Nancy Burban talks with Joel Collins, a funeral director and founder and president of Eco Green Cremation Systems Inc. They discuss green cremation, also known as Alkaline Hydrolysis, and its impact on reducing the carbon footprint of crematoriums, as well as reducing costs for funeral directors and families.

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Episode: 019
Guest: Joel Collins
Date: 11/23/2011

Contact:
Email
Eco Green Cremation Systems
Headquarters – 239-278-1661

Show Notes:
Mayo Clinic and Alkaline Hydrolysis
Cornell University and Alkaline Hydrolysis

Nancy Burban talks with Robert Sarnie, a biologist, CEO of Living Reef Memorial and head of the Sea Turtle Rescue Organization. They discuss how burial reefs aid the improvement of marine life populations and help sustain ecosystems.

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Episode: 018
Guest: Robert Sarnie
Date: 10/20/2011

Contact:
Email
Facebook

Show Notes:
Living Reef Memorial
Sea Turtle Rescue

Robert Sarnie Transcript

Nancy Burban and Duane E. Hall discuss how funeral homes can improve service with the use of removal and transport services. Duane speaks of the benefits and savings these companies offer funeral directors, such as vehicle maintenance, gas costs and time allocation. Duane graduated from the Commonwealth Institute in Houston, has been a funeral director for twenty five years and now operates Park Area Mortuary Transport in Huntsville, Texas.

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Episode: 017
Guest: Duane E. Hall
Date: 09/08/2011

Contact:
Email
Park Area Mortuary Transport Email

Show Notes:
Park Area Mortuary Transport Facebook
Park Area Mortuary Transport
Commonwealth Institute

Duane E. Hall Interview Transcript

Nancy Burban and Cody Anderson discuss getting started in mortuary science, working in a funeral home and up-and-coming changes in the profession as a whole. Anderson is a recent graduate of Piedmont Technological College in Greenwood SC, with an apprenticeship at Hatchers Funeral Home in Langley.

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Episode: 016
Guest: Cody Anderson
Date: 08/31/2011

Contact Cody Anderson:
Email

Show Notes:

Hatchers Funeral Home

Cody Anderson Interview Transcript
Funeral Directors Chat Home

Raymond Aikens and Nancy Burban discuss changes in funeral services and African American funeral professionals. Raymond is an adjunct professor of mortuary science at Malcolm X College in Chicago, is a second generation funeral director and has been a professional investment banker. They also talk about hospice, investing in your facilities and continually educating yourself and your staff.

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Episode: 015
Guest: Raymond Aikens
Date: 07/13/11

Contact Raymond Aikens:
Raymond on Facebook

Show Notes:

Funeral Statistics and Facts
Beacham McDougald
Pub to open in funeral home
A.A. Rayner Funeral Home
Keening

Interview Excerpt:

Nancy Burban:  Also, I think, a lot of people are not carrying life insurance as a priority as they did years ago. Because if you’re unemployed, you have to cut back on your expenses.

Raymond Aikens:  Yeah, and not only that, we’re finding a higher incidents of loans outstanding on life insurance policies. I’m sure, again, that’s just a reflection of a level of economic stress that’s out there. A person comes in; they’ve got an insurance policy. You call to verify the status of the beneficiary and you also discover at the same time that there’s a loan outstanding. There’s not as much available relative to the face value.

Raymond Aikens Interview Transcript
Funeral Directors Chat Home

Nancy Burban talks with Kenneth Varner, President of Cypress Lawn Cemetery and President of the ICCFA. They discuss funeral legislation, the ICCFA University and strategies behind pre-planning (what Ken likes to call estate planning). Ken also talks about the continuous improvement of our services in the funeral profession.

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Episode: 014
Guest: Kenneth Varner
Date: 06/27/11

Contact Ken Varner:
Cypress Lawn Cemetery
ICCFA
Email
Facebook

Show Notes:

ICCFA University
H.R.900 – Bereaved Consumer’s Bill of Rights Act of 2011
Senate Bill No. 658
National Funeral Directors Association
Cremation Association of North America
Arizona Funeral, Cemetery and Cremation Assoc.
Cypress Lawn Cremation Society
Todd Van Beck

Interview Excerpt:

Look at Cypress Lawn. We have the Cemetery Association. We have our funeral homes. We also have the Cypress Lawn Cremation Association; that’s a licensed funeral establishment that we have. And then our new group of funeral homes that we purchased, there was also an off-brand cremation provider; it’s called All County Cremation Services. Cypress Lawn is a little bit of everything.

Nancy: It certainly sounds like it.

Kenneth: Of course, here at Cypress Lawn, we have the internal obligation of maintaining 200 acres of property, which is very, very expensive. And so we’ve had to expand our services to expand our revenue, to ensure that we can continue to fulfill on the promises that we’ve made to our families.

Ken Varner Interview Transcript
Funeral Directors Chat Home

Nancy Burban talks with Ruthann Brown Disotell about performing funeral ceremonies and leaving an impact on friends and family. Ruthann is a second generation funeral director, ordained minister and funeral celebrant. She has helped design and build a funeral home, assisted in two funeral home start-ups, is a speaker at funeral groups and an active member of her community in Hunterdon County, New Jersey.

