Business
A high number of Baby Boomers in ownership roles, the un-planned last two years of Covid-related operations, the thought of an increase in capital gains taxes. . . . . .those are all valid reasons that have many owners of funeral homes thinking of getting out of the ownership realm.. At the beginning of 2021…
Time has a way of changing one’s perspective. I’ve told you before that I started in this business as a funeral director in 1980. I was paid $1,000 per month and our funeral home conducted virtually 100% of our funerals in the traditional “casket, funeral, vault, burial” method. I remember that the final billings, including…
Last week Canadian funeral home operator Arbor Memorial announced in this press release a partnership with Domanicare that will help selected Arbor Memorial locations in the delivery of their aftercare programs. Here’s what Rondev Bhattacharya, Vice President of Sales at Arbor Memorial said of the agreement, ““The needs and expectations of Canadians are changing, as…
The Cremation Association of North America (CANA) showed statistics that cremation dispositions in the United States accounted for about 56% of all human dispositions in 2020. I’m guessing that percentage will grow slightly for 2021 as it has every year for the past 40 or so years. CANA’s futuristic looking statistics, which have been pretty…
So, today’s article is a little different. It’s not necessarily about death care or the funeral business. You see, last week I had a birthday. . . and having that birthday gave me time for reflection. I’ve been able to reflect on my life in the funeral business. . . . from entering college to…
This has got to be a common problem as America gets more and more transient in regards to moving to different locations and moving away from home. Last week I had heard that “John”, a neighbor at our lake cabin, had passed away at his home in suburban Minneapolis/St. Paul. I wanted to find out…
Just yesterday Funeral Director Daily brought you an article that showed, through the reports of public companies, that consumer based funeral homes and cemeteries seem to be doing really well financially over the past two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. For the most part, and their are exceptions, the 12-15% increase in American deaths has…
I’m a baseball fan. . . have been since I served as Batboy for the local town team when I was about eight years old. I was fortunate enough to get to see my Minnesota Twins baseball team win the 7th game of the 1987 World Series in Minneapolis. So, it won’t surprise you that…
I graduated from mortuary school in 1980. It seems to me that life was a little easier back then, traditions were pretty normalized, and funeral services consisted of a pretty “run of the mill” body preparation-visitation-funeral service-burial logistic sequence. Of course, prior to that service sequence a funeral director had to also meet with the…
You can’t get away from it anywhere. There is a lot of talk on the national political stages about “Green Energy” and the environmental movement. In the death care world we have been hearing that recomposition (the art of human composting) and alkaline hydrolysis (known by some as “cremation by water”) are going to be…
