Employment Recommendation Report

Job Opportunities for an emerging funeral home director

Chelsea Wendlandt
 Employment Recommendation Report: Job
Opportunities for an emerging funeral home director

English 320: Unit 2

By: Chelsea Wendlandt

11 October 2010

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 Executive Summary
Lee, you are a current senior at NDSU majoring in mortuary science. You have received

three job offers from three different funeral homes. Two of the job locations are close to your

hometown, but one is located in Alaska. The three job offers are as follows: Stevenson Funeral

Homes – Dickinson ND., Alaskan funeral homes – Kenai AL., Benson funeral homes – St.

Cloud MN. I have evaluated each job on certain criteria based on Lee’s interests. After talking

to you I found out that staying relatively close to your family and a good hunting atmosphere is

important to you. You were born and raised in a small town and love everything about the

atmosphere of a small community. I have evaluated the communities based on this criteria. I

decided to evaluate the jobs based on the salary, the organization of the business, and the

tradition of the business. I evaluated the community based on its size, the distance from hunting

land, and the distance from your family.

Job Criteria:

Salary- You mentioned to me that salary is pretty important to you especially when you’re pretty

confident that you will be working hard at the job you take.

Organization and tradition of the company - In the questionnaire you mentioned that the

tradition and the organization of the company is something you look for in a job.

Community Criteria:

Size – You grew up in a small town and you mentioned to me that you would love to continue to

live in a small community.

Distance from hunting land – You mentioned that hunting and fishing is one of your favorite

pastimes, so I know that a close location to hunting land would be nice.

Distance from family – In the questionnaire you mentioned that the one thing that would be

keeping you back from moving far away is your family.

After figuring in all of these criteria, I decided that the best job for you to take would be with

Stevenson Funeral home in Dickinson, ND. This location provides you with closer proximity to

hunting land and it’s the closest you can be to your family and still be able to be a successful

funeral home director.

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 Table of Contents
Executive Summary……………………………………………1

List of Figures………………………………………………….3

Introduction…………………………………………………….4

Job Opportunities………………………………………………5

Jobs…………………………………………………………….5

Stevenson Funeral Home……………………………………...5

Peninsula Funeral Home………………………………………6

Benson Funeral Home………………………………………...7

Communities………………………………………………….8

Dickinson……………………………………………………..8

Kenai…………………………………………………………9

St. Cloud……………………………………………………..10

Conclusion and Recommendation…………………………...12

Work Cited…………………………………………………..13

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 List of Figures
Figure 1……………………………………………………..9

Figure 2……………………………………………………..9

Figure 3…………………………………………………….11

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 Introduction
For the past couple of weeks we have been working on recommendation reports in

English 320. When I met with you we talked about our interests and where we would like

to be after we are done with college. You had no problem telling me where you came

from and what you enjoy to do with your life.

I soon found out that you are studying mortuary science and planning on being a funeral

director when you are done with college. You went on to tell me that you grew up in a

small community and would prefer that you found a job near your hometown or in

another small community to stay close to your family. Another reason for your interest in

finding a job in a small community is the fact that you like to hunt.

After reading your responses to the questionnaire I found out that some of your career

goals include owning your own funeral home. The reason you want to go into mortuary

science is to help people heal. I also saw that you look for a good traditional business

with respectful co-workers. You also mentioned that your salary is pretty important to

you if you are doing a good job fulfilling your employer’s work specifications.

You gave me three job offers that you need help evaluating. All of the jobs are in

different communities and look like they have good potential for you. I look forward to

presenting to you what I found out about each of the jobs and communities.

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 Job Opportunities

Criteria
After sitting down and interviewing you I discovered the things that are most important to

you when evaluating a job and the community that it is located in. For this reason I

decided to evaluate the jobs and the communities based on certain criteria as follows:

Job Criteria:

 Salary

 Well organized and traditional company

Community Criteria:

 Population and recreation

 Distance of hunting land

 Distance from family

Jobs

Stevenson funeral home – Dickinson, ND.

 Salary

According to simplyhired.com (2005-2010), the job calculator indicates that a funeral

home manager in Dickinson North Dakota makes roughly $34,000 a year. This is a

reasonable salary, but salaries at other job locations may differ.

