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Saturday, September 17, 2005
Dychangco: Dealing with death
By Jessica B. Natad
Sun.Star Staff Reporter
The man on top of the biggest player in the funeral services sector practically grew up taking care of corpses. And it was not easy for him because of the negative concept of the death care business in the 1970s.
“I was already helping my dad in the business since 1970 during my college days. I tend to shy away from people because of the negative perception of our business. I was ashamed then but I had no choice (but to help),” Renato “Oly” Dychangco Jr., president and chief executive officer of Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes Inc. (CFHI) said.
But it was his father’s business, which he is now running together with his twin daughters Sarah and Sheila, that taught him to respect the dead.
Oly admitted that he was at first hesitant to take on his dad’s funeral business. It was while studying mortuary science in the United States, where the funeral business was highly respected, that he realized making corpses look beautiful as a means of livelihood is not bad after all.
He applied all the things he learned in the US in running CFHI. With the help of wife Gilda and his five daughters – Kate, Sarah, Sheila, Holly and Kristelle – he started developing professionalism in the industry.
Worried
Oly said he was worried that not one of his daughters would be interested in running the funeral business after him.
“I fully understand them if they won’t because that was exactly how I felt when I was young. I did not force them to become interested in the business but I told them this is the family’s business and if no one from the family would want to take care of it, we will be forced to get non-family members to run the show,” he said.
Twins Sarah and Sheila decided to give the family’s 55-year-old business a try and studied mortuary management in the US.
“We really enjoyed it. We enjoyed dressing the corpse and putting on make-up and making them look good so that their relatives won’t be scared of them. We were also encouraged because most of our classmates in the US were women from the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), who were forensic experts,” Sarah said.
The Dychangcos have brought new ideas and services to the business. Funeral service now includes counseling for the relatives of the dead and funeral organizing.
Aside from CFHI, the Dychangcos are also into retail, food, franchising and casket-producing businesses.
(September 17, 2005 issue)
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