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Episode: 013
Guest: Ruthann Brown Disotell
Date: 05/24/11

Contact Ruthann Brown Disotell:
Celebration of a Lifetime
On Facebook

Show Notes:

American Academy McAllister Institute of Funeral Service
Dallas Institute of Mortuary Science

Interview Excerpt:

Ruth Ann: There are a lot of different celebrant trainings that are popping up all over the country. I can’t speak to the value of each of them, because I haven’t been to all of them. But I think it’s important to understand that when you hire a celebrant, it should be somebody who has background in grief. There are a lot of people that go and do celebrant work because they want to do a good thing. That’s nice and people should do a good thing. But to go from being an event planner to being a celebrant is a jump. I think there’s a lot to be said for having education in psychology on some level and grief in particular. Because you’re dealing with people that are going through a very traumatic time. And a funeral home does not want to take their family and turn them over to just anyone. I would caution people, when selecting a celebrant, to keep that in mind. That you really want somebody who has a background in understanding how to deal with a grieving family.

There are a lot of funeral homes who are having people trained to be an in house celebrant. That’s a wonderful thing. To have somebody that is from your staff is perfect. Because they’ve been in the funeral home, they’ve seen the situations, they’ve come to understand what a grieving person is. To give them a little extra training is not a bad thing.

Ruthann Disotell Interview Transcript
Funeral Directors Chat Home

More Funeral Celebrants Podcasts
Glenda Stansbury
Dennis McGee

Nancy Burban talks with Kim Stacey about gender biases and women in the funeral industry. She is a licensed California funeral director, anthropologist and freelance writer. She has a strong following on Facebook and LinkedIn and in 2009 she founded the Association of Women Funeral Professionals.

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Episode: 012
Guest: Kim Stacey
Date: 04/27/11

Contact Kim Stacey:
Facebook
Cremation Safeguard Group

Show Notes:

Association of Women Funeral Professionals
LinkedIn Group AWFP
Joan Billman of Fleming Billman
A Special Touch Funeral Service
Lohman Funeral Homes

Interview Excerpt:

Kim: This is the model that Sharon Mace uses for A Special Touch Funeral Service in Dublin. I wrote a column on her for Mortuary Management this month, and she’s got a phenomenally successful small business. And she’s the woman in charge.

And that allows her to do something different than working for a male employer, which she has done. And she chose to do things differently.
So that may be an option for Rhode Island and New York; I’m not sure.

Nancy: Now you said she outsources, so that she would be …

Kim: That’s right. She outsources everything. Her crematory is in San Leandro; her embalmer is in San Jose. She operates her business out of a tech center in Dublin. It’s a little tiny firm, probably the size of your living room. Sharon’s firm is, I would say, about the size of my office. It’s very small, very homey. You can see pictures of her facility online at her website, aspecialtouchfuneralservice.com, if you’re interested in looking. But it’s small. It has not got a visitation room. It has not got a prep room.
She outsources her cremations and her embalming. It’s all done off site, and it’s working.
Nancy: And how does she attract clients?

Kim: She’s got a very strong networking and educational program going on. She does a lot of senior fairs. She also is part of Rotary. She does a lot of things with the Rotary. It’s all word of mouth primarily. She’s got a high rate of client satisfaction.

Kim Stacey Interview Transcript
Funeral Directors Chat Home
Women in the Death Care Industry with Monica Vernette Gray

Nancy Burban talks with Robin Heppell, a fellow podcaster, funeral consultant and funeral director. Robin and Nancy talk about changes in the funeral industry as it relates to technology and also the changing public attitudes toward funeral homes. Robin gives excellent insight to providing families with flexible service and maintaining relationships.

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Episode: 011
Guest: Robin Heppell
Date: 03/11/11

Contact Robin Heppell:
Funeral Futurist Tips
Funeral Director CEUs
Facebook

Show Notes:

Bob Biggins in Massachusetts
John Beckwith
McCall’s of Victoria
Video Tributes

Interview Excerpt:

Nancy: Right. And even Zappos, where they offer, if you’re not happy working for Zappos, please let us know, we’ll give you $2,000 to resign. Because they never want to have an unhappy employee because when you have an unhappy employee that permeates into your workforce and it touches every aspect of your business.

Robin: Yeah. I’m sure some funeral home owners, “Oh, I’d never be able to do that.” But, if you could build the all star team, it’s going to more than pay for itself. And people who aren’t happy, if you could get rid of those people, because when you’re not looking, they’re dealing with families. If they’re having bad days, that doesn’t go away when they’re talking to a family.

Nancy: And we know from our own experience, the Bob Biggins in Massachusetts, and John Beckwith, I think it’s in Fort Worth, Texas. They have four funeral homes. And they have more cases than they can handle because everything is by referral. And they do such an excellent job at funeral services that they get more calls than they can possibly even handle. And when you see people building more funeral homes in their county, it has to be because they are providing such excellent service that people are coming to them through word of mouth.

Robin Heppell Interview Transcript
Funeral Directors Chat Home

Nancy Burban talks with cemetery photographer John Thomas Grant. They discuss the beauty of cemetery monuments in the eastern states and why John Grant began to photograph cemeteries.

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Episode: 010
Guest: John Thomas Grant
Date: 02/15/11

Contact John Thomas Grant:
Facebook
John Thomas Grant

Show Notes:

Passion Projects
Douglas Keister
Green-Wood Cemetery

Interview Excerpt:

Nancy Burban:  Well John, do you have any favorite cemeteries?

John Thomas Grant:  Of course. I lived for 20 years or there about in Brooklyn. You can’t get any better than Green-Wood. That’s my home away from home. I don’t know how many times I’ve been to that place. Some of my finest pictures come out of there. As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t start terribly long ago so, I have not traveled that far in pursuit of the pictures. It’s still life and I’m still trying to get my photography to a point where it could be a form of subsistence, if you will.

John Thomas Grant Interview Transcript
Funeral Directors Chat Home

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