by Robert E. Howard

If death and taxes are the only certainties in life, Vidal Herrera has one of the few businesses with a guaranteed, eternal customer base. Journalists who write about Herrera’s mobile autopsy service like to slip in little jokes because his business is connected with death. But Herrera, a former autopsy technician and investigator for the L.A. County Coroner’s office, is serious about turning his private autopsy company into a franchised business. Herrera’s company, Autopsy/Post Services, provides private autopsies for those who don’t want to do business with the Coroner’s office (which charges more and has a much longer turnaround time), or who for other reasons prefer to have a body handled by a private service rather than the government-run count operation. With a van especially for the job. Herrera will go virtually anywhere in Southern California where his services are required.

"Why not franchise this business?" he asks rhetorically. Hs is an operation that can easily be duplicated, and the demand is worldwide. Besides that, those who go into the autopsy business are likely to face less competition than franchisees in other industries because-human nature being what it is - most people would rather open a restaurant or a yogurt shop than a dead body. "We’re going to be offering somewhere between 52 and 72 franchises, hopefully, around the first of February, " Herrera says. What Herrera will be franchising is his unusual service: performing autopsies, obtaining organs and tissue samples, and providing related services to those who want private autopsies. For example, one facet of his business is obtaining organs and tissue samples for medical schools and research institutions. "We harvest anything from brains to temporal bones to the spinal cord, heart, lungs, kidney, pancreas, knee joints-anything from the human body. There is a large, large demand of research tissue for scientists," he points out. But the heart and soul of his business is the autopsy, which at one time was performed by nearly all hospitals in the United States. Demand for independent services like his is growing, Herrera explains, because hospitals are getting out of the autopsy business. He also does them for less than the Coroner’s office charges about $2,000 versus $2,500, and produces results in 10 days compared with 120 days for the Coroner.

Herrera himself doesn’t perform the autopsies, which legally are required to be done by a doctor. But he is trained as an autopsy technician to assist the nine doctors who work with him and his wife, along with two full time autopsy technicians, in the 7-year-old business. "Although the doctor actually does the autopsy, the technician does about 60 percent of the physical work of opening the body and dissecting and weighting the organs," he points out. One reason for franchising is that Herrera’s business alone can’t handle the demand. "Last year we turned away about 9,000 cases," he says. "We do 800 to 900 cases a year-and I’ve never had to advertise. I’m afraid I’d be swamped even worse if we did."

Herrera says the best candidates for one of his franchises would be certified pathology assistants, autopsy technicians, embalmers and doctors. He estimated he will spend $50,000 to get the franchises rolling, but he hasn’t determined yet how much of a royalty fee the franchises will be required to pay. "The death care industry is big business," he says - already and $8 billion a year industry that is expected to grow to $20 billion by year 2010. "It’s a recession proof business," Herrera points out, "And with all of the Baby Boomers getting older, we’re entering the Golden Era of Death."