This business is dead in the water; Neptune Society prospers as demand increases for cremation, funerals at sea.

This business is dead in the water

With a strong sun, perfect blue sky and Catalina in the distance, it is a fine day for funerals three miles off the coast of San Pedro. The Neptune II, a floating funeral chapel, has 22 paying customers who won't be seasick today.

Husband and wife Dick and Alice Weiss run the vessel for the Neptune Society, a for-profit private company based in Burbank that cremates the dead and spreads their ashes at sea.

The Weisses sail past Angels' Gate, going three miles out as required by the Environmental Protection Agency. "The law is arbitrary, since there can be no environmental issue with what we do, but we would go out anyway because there is the idea of scattering remains in the open seas," Alice Weiss says.

Dick Weiss turns off the motor, letting the Neptune II drift. Alice launches into the service, reading a poem from "The Prophet." From a dog-eared copy of the Bible Dick reads the 23rd Psalm. The reading completed, Alice opens cardboard boxes, one by one, reads the name on each and hands her husband a plastic bag of ashes. He gives them the deep six.

The mood is somber.

"Birds used to appear, assuming it was a fishing boat and curious, but they've learned better," Dick says. Whale sightings are common in March.

On this day, like all others, Alice strews fresh-cut flowers from wicker baskets, bought from a special supplier. "I used to go to florists for the flowers, but when they heard what the purpose was, they started to give me old flowers," she says.

At the usual group ceremony, the remains of 15 to 35 people are all in the same boat, according to Alice.

The Weisses make this trip usually twice a day, the second one a private ceremony with family members in attendance. On rare occasions, perhaps three times a year, the trip is canceled because of rough seas or dense fog, Dick says.

"The ceremony has dignity, but there is also joyfulness, and it is an uplifting situation," Alice says.

Her experience as a flight attendant may also come in handy in putting a family at ease.

She recommends people dress informally, and if women are wearing high heels, she will give them socks to put on instead.

"People are often apprehensive at first and may disapprove of cremation, but after they see the service they are more relaxed and see it is a good idea," Alice says.

With the average cost of a funeral approaching $5,000, according to the Federal Trade Commission, one of the strongest draws of a Neptune Society cremation is its low cost. "Other than the purchase of a home or a car, I think the cost of a funeral is the third-largest cost people go through in a lifetime," says Emanuel Weintraub, the owner and president of the Neptune Society.

The total cost for a Neptune Society burial runs a little under $650. That includes transportation from the place of death to the company's refrigerated holding facility, from there to a crematory in Compton and return of the cremated remains to the company's office for final disposition (generally $150 if the decedent is picked up in Los Angeles County), professional services, including preparation of the death certificate and other legal documentation ($195); the cost of holding facility and administrative fees ($150); and the scattering at sea ($50).

For those who want a private scattering ceremony, the Neptune II can be chartered for $500, bringing the total cost to $1,100. Flowers are included.

The family can bring along a rabbi, priest or minister to a private ceremony. One family had a bagpiper playing all the way out and back in the pouring rain.

For those who cannot fathom what inflation will do, or who simply want to spare their families the cost of the cremation, the society offers prepayment plans which lock in the cost.

Amounts prepaid are put in a trust fund, audited by the California Department of Consumer Affairs, Weintraub says. The fund currently has roughly $2.5 million in Los Angeles County alone.

The Neptune Society has a cost advantage because of its low overhead compared with traditional funeral homes. "Mortuary Management," a trade publication, estimated a funeral home's overhead runs close to $1,000 per case, what with hearses, salaries, chapels, employees and the like.

In contrast, the Society's operation is bare bones. The corporate headquarters in Burbank is a store in a strip mall. The office could easily pass for an insurance agency, with plain furnishings and little adornment. Four women answer the phones.

"Women tend to be more sympathetic than men," Weintraub says. In hiring, he considers voice and appearance. "We don't want tough top sargeants," he added.

The practice of cremation is hardly new, with its roots in ancient history, but until the Neptune Society came along, no one in this country paired cremation and the scattering of the ashes at sea on a organized basis.

"Before we started, we did a little bit of market research on what people want done with their cremated remains and we found that a majority wanted them scattered at sea," Weintraub says.

More than 90 percent of the society's members choose to go that route. Others have their ashes returned to their families, which may do anything from dispersing them in a rose garden, sprinkling them in the countryside from a plane or placing them in an urn kept on a shelf.

Opening its doors in 1973, the Neptune Society, was an idea whose time had come. In California, roughly 40 percent of the dead are now cremated. In Los Angeles County alone the Neptune Society has revenues of $10 million, Weintraub says, and that does not include the company's operations in New York or Florida and elsewhere in California. In total it has 20 offices, and its members have come from 47 states and from as far away as South America. The only states not represented are North Dakota, South Dakota and Delaware, for reasons Weintraub could not explain. The company has 100 employees and a fleet of four boats. There are currently more than 300,000 members. Current membership fees are $25, up from $15 some years ago.

By becoming a member, a person can make precise prior arrangements on how funeral arrangements should be handled, and save $50 on professional services later.

The company's success has attracted direct competitors, but they have an uphill battle overcoming the name recognition of the Neptune Society, which has in the minds of many become synonymous with the kind of funeral it conducts. None of these competitors approach the society in terms of revenues or size.

Ads on television and radio and in newspapers have played an important part in the company's becoming a household word. In Los Angeles alone the company budgets $300,000 to $350,000 a year on advertising, Weintraub says. The commercials are shown during the day when people are in the office to take calls, Weintraub explains.

The clientele of the society cuts across most religious, ethnic and economic boundaries, Weintraub claimed. It was not always that way. "When the Neptune Society was first started, I thought because of the low cost it would be most enticing to people from middle- and low-income levels, but I was wrong; those who came in the beginning were mostly professionals - doctors, lawyers, white collar types," Weintraub says.

To this day, "the people tend to be better educated and more enlightened to the fact cremation is the way of the future," Alice says.

Besides ordinary folk, the society has attracted its share of celebrities, including Cary Grant, William Holden, and most recently, Alan Hale, the skipper on "Gilligan's Island."

The majority of members are Protestant, with Jews and Catholics making up a little more than 20 percent each, Weintraub says. The only groups not represented, according to Weintraub, are Orthodox Jews, devout Catholics and Mormons, who all disapprove of cremation. In fact, Weintraub's own father, a religious Jews, refused to step in any of his son's offices and was given a traditional funeral and burial when he died.

Weintraub says he plans to be cremated.

Other than these religious groups, the Society has failed to catch on with some minority groups, including Hispanics and blacks, according to Weintraub.

Weintraub comes to the business from a financial background, with stints as officer and director of two public companies, including Sterling Electronics, based in Houston. The business concept dawned on him after his wife died, he says. "I felt I was taken advantage of when I was traumatized," Weintraub says of the traditional funeral and burial he had arranged.

Weintraub started out with a partner but bought him out a number of years ago. The company is still privately held, and Weintraub says he has no plans to go public. There is one well-known publicly traded company in the industry: Houston-based Service Corporation International, a $263 million (revenues) operator of funeral homes and cemetaries. However, Weintraub has relied on limited partners to invest in individual offices.