The business of caring

There have been magic shows at funerals. Live bands, costumes and celebrations that hardly resemble what most people imagine when they think of saying goodbye to a loved one. There was even a rancher whose friends gathered with their branding irons, each leaving a mark on his casket before he was laid to rest.

Those aren't examples of unusual funerals to Chad Getz. They're examples of getting it right.

The owner of Getz Funeral Home in Las Cruces has spent much of his life helping families through some of their most difficult moments. Along the way, he has developed a philosophy that reaches well beyond the walls of the family business.

People matter. Their stories matter. And sometimes the most important thing a person can accomplish is helping someone else move forward. It's a philosophy Getz applies as readily to an employee struggling to find his direction as to a grieving family planning a funeral. It guides his involvement in community organizations, his approach to leadership and his belief that the place that helped raise him deserves something in return.

And while his profession has made him intimately familiar with death, much of what drives Getz is a desire to improve the lives of the people around him. Consider the employee who came to work at the funeral home as a laborer.

Getz saw something in the young man that he wasn't necessarily seeing in himself. When the employee expressed uncertainty about his future, Getz encouraged him to take on additional responsibilities, starting with helping at rosaries.

He bought him a suit and encouraged him to work full time and consider becoming a licensed apprentice. There was a complication. The employee had left school at 16 to help support his family and never graduated. So, Getz helped him earn his GED.

"He's one of our directors now. And he's just doing amazing," Getz said.

The satisfaction wasn't simply in developing a valuable employee. It was in seeing someone discover opportunities that once seemed beyond his reach.

"I hate to lose employees," he said. "I hate it. But if they leave here better than they came here, then I've succeeded."

It's an approach that sounds a little like coaching, a comparison Getz readily accepts. When running a funeral home was far in the distance, he was a defensive tackle at Las Cruces High School, part of a football program that captured a state championship and enjoyed a remarkable run of success.

He earned a scholarship to Eastern New Mexico University, where he discovered that being an outstanding high school player didn't necessarily make him an outstanding college player. At 6 feet, 2 inches and 275 pounds, he had been a formidable presence on the high school field. At Eastern, surrounded by bigger and faster players, he suddenly discovered he was one of the smaller guys. The experience taught him humility, perseverance and the importance of relying on the people around him.

"Football taught that team mentality, that group, that caring," he said. "We all had each other's backs."

He still speaks warmly of the coaches who shaped him, including coaches Jim Miller and Brent Jaquess, and the teachers who helped him along the way. Those relationships reinforced something he had been learning at home: Nobody succeeds entirely on his own.

His father, who purchased the funeral home in 1971, was his most influential teacher.

The Getz family's connection to Las Cruces began in 1954, when Chad's grandfather, a World War II veteran, arrived from Ohio to work at White Sands Proving Grounds. Chad's father entered the funeral business almost by accident, beginning as an ambulance driver in 1965, when funeral homes still operated ambulance services. He attended mortuary school and eventually purchased the business while still in his early 20s.

It wasn't an easy beginning. The young owner had to hire older funeral directors because families were reluctant to entrust their loved ones to someone so young. He also faced skepticism from established competitors. But he built a business and a reputation, and his youngest son grew up watching what that reputation meant to people.

Getz remembers hearing people tell him how his father had helped them through some of the hardest experiences of their lives. He wasn't pressured to follow in his father's footsteps. Neither were his two older brothers, both of whom also spent time in funeral service. But the work appealed to him.

"It really called me," Getz said. "It wasn't forced."

After attending mortuary school in Dallas, Getz worked in the profession in several communities, learning from funeral directors whose approaches helped shape his own.

He also met his future wife, Christy, in mortuary school. They eventually moved to her hometown of Athens, Texas, where he considered purchasing a funeral home, but Las Cruces was never far from his thoughts. The couple married on a Friday in 2009 and spent their honeymoon moving back to New Mexico that Sunday.

They initially helped establish Forever Friends Pet Services, an extension of the family's funeral business that recognized something Getz had understood from growing up around animals. For many people, the loss of a pet is the loss of a family member.

The business provided another lesson in understanding grief. Getz remembers tough ranchers who might dismiss the idea of an elaborate funeral for themselves but were devastated when a beloved dog died. Some had spent years with those animals at their sides, sharing long days of work and companionship. The grief was real, and Getz believed it deserved to be treated that way.

