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Now managed by the fourth generation of the Thomas family, Columbia Gardens Cemetery is located near Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Virginia.

Having been in operation for over 400 seasons [over 100 years], the cemetery offers a range of above and below ground burial and cremation options, serving the needs of families of all denominations, faiths, and nationalities.

We had the pleasure of speaking with President Daun Thomas Frankland, who, in bringing a new perspective to the business, opted to implement PlotBox as a way of helping to move the business forward and securing their legacy for future generations.

Daun, thank you so much for joining us today. The cemetery has quite a storied family history - can you tell us a bit about that?

My great grandfather started the cemetery in 1917 because he thought that Arlington National would be full because of the ‘horrible bloodiness’ of World War One.

When my brother retired in 2015, I took over as president of Columbia Gardens.  I found out about PlotBox in 2017 at an ICCFA conference in New Orleans, where I met everyone from PlotBox. I was immediately taken with it. We had no digital record keeping at the time and still had our old maps. Every time a site was sold, a red pencil was used to mark that on the map.

I knew it was important to move to digital mapping. The only other people I met at that time in the industry were kind of ‘mom and pop’, and quite frankly, at the time PlotBox was ‘mom and pop’ too. But it was special -- much more advanced -- and I could visualize its potential.

You provide a wide range of features and services - can you talk us through some of them?

Our Memorial Rose Garden was started at our 50th anniversary by my grandfather, a retired judge who was quite fond of growing roses. I have a memory as a child of his winning ribbons, and putting the winning roses out in little vases tacked to a table at the end of his driveway.

He was very proud of his roses. This tradition of growing roses here continues today, with the rose garden now numbering more than 250 bushes. It's a very popular feature.

As an example, we have a group of young people who work here in the summer to learn about landscaping and gardening. This summer we have 27 members of our “Dew Crew”. They're extraordinary. 

One year, one of the Dew Crew members was taking photographs of the roses and sending them to a friend who was suffering from brain cancer at the age of 19. After her friend passed, this young woman came to me and asked, “What can we do?” I said, “Whatever you want, I'll be happy to support you.”

So we came up with the idea of planting and dedicating a rose in the rose garden, in memory or in honor of their loved one, followed by a ceremony. The rose has a placard with the loved one’s name and a QR code that links to a tribute of their life.

The first rose dedication ceremony was for our Dew Crew member’s friend. It was during Covid and quite emotional for all of us. 

What a beautiful way to memorialize someone. Please tell us about some of the other services you provide.

We’re strictly a cemetery, so far, but we do have the ability now to hold services. We have a venue for receptions, called the 3411 Event Center. Today, in planning a funeral, more people want to have a repast of some kind after the graveside service.  

We also have a cremation garden and privately owned mausoleums. Recently, we have begun offering green burial, a more natural burial alternative. 

We're just adding a new road to our cemetery to open up our last five acres of burial space. It’s a very exciting time here. 

What does PlotBox now enable you to do, compared to your previous systems?

PlotBox enables us to look up a grave immediately. We don't have to rely on our paper records any longer to look up those locations.

PlotBox is loaded on our iPads now. When we're selling, we can take the ipad out on the grounds with the client, and not have to worry about cumbersome notebooks or paper to find out what grave sites are available for sale.

So pre-PlotBox, it was very much paper-based?

Yes, we still keep paper records because that's very important, but the idea of anything happening to [them], where would we be?

So this is our primary way [of preserving records] now.

For the likes of queries on plots etc. are you finding that easier now?

Oh, definitely, much easier. I mean, it’s extraordinary the difference and time savings.

We also have different categories that folks in the office are working on. We now have our veteran records because we participate in Wreaths Race Across America. We’re able to keep track of our veterans’ graves and do research on each veteran.

Let's go back a little bit. Why did you initially decide to go digital?

I knew that it was the future. Sometimes cemeteries have a difficult time. People in the cemetery industry, I think, have a hard time moving forward. They're used to using the standard practices, and I knew that in order to succeed we would have to have digital records.

That was quite forward thinking of you…

I came into this not knowing a great deal [about the deathcare profession]. I grew up on the property, but I really had not run the cemetery before.

But, I do have a lot of experience working in other areas and that gave me the idea about the importance of digitizing our records.

What needs did a cemetery solution need to fulfill for you? What were you looking for?

Something that was moving [forward] and open to adding to the system. I got the feeling that the folks at PlotBox were always looking (and still continue to look) for new ideas and new ways to implement and improve the system.

That’s really important to me. I talked to other groups, but I didn’t think they were forward thinking.

Has PlotBox helped you to streamline your processes?

Oh, definitely, there's no doubt about it. It's a huge time saver for us, and on various fronts - for producing work orders, maintenance work orders, burial orders. It makes everything more efficient. When a grave is sold, dug or used, all of that is done through PlotBox. 

And has it helped in terms of dealing with queries from families?

Yes, if a client walks into the office [and asks about] a location, we can immediately pull it up and show them the headstone. If someone hasn't been here in a while, it’s particularly lovely for them to be able to see that. 

If someone walks into the office and we have the time, we like to take them out to the site personally. Or, we can give them a map through PlotBox to show them the location.

Has PlotBox therefore helped to enhance that type of service to families?

It’s very interesting, and it's not just our younger clients. Some of our older clients are impressed by it as well. Before, they were kind of making fun a little bit, saying, “When are you all going to become a little bit more efficient and digitizing.”

So I was kind of surprised. But it's very positive on all levels and age groups. 

And have you and your team found it easy to use?

Oh, yes, very easy. We just have to find more time to do data entry. We've worked with our Customer Success Manager (CSM), and she's great. She has made some suggestions that make it less overwhelming for entering information.

Some of the people in our office wanted to do some training to see how they could start using it more efficiently and find out more about what was available.

And did you find that process with your Customer Success Manager useful?

Yes, absolutely. She was extremely helpful in making us more efficient.

Were there any other positive outcomes from that process?

We found a lot of property that we didn't know existed. That was very positive!

PlotBox just gives us a feeling of what is available. It was extraordinary to find 10, sometimes 12 sites in a heritage section of the cemetery…it’s amazing.

And does that open those sites up for sale?

Absolutely!

Without a solution like PlotBox, that might have been more difficult, or impossible to find?

It would not have come up if it wasn't for PlotBox, not at all. You walk around the same area of the cemetery year after year, and until you see it plotted out digitally, you just think it's already used, or you don't know what's available.

Back when it was one of our oldest sections, when it was being planned out, it had graves of different widths and things like that. Over the years, things change, and PlotBox helps us to make it easier and more standardized. 

More broadly, what’s the support from PlotBox been like?

We don't hesitate to call you all at any time! It's wonderful -- you are always there for us.

Are you looking at implementing any more aspects of PlotBox over time?

Yes, I usually just go to the staff and ask, “What do you think we could add to make this a more well-rounded program for us?”.

Every cemetery is different, everyone has a different perspective, and I think the staff have a great sense of what's available and the possibilities of what PlotBox provides.

It's always changing, which makes it very exciting.

With such a family history, it must be a legacy that you want to be preserving for the future.

Yes, it's really important. With the next generation coming through, we'll be much more focused on digitizing and using advanced systems like that.

And just finally, would you recommend PlotBox to other cemetery operators?

Oh, we do all the time. If people call us, we only recommend PlotBox, of course.

I can't say enough positive things about it, really. It's wonderful. It’s one of the many things that revitalized our company and gave us hope for the future.

Is digital transformation on your agenda? Talk to the team today and discover what we can do together.