partner and president. Nancy is now president, while Jason is a licensed funeral director and embalmer.

Jason's days of wanting to work alongside his family dates back to his days at Lake Catholic High School when he told his mother he wanted a black suit jacket to work at the funeral home, as opposed to a varsity letter jacket. Now, Nancy talks to Adam and Jason as partners as well as sons.

"I feel fortunate and feel that the community is very fortunate because they are two consummate professionals," Nancy said. "To have two young men to come on with that knowledge of business profession to help grow this company to the next level, we're very blessed to have that."

To Adam, the next level includes more diversification and better serving the living as well as the deceased. Since building a legacy on funerals, Brunner Sanden Deitrick added a cremation services, a reception center for events that both related and not related to funerals and started crafting headstones and mausoleums. The business also bought the property next door to rent out to a real estate agency.

"If you're a funeral home and you sit back and say, 'we're a funeral home,' and that's all you do, you're going to die," Adam said. "You're going to see changes to this campus shortly. We've got a couple things in the works, in terms of expansion to better serve the customer."

The family says it's too soon to reveal what the upgrades will consist of, but Nancy, whose parents started the business in 1949, said they will be made solely with the idea of improvement in mind.

"We always look at how we operate and we say, 'what's our weakest link?'" she said. "We always look at ourselves and say, 'what can we do better?'"

Adam said he and his brother are inspired and pushed by what their family has already accomplished to this point.

"If we're here for any less than another 63 years, than I didn't do something right," he said.

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