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Interstate 10 West as a birthday gift for Dick's grandmother. During this same time, Lockehill Cemetery was acquired on the corner of Fredericksburg and Huebner Roads, which was once a stagecoach stop. The early 60s brought about more change in the funeral service industry in San Antonio when the first funeral home and cemetery was established at one convenient location at Mission Park South. Not surprisingly, it opened on June 25, 1965, Dick's parents' wedding anniversary. In 1978, Will and Fred Tips, responding to the demands of the north side, built a second funeral home on Cherry Ridge Drive at Interstate 10 and Loop 410. To continue a family tradition, the funeral home opened June 12, 1978, which is Dick's birth-day.
In 1984, at the age of 29, Dick pur-chased the compa-ny from his dad and uncle. At that time, there were two funeral homes and three cemeteries in the Tips family business. However, it wasn't long before Dick started to expand. He wasted no time in purchasing funeral operations throughout South Texas. A sharp downturn in the economy in the early '80s, coupled with the growing expenses of expansion led to financial challenges. The company needed more cash to keep growing.
To raise more capital, in 1990 Dick sold 49 percent of Mission Park to Service Corporation International (SCI). Tips retained control of the business, and with his new partnership, inaugurated plans to go national, and then international with his cemeteries' and funeral homes' unique emphasis on taking care of people in need. Dick soon learned that working with a public company as his partner was foreign to the operating style that Mission Park was founded on. Having learned a valuable life lesson, Dick turned to a friend, Steve Dufilho and his team at Compass Bank to help him buy back the SCI interest in Mission Park. With Compass Bank's financial backing, SCI's Chairman Robert Waltrip, agreed to sell back its interest, which returned Dick to 100 percent ownership of Mission Park. Dick and Waltrip remain close friends today.
After several years at the helm of Mission Park, Dick became
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aware that families were much better off addressing the dreaded day of funeral arrangements by making those hard decisions well in advance of a time when heartache and mourning clouded good judgment. To assist our community, he established MTM Life Insurance Company to fund pre-need funeral planning efforts, to ease the financial burden that comes with an unexpected death. MTM has been so successful that it acquired Transwestern Life Insurance Co. and a substantial interest in North America Life Insurance Co. as well as Atlantic Southern Insurance Co. in Puerto Rico. Together, these companies offer life insurance, funeral service cost coverage, mortgage loans, and funeral home financing to assist in-dependently own-ed funeral homes.
Helping people through this difficult time of life is the driving force behind Mission Park's growing areas of service. When a family has the foresight to make arrangements ahead of time, Dick's companies will offer a supplemental benefit free of charge, which covers children, grandchildren, and even great grandchildren. And Dick continues to emphasize the message that no one should burden their loved ones with the decisions and plans that should have been made in advance.
Buckner Fanning, former pastor of Trinity Baptist Church and founder of The Buckner Fanning Christian School, has been a Tips family friend "for as long as I can remember. I feel like I've always known him," says Fanning.
Having presided over more than 800 funeral services Fanning said he views Dick's work as a ministry. "You're really helping people through a difficult time and you never know what the circumstances may be," Fanning said. "There is a correlation to being a pastor because you never know, but you try to help people whatever the circumstances may be. You have to be flexible and understanding. He and his staff have always been just the epitome of compassion."
There have been speed bumps along the way for Dick in his personal life, however. In 2001, between Thanksgiving and
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