Tampa / Florida / United States
Brewer & Sons History and Staff: After the death of Mrs. Gracy Garnett & Charles "Pat" Brewer established Brewer & Son Funeral Homes in 1965 in Brooksville, Florida. The Garnett Funeral Home, at that time, was the only funeral establishment in Brooksville. Pat saw an opportunity to go into business for himself and, thus, did so. In the beginning, he ran the funeral home, ambulance service, and did his community service while competing against one other funeral establishment. Eventually, both funeral homes would turn the ambulance service over to the county. In 1974, Pat saw an opportunity to expand his funeral business to the underdeveloped west side of the county called Spring Hill. This proved to be an extremely successful move, as Spring Hill now encompasses over 80% of the countys population. In 1980, Pat purchased Grace Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Pasco County, later selling his interest to his partners in order to concentrate his energy on the growth of Brewer Funeral Homes. All of this occurred successfully while raising a family, leading several civic organizations, being a trustee at his church, and running three political campaigns. In 1984, Pats son, Barry K. Brewer, joined the family firm. After several years of self-employment in the construction industry, Barry had completed studies in Mortuary Science at Miami-Dade and Business Administration at Pasco-Hernando Community College and University of South Florida. While in Miami attending Mortuary school, he worked to perfect his skills in funeral service and became very proficient in the marketing of prearrangements. After returning to the family firm, he used those skills to begin marketing pre-arrangements in Hernando County. At the time, no other funeral home had become aggressive in the market place, and essentially there was a whole new market to tap into. Through the next few years, Barry worked diligently and developed a self-supporting prearrangement department. In 1987, Barry took over the management of the Spring Hill location on Commercial Way. Shortly after Barry began managing the Spring Hill location, Pat and Barry developed a five to ten year business plan, which included the addition of two new funeral home locations and a plan for the growth of the Eastern portion of the county during the first five years; the ten-year plan included the acquisition of several established firms. In 1992, they completed the Seven Hills Chapel and in 1994 remodeled an 11,000-sq. ft. bank building into their fourth location and one crematory. Shortly thereafter, they began making offers on several local funeral establishments. Although many appreciated the offers, they were not ready to sell. So in 1995, the Brewer Funeral Homes and Crematory was merged with Equity Corp. international (ECI) to further achieve their ten-year plan. Pat chose to take a less active role in the day-to-day activities, but joined the corporate development team of ECI. Barry.
