Business
I’m writing this article on Tuesday morning ahead of President Trump’s address to Congress and at a time when certain investors seem to have lost some faith in the markets as the Dow Jones Industrial Average is currently down over 700 points on the day. The world can change between last Tuesday and…
Many of us have gotten accustomed to watching the television series “Yellowstone” in recent years. While that series takes place in Montana, a county in Wyoming that borders Idaho and Montana contains 40% of Yellowstone National Park’s total area. Teton County of Wyoming, also “had the highest average incomes per capita of any county in…
Earlier this week Funeral Director Daily learned from this press release from Batesville that “the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana awarded summary judgment in favor of Batesville Casket Company, LLC and Batesville Services, LLC and against Vandor Group, Inc., rejecting Vandor’s claims that Batesville’s cardboard rental insert, which the…
It’s hard to think of the rise of luxury funerals when we hear about all the low-cost cremation services and read articles such as this one titled “More Mainers are leaning on state help to pay for funerals, cremations” that was published earlier this month in the Sun Journal of Maine. Yet,…
Some time ago I served on a private company’s ad hoc board helping the owners navigate some upcoming issues. The business happened to consist of family-owned turkey farms and a turkey brokerage business. While it was a little bit out of my expertise I learned an immense amount, not only of the turkey…
As I’ve told you before, I read the book Megatrends early in the 1980’s. That book, written by John Naisbitt, enlightened me on how happenings of today’s world become trends and potentially “Megatrends” that can change society over time. It also enlightened me that sometimes we can be fooled — some things that…
It probably does not matter which side of the political spectrum that you straddle in anticipating that what is happening with the new Department of Government Efficienty (DOGE) will change some things as they are related to current government payment systems. Whether you are for or against the effort by DOGE it does…
It’s pretty well documented that mortuary or embalmer education began in the late 19th Century with the advent of the practice of embalming. Most of that early education for the profession was no more than a course in the practices of embalming. Almost a century later when I went to mortuary school…
According to this January article that I recently read from the Carroll Times Herald of Manning, Iowa, the Ohde Funeral Home of that community has recently came into new ownership. The newspaper article made note of the fact that the funeral home “recently began a new chapter of compassionate care and trusted service…
There are lots of ideas how a new, contemporary, 21st Century physical funeral establishment should look like and function. I don’t think anybody knows exactly what that is, or even if there is a one-size fits all best practices solution to the question. However, it is probably a fair assumption that like…