The business continues to provide complimentary cremation services for certified service dogs and law enforcement K-9s, a gesture rooted in his belief that animals that have spent their lives serving others deserve care in return.

That same philosophy helped guide him when the future of the family funeral home became uncertain.

By 2015, his brothers had pursued opportunities elsewhere, and his father was considering selling the business. Getz was deeply troubled by the possibility that the family legacy might end. He spoke with his father, who agreed to give him an opportunity to take over.

"You get one chance," his father told him.

Getz became general manager that year, initially concentrating almost entirely on learning to run the operation and establishing himself as its leader. But he had inherited something more important than a business. His father had taught him that taking care of people was the foundation of everything else.

"Business will come if you do the right thing and you do it the right way," Getz recalled his father telling him.

That principle shapes his approach to funeral service, where he believes the most important responsibility is often helping families understand what they need rather than simply fulfilling a set of instructions.

He sometimes challenges people who insist they don't want a funeral or memorial service. What they want, he explains, isn't necessarily the only consideration. The people who survive them must find a way to continue living with the loss. A gathering can give friends and relatives an opportunity to express their grief together rather than forcing the surviving family to revisit the loss repeatedly in everyday encounters.

"We're here to make the transition for your family a little bit easier," he said, "because now they have to find a way to carry on without somebody that they loved deeply."

It also explains his insistence on making services personal. He has helped families arrange everything from music and celebrations to unusual memorial keepsakes. In one case, a man's cremated remains were transformed into stones intended for the fountain in a garden he had loved.

The details are different, but the objective remains the same, to help families remember the person rather than simply the loss.

"We get one shot to make it right," Getz said. "We can't do over."

His work also offers an unusual window into the history of Las Cruces. A self-described history enthusiast, Getz loves learning about the people who built the Mesilla Valley and the experiences that shaped their lives.

He has listened to stories involving prominent community figures, agricultural pioneers, veterans and families whose histories stretch back generations. Those conversations are among the unexpected rewards of his profession.

"This also gives me an opportunity to hear the history of the valley that nobody else gets to hear," he said.

But Getz's involvement with Las Cruces increasingly extends beyond the families who come through the funeral home's doors. As his wife became involved in real estate and community organizations, he began attending events with her. Eventually, he was invited to serve on the board of Big Brothers Big Sisters.

One opportunity led to another. His community involvement has included the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce, Mesilla Valley Hospice, the Las Cruces economic development community and efforts supporting first responders.

Yet he doesn't see those activities as separate from his work. The funeral home is part of the community, he believes, and everyone who works there has something to contribute.

He encourages his employees to become involved in organizations and activities that matter to them. Some coach youth sports. Others participate in the Chamber of Commerce, the Doña Ana County Humane Society or school programs.

His nephew Tristan, who represents the third generation of the family in funeral service, is active in the Humane Society and Leadership Las Cruces. Getz takes considerable pride in the young man's accomplishments, but he is equally enthusiastic about the contributions of employees whose community involvement has little connection to the funeral business.

"We really try and give back as much as we can because this is the community that raised us," he said.

It is a community he has had opportunities to leave, but one he has repeatedly chosen. While the Organ Mountains provide a familiar and comforting backdrop, Getz says the real attraction has always been the people.

Shortly after he and Christy returned from Texas, they were driving through Las Cruces around the Fourth of July when she noticed chairs lining the street in anticipation of a parade. Accustomed to life in Dallas, she wondered when the parade would begin.

Getz had a simple solution. Stopped at a traffic light, he rolled down his window and called out to the driver beside him.

"Hey, do you know when the light parade starts?"

The stranger cheerfully provided the time, along with some advice about arriving early to get a good spot. Getz thanked him and rolled up his window. Christy was stunned.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Getz explained that he had simply asked someone a question. His wife couldn't believe he would approach a stranger that way.

"Baby, you're not in Dallas anymore," he told her.

He explained that in Las Cruces, people might shake hands the first few times they meet. By the fourth encounter, they'd better be ready for a hug. And by the fifth or sixth, they might find themselves invited home for supper.

It's the kind of community Getz remembers growing up in, the kind that helped shape him.

"Our community is full of love and compassion," he said. "And I really hope that we work to maintain that."

Getz has spent so much of his life helping people through difficult moments, and that willingness to reach out to someone else is what makes a community feel like home. Sometimes it means guiding a grieving family. Sometimes it means giving an employee a chance. And sometimes it's as simple as rolling down a car window and talking to a stranger.