My Biz: Niche business sells its lifts as far as the U.K., Guam

Name: Katie Hill

Title: President

Company: Mortuary Lift Co.

Address:  329 10th Ave. SE, Cedar Rapids

Phone: (319) 364-4910

Website: http://www.mortuarylift.com/

Elevator pitch: Building a lift for the mortuary business

CEDAR RAPIDS -- Katie Hill's company is small, but its reach is worldwide.

Hill is president of Mortuary Lift Co., a small manufacturing company that makes ceiling-mounted body lifts, operated on a customized track system, for funeral homes and mortuaries.

“People think this is super niche, but it's global,” Hill said. “We are in so many countries around the world - from Guam and Bermuda to Ireland and England.”

The company's 1,000-pound lift is one of the most popular in the industry. It moves caskets and can assist a funeral home employee in lifting and dressing the deceased.

“There is typically only one person doing this job, so our lifts give them extra sets of hands,” Hill explained.

Mortuary Lift is located on the second floor of the Cherry Building in the New Bo neighbor of Cedar Rapids.

Hill has been familiar with the funeral home industry her entire life as her parents owned funeral homes in Illinois when she was growing up.

She studied broadcast journalism at the University of Illinois and Columbia College. But after traveling through Europe after graduation, she returned to Illinois to the funeral home business.

“I was deeply in debt and thought I'd work for the family business for a little while to make some quick cash,” she recalled.

She soon realized she'd be of more value in the industry if she went back to school, so she enrolled in Worsham College of Mortuary Science. It was after graduating that Hill and her father came across a Chicago-based company that made boat hoists.

“They were looking to sell the business. My dad asked which one of his kids wants to do something like this, so I took the business,” she said.

“That was 25 years ago, and it has just snowballed to where it is today.”

Hill relocated the business to Cedar Rapids in 2008.

When Hill started the company, she handled every aspect of the business - “I was building the crates these things shipped in. I did it all.”

Today Mortuary Lift has four other employees, including a shop manager, a full-time sales rep and a person to handle installation and service.

Hill noted poor economic conditions have presented some challenges.

“A lot of people think the funeral business is recession proof, but funeral home directors don't want to invest in the equipment during those times,” she noted.

However, she continued, “Being a woman in a men's manufacturing world is really gratifying. It's nice to have that financial independence.”