In 1949, Harold Eglington and John Bradbury opened the Bradbury Burial Vault Co. in Runnemede NJ. Not long thereafter, they relocated the company to its present location, below the adjacent road grade, which was formerly a bus repair shop, and, prior to that, the quarry used in the construction of Route 42.
The two owners operated the vault company, servicing exclusively New Jersey Funeral Directors, from 1949 to 1963, at which point Lawrence Kenney, Sr. approached Eglington and Bradbury to purchase a 1/3 share of ownership with the confidence that he would double their business overnight. He stuck by his word, and, through his funeral director customers at Kenney Casket Co., the largest casket manufacturer in Philadelphia at the time, which his family owned, he did just that.
Within two years, Mr. Bradbury passed away and Mr. Eglington moved to Montana, leaving the company entirely to Larry Sr., who used those Philadelphia funeral director contacts to continue to grow the business. Between 1963 and 1984, the company’s production increased to 10 times the volume previously being manufactured.
In 1984 Lawrence Jr. joined the company. His preferred method of growth was buying up the competition which he did by purchasing three of the seven companies servicing the Philadelphia region and by 1998, Bradbury was operating four plants, now manufacturing 40 times the original volume at the Kenney Family’s entrance into the business, and expanding into the monument business – providing funeral directors with the ability to offer their families affordable alternatives for their marker, monuments, and engraving needs. Under Larry Jr.’s stewardship, together with his brother Billy managing the day-to-day production and employees, Bradbury quickly became the largest manufacturer of burial vaults in the tri-state area.
Over the years that followed, Lawrence Jr. made the decision to consolidate its four locations down to the one plant in Blackwood NJ, which provided better control and savings while still producing the same high quantity of burial vaults.
Lawrence Kenney, Sr. passed away on December 13, 2021, at the age of 101 and in September 2022, The Kenney Brothers sold the business to Nicholas DiValentino. Coming from the funeral director side of the business, Nick came into the company with years of experience and familiarity with Bradbury’s products and a vision to expand and diversify the company. Under his leadership, Nick has developed new products and services through a strategic partnership with Trigard, one of the nation’s leading burial vault supply companies, while still maintaining Bradbury’s superior quality products and customer service polices.
Since purchasing the business, alongside his cousin Christopher Liggio, Bradbury’s Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Nick has expanded Bradbury’s customer base to further solidify its position as the largest burial vault manufacturer in the tri-state area. Additionally, Nick’s acquisition of Intelligent Construction Concepts, Inc. has allowed Bradbury to diversify its precast concrete offerings by manufacturing more than just burial vaults. Through this acquisition, a new precast division was formed – Bradbury Quality Cast.
Quality Cast manufactures everything from light pole foundations, transformer pads, and transformer vaults to benches, parking bumpers, and more. Nick’s vision of diversification was a clear step forward to steer Bradbury into the current century.
The Kenney Family did a remarkable job instilling a company culture focused on quality, integrity, and customer service, a fundamental pillar of Bradbury’s core values that The DiValentino Family will continue to uphold for the customers that it serves long into the future.