Funeral Director Daily

A “Renaissance” in perceived value of services?

By Funeral Director Daily / July 5, 2023 /

      I receive the “Memorial Business Journal” from the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) every week and when I received it a couple of weeks ago I was excited to look at some of the findings from the 2023 NFDA Consumer Awareness and Preference Survey.   I looked at the results somewhat with…

Is there a more “American” business than the funeral business

By Funeral Director Daily / July 4, 2023 /

      Today is the 4th of July — the day that America celebrates its independence of becoming its own self-governing country.  For me it evokes thoughts of freedom, independence, ingenuity, self-governance, and patriotism.  It also brings out the thought process of working to improve one’s self. . . .building yourself up or inventing…

Nostalgia. . . or are you still using your “Pager”

By Funeral Director Daily / July 3, 2023 /

    In the day of almost universal cell phone use you might find this hard to believe but, the leading paging company in America says that they still have at least 800,000 pagers in use across the United States.  That’s down almost 90% since 2004 when the company reported 6.6 million pagers in use,…

Park Lawn Corporation makes offer to acquire Carriage Services

By Funeral Director Daily / June 30, 2023 /

      The world of Death Care has once again proved pretty small.  In what was supposed to be a confidential offer, Park Lawn Corporation has confirmed, according to this Yahoo Finance article, that they have recently made a buy-out proposal to Carriage Services.   And, Carriage Services, in this company press release, has…

Park Lawn acquires Georgia firm

By Funeral Director Daily / June 29, 2023 /

    “Park Lawn (Corporation) has further expanded its strategic growth in the southeast United States” according to a quote attributed to Park Lawn CEO J. Bradley Green in this press release from earlier this week.  The expansion Green it talking about is the acquisition of the Cobb Funeral Chapel and the Cobb Suncrest Memorial…

Selling a funeral home: What holds an owner back?

By Funeral Director Daily / June 28, 2023 /

      Back in mid-May Funeral Director Daily published this article entitled “Thinking of an ownership transition? Here’s some straight-forward advice on getting started”.  It was an article predicated on advice from the folks at accounting and business strategy experts Clifton Larson Allen (CLA).   We recently noticed another article from the people at…

Write obituaries with Artificial Intelligence from Legacy.com

By Funeral Director Daily / June 27, 2023 /

    For the last six months or so you would have had to be hiding in a cave not to hear all the hype in the business and technology world about “Artificial Intelligence” or “AI” as it is simply called.  Just the thought of what this powerful, intuitive, creation will be able to do…

Carriage Services: Carlos Quezada replaces Mel Payne as CEO

By Funeral Director Daily / June 26, 2023 /

      In this press release from last Thursday it was announced that some leadership position changes at publicly held funeral home and cemetery operator Carriage Services were underway.  First and foremost was the announcement that former company Chief Operating Officer and President Carlos Quezada was being promoted to the position of Chief Executive…

Service Corporation “bolts on” to Chattanooga market

By Funeral Director Daily / June 23, 2023 /

    In this article from earlier in June, the Chattanoogan.com announced that the Hamilton Funeral Home of Hixson, Tennessee, was acquired by a subsidiary of Service Corporation International (SCI).  It was also noted in the same article that Tom Wilson has been named the manager of the facility which was apparently purchased by SCI…

Will funeral homes become the venue for medically assisted death?

By Funeral Director Daily / June 22, 2023 /

      By my count, according to this website titled Compassion & Choices there are 10 states and the District of Columbia in the United States where Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) is legal.  It is also legal in the province of Quebec in Canada where they have, according to this article, grown in the…