Alternate Arrangement

Bob MacKinnon, Owner and President of A Alternate Arrangement for Cremation, has very strong professional affiliations. He has more than 40 years experience in funeral service. From 1961 - 1963 he apprenticed with Turner and Porter Funeral Home in Toronto and from 1963 to 1966 he worked as a funeral director with Hulse & Playfair Funeral Home in Ot... tawa. There he learned the protocol for high profile funerals and obtained much valued experience and information. From 1966 - 1983, Bob was the Founder and President of a firm which operates out of Toronto under the name "MacKinnon and Bowes". During his 17 years at MacKinnon & Bowes, Bob developed a working relationship with funeral directors all across Canada, providing him with an association of trustworthy forward-thinking funeral directors who are committed to consumers' needs. This unique blend has shifted the focus back to service and value and the network synergism provides us with a daily advancement of service standards and experience resources to draw on. Bob's innovation and forward thinking led him to open and manage The Simple Alternative (for Toronto Trust Cemeteries) and later Basic Funeral Alternatives (for Humphrey Funeral Home). From 1983 to 1985 Bob was the Managing Director of the Humphrey Funeral Home - A.W. Miles Chapel in Toronto. In 1985 Toronto Trust Cemeteries hired him as the Director of Funeral Service. In 1992 Bob returned to the Humphrey Funeral Home as the Director of Preplanning and Founder and Managing Director of Basic Funeral Alternatives. Bob's wife, Margaret also worked at The Humphrey Funeral Home for a period of five years as Secretary to the President. In October of 1999, Bob and Margaret moved to Acton, Ontario, where they purchased the MacKinnon Family Funeral Home, and they also founded "A Alternate Arrangement for Cremation" operating first out of Toronto and then gradually added Hamilton and Burlington and surrounding areas. Together, Margaret and Bob have a wealth of knowledge of the funeral industry and a commitment ...Read More