 Employer Organization and tradition

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 Stevenson funeral home is a family ran business. “Stevenson's Funeral home is a family

owned and operated establishment since 1952. Founded by Lee H. Stevenson and now

owned by Jon L. Stevenson. The Stevenson Family and staff are firmly committed to

relieving the stress, and easing the burden of grief of the families who depend on us. We

offer guidance and support, as long and often, as you need us,” Stevenson (2007). The

Stevenson funeral has certainly grown over the years; they now have 6 funeral homes

spread all over North Dakota and Montana. I believe that this growth show tremendous

organization skills and a great amount of success for the Stevenson family. The

Dickinson funeral home location has shown some growth and improvement over the

years. According to Stevenson (2007) he informs us of their purchase of the Mischel-

Olson Funeral Chapel that has been known for the caring personalized service it provides

in funeral service to their customers. This addition allows the funeral home to provide

more services to those in need during their grieving process. The fact that the funeral

home has managed to stay a family business for so many year and that they have

expanded so much, shows me that they are reliable employers who have their employees

best interest in mind.

Alaskan funeral homes (Kenai Peninsula funeral home – Kenai Alaska)

 Salary

According to simplyhired.com (2005-2010), the salary calculator indicates that a funeral

home manager in Kenai Alaska earns roughly $46,000 a year. This salary proves to be

$12,000 higher than the salary of a funeral home manager in Dickinson, North Dakota.

 Employer organization and tradition

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 Wisniewski notes (2009) that Alaskan funeral homes are ran and operated by Timothy

Wisniewski. He is a third generation funeral home director and has lived in Alaska since

1976. Since then Wisniewski has opened seven funeral home locations all throughout the

Alaskan state. He does his best to accommodate his growing community and pledges to

keep his funeral homes Alaskan owned. I feel that the owner of this company has good

organization skills judging by his success in opening seven funeral homes in the past

forty years. The owner shows tradition by promising to keep the funeral homes Alaskan

owned.

Benson funeral home – St. Cloud, MN.

 Salary

According to simplyhired.com (2005-2010), the salary calculator indicated the funeral

home managers in St. Cloud, MN. Make roughly $41,000 a year. This salary shows to be

in between the other two jobs’ salaries, but still shows to be $6,000 higher than the salary

in Dickinson, North Dakota.

 Employer organization and tradition

Benson funeral home is also a family run business. “Benson Funeral Home was

established in June of 1962 by Raymond A. and Jeanette K. Benson. In 1989 Mark J.

Benson succeeded his father as President of Benson Funeral Home and, in 1990, he

purchased the Funeral Home and its sister company, the Central Minnesota Cremation

Service, which serves Benson Funeral Home and other funeral homes throughout the

state,” noted Benson funeral home (2009). Benson funeral home certainly shows

tradition. According to Benson funeral home (2009), Ray Benson passed his business

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 down to his son, Mark. The business shows organization by the way owner purchased

their sister company to accommodate to their growing business.

Communities
Stevenson funeral home – Dickinson, North Dakota

 Population
According to the city of Dickinson (2009), Dickinson is currently the home to 16,000

people and counting. The town is the gateway to Theodore Roosevelt National Park and

Dickinson State University. The city is also located less than an hour away from Lake

Sakakawea, which is a wonderful place for fishing. The city is also surrounded by miles

of prairie which serves as good hunting land. This community has that small town

atmosphere, but also has that college town feeling because of Dickinson State University.

 Distance from hunting land

I know how important hunting is to you, so I decided that figuring in the distances to

some of the public hunting lands would be useful to you. There are two major public

hunting lands in North Dakota. The first is Audubon Wetland Management District

located by Coleharbon, ND. The second is J. clark Salyer National Wildlife Refuge

located by Upham, ND. I have provided a figure that represents the name of the public

hunting land, the time it takes to get there from Dickinson, and the number of miles it

takes to get to the hunting land. Figure 1 shows the time and distance to get to each of

the public hunting lands.

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 Figure 1

Public hunting land Number of miles Time Travel

Audubon Wetland 158 miles 2 hours 24 minutes
Management District
J. Clark Salyer National 274 miles 4 hours 23 minutes
Wildlife Refuge

(Map Quest)

The public hunting lands obviously aren’t extremely close to Dickenson but they aren’t

impossible either. I realize that hunting can only happen so many times a year during

certain seasons, so one of these two could be reasonable for you.

 Distance from family

All of the locations are far away from your hometown of Rolla North Dakota. The

closest city to your hometown is Dickinson North Dakota. The distance between the two

towns is 325 miles and 5 hours 8 minutes. Figure 2 shows you the distance between all

three of the job communities.

Figure 2

Community Time of travel Distance of travel

Dickinson, ND 5 hours 8 minutes 325.36 miles
Kenai, AK 52 hours 21 minutes 2,883.68 miles
St. Cloud, MN 6 hours 23 minutes 413.02 miles
(Map Quest)

Peninsula funeral home - Kenai AK

 Population

According to the city of Kenai (2009), the population of this city was 7,115 in the year of

2009. This is the smallest community that I have researched for your report. I think that

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 you would like this community because of its small atmosphere. I feel like it would

remind you of the town you grew up in.

