The Hitzeman Family is excited to be sponsoring a night of music and ice cream in La Grange Park on Wednesday, June 27, 2012. We would like to invite you as well as your family and friends to attend this free concert, to come out and listen to the West Suburban Concert Band play patriotic as well as other thrilling songs. The concert series is put on by the Community Park District of La Grange Park and is held at the Memorial Park Amphitheater (off of La Grange Road) from 7:30 – 9:00. Come early because the first 500 people get free ice cream!! In the event of rain, the concert will be moved to Park Jr. High School, 333 N. Park Rd. (Rain hotline: 708-354-4580 x300). We hope you happen to be in the area so you can attend this always exhilarating event. Bring your chairs and blankets so you can sit with family and friends and enjoy the patriotic atmosphere and don’t forget the ice cream!
Hope to see you and your family and friends on Wednesday, June 27th for a night of music and fun under the stars!
Sincerely,
Todd, Sue and Chuck
West Suburban Concert Band
Family (Business) Portraits: Crain’s Chicago Business
Todd, Susan M. and Charles T. "Chuck" Hitzeman
Hitzeman Funeral Home, Brookfield
Author: Samantha Stainburn
Charles T. “Chuck” Hitzeman, 25, great-great-grandson of the 100-year-old company’s founder, joined the family business as a funeral director two years ago. He plans to take over when the current owner and president – his father, Todd Hitzeman, 49 – retires.
Nationally, only 10% of family businesses remain in the family for three generations. How did yours make it to the fifth generation?
Todd: In a lot of businesses, the first and second generation busted their butts to get the thing going. The third generation gets handed the business. The kids walk in, and all of a sudden, they’re vice-presidents. My father, me, my son – we had to start at the bottom of the barrel and work our way up. This way, when my son tells an employee to do something, even if the employee’s older than he is, he or she knows that Chuck has already done it himself.
How are you preparing for Chuck to take over as president in the future?
Todd: Any project we’re doing, I say, “Learn it the way I’m doing it now.” So many people want to show (others) that now that I’m president, I can do whatever I want to.
Chuck: Yes, I’d like to make it better, but no, I’m not going to walk in there and change it. Obviously, they were doing something right to make it 100 years.
Do TV shows about family-run funeral homes – HBO’s “Six Feet Under” and the A&E reality series “Family Plots” – depict your business accurately?
Chuck: It’s not how it happens. (In one episode of “Family Plots,”) they show all the girls who work at the funeral home at 8 or 9 o’clock at night getting changed to go out and party. We close at 11 o’clock at night. By the time we get home, our heads hit the pillows and we’re out in about five minutes.