Funeral Director / Entrepreneur wins competition with funeral product

David Murphy is not only a funeral director but he is well on his way to becoming the owner of a successful manufacturing business.  Murphy, a funeral director at the Newark, New York, family firm, Paul L. Murphy & Son Funeral Home recently was awarded $40,000 as the First Place recipient of the Wayne County Economic Development Corporation’s KickStart competition.  He received that award over 15 other competitors.

Murphy’s invention, of which he is now manufacturing and selling is known as Load Alone and is a device that allows one person to load up to 500 pounds into a hearse or removal vehicle.  Murphy mentioned in this article from the Finger Lake Times that he began manufacturing in July with two devices and in November he competed 13 devices for sale.

They say, “Necessity is the mother of invention”.  And, that was the case with Murphy.  He was injured in a motorcycle accident six years ago and from that point on, according to the article, was unable to do his funeral director job without assistants hired to help him.  He credits the time he worked in the fishery industry in Alaska for also helping him on the design.  According to Murphy, it was on the back of fishing vessels that he had to use a winch to pull fish nets into place.  That thinking was part of his inspiration for Load Alone.

Again, according to the article, Murphy received a provisional patent in October.

Here is the web-site for Load Alone where you can watch a video demonstration on how the product works.

Here is a link to the Paul L. Murphy & Son Funeral Home web-site.

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1 Comment

  1. Jessica Farren on December 12, 2019 at 5:37 am

    We featured David and the Load Alone invention on a blog post we recently published about funeral directors inventors throughout history. Here’s a link to it for anyone who is interested: http://www.myasd.com/blog/6-things-you-didnt-know-were-invented-funeral-directors



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