 Distance from public hunting land

There is no available hunting land near the city of Kenai AK. You would have to get

permission to hunt on private land if this is something that is very important to you.

However, according to the city of Kenai AK (2009), the town is located on a peninsula

where the Kenai river meets with Cook inlet. This river provides for great fishing.

 Distance from family

I have illustrated in Figure 2 that Kenai AK. Is the greatest distance from Rolla ND.

According to Map Quest (2010), Kenai AK. Is a 52 hour and 21 minute drive from your

hometown. The town has many great qualities, but the fact that it is so far from your

family might play a big role in your final decision.

Benson funeral home - St. Cloud MN

 Population

According to the city of St. Cloud of Minnesota (2008), the town has about 67,136

residents. This is the biggest town that I have evaluated for you in this recommendation

report. You told me that you would like an adventure and a taste of city life, so maybe

this is your opportunity to make a change.

 Distance from public hunting land

St. Cloud has several public hunting lands surrounds its city. The closest public hunting

land is one and a half hours from St. Cloud and is located by Bloomington MN. The

second closest location is two and a half hours away and is located by Odessa MN. I

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 think that this location provides you with plenty of options of places to hunt. Figure 3

illustrates the distance between each of the hunting lands and the city of St. Cloud.

Figure 3

Public hunting land Time traveled Distance Traveled

Agassiz National Wildlife 4 hours 35 minutes 253.74 miles
Refuge
Big Stone National Wildlife 2 hours 37 minutes 137.42 miles
Refuge
Minnesota Valley National 1 hour 19 minutes 75.50 miles
Wildlife Refuge
(Map Quest)

As you can see there is plenty of hunting land surrounding St. Cloud. This city may be

the biggest city that you have a job offer from, but you will have no problem commuting

to any type of public hunting land.

 Distance from family

I have shown you in Figure 2 the distance that St. Cloud is from your hometown of Rolla

ND. St. Cloud is 6 hours 23 minutes and 413.02 miles from your hometown. This is a

significant distance, but the distance between Kenai AK and Rolla ND seems to be the

most significant. If you chose to work in St. Cloud MN you would still be a reasonable

driving distance to visit your family.

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 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

I feel that I have hit all of the basic criteria that we need to evaluate the three jobs and the

communities. Just to recap I evaluated the three jobs you received by the salary, the organization

of the company, and the tradition of the company. I evaluated the communities based on the

population, the distance from hunting land, and the distance from your family. Some other

things that we need to figure in is the fact that your family is on the top of your priority list when

it comes down to it. The other thing is that it seems to me that hunting and fishing seem to be a

big part of your life.

Recommendation:

After much debating I have decided that the best job opportunity for you would be with

Stevenson’s funeral home in Dickinson ND. The number one reason why I chose this job for

you is because it’s the closest to your family. The other biggest reason is because I believe that

you will have more hunting and fishing opportunities in this location. Also, the business is very

traditional and the people are very personable here, and I know this is one of the things you look

for in a job. The salary at this job isn’t as high as the other two jobs, but there is always room for

advancement at this job. Lee, I hope that my research has helped you look at some different

aspects on the job offers that you have received. You may not take the job that I am

recommending to you, but I know that you will keep it in mind.

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 WORK CITED

Arctic Web Publications. (2010). Information about the city of Kenai. Retrieved September 28,
2010, from http://www.ci.kenai.ak.us/aboutkenai.html.

Benson Funeral Home. (2010). About Us. Retrieved September 28, 2010, from http://
www..bensonfuneralhome.com/aboutus.php

City of St. Cloud, MN. (2008). City New and Notices/Residents. Retrieved September 28,
2010, from http://www.ci.stcloud.mn.us/default/aspx.

Dickinson, North Dakota. (2009). City of Dickinson. Retrieved September 28, 2010,
From http://www.dickinsongov.com.

Map Quest. (2010). Retrieved October 11, 2010, from http://www.mapquest.com.

Simply Hired. (2010). Salary. Retrieved October 11, 2010, from

http://ww.simplyhired.com/a/salary/search/q-funeralhomemanager.

Stevenson, Jon. (2007). History, Stevenson Funeral Home. Retrieved September 28, 2010,
From http://www.stevensonfuneralhome.com.

Wisniewski, Timothy. (2009). Alaskan Ownership. Retrieved September 28, 2010, from
http://www.alaskanfunerl.com.

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