ICCFA Magazine August/September 2016

August-September 2016
MAGAZINE
CEMETERY
CREMATION
FUNERAL
The ICCFAs annual visit to Capitol Hill and update on legal & legislative issues Preparing
for changes in overtime rules Poul Lemasters on trends in legislation Protecting yourself against
liability claims Isard on improving cemetery cash flow Van Beck on being a balanced professional
Insurance assignments Leadership Program for ICCFA Fall Management Conference, October 5-7
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2016
International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association
Promoting consumer choices, prearrangement and open competition
Providing exceptional education, networking and legislative guidance and support
to progressive cemetery, funeral and cremation professionals worldwide
12 LEGAL
The ICCFA made its annual trip to

Capitol Hill to visit with members of
Congress and, this year, Federal Trade
Commission staff members. Top, talking
to FTC staff, from left, ICCFA General
Counsel and Executive Director Bob
Fells, Esq.; ICCFA Cremation Counsel
Poul Lemasters, Esq.; CANA Executive
Director Barbara Kemmel, who joined
ICCFA representatives for part of their
annual Capitol Hill visits; ICCFA Board
Members Ed Horn, CCE, and Caressa
Hughes; ICCFA members Tom Daly,
CCE; Jim Price, CCFE, CCrE, and
Steve Schacht, CCFE; and ICCFA Vice
Presidents Paul Goldstein and Christine
Toson Hentges, CCE. Bottom left, Hentges, Horn and Hughes with Sen. Charles
Grassley, R-IA. Bottom right, Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-FL, next to his mini-fridge
full of Florida orange juice.
8 Presidents Letter
Whos your resource?
by Mike Uselton, CCFE
10 Washington Report
Why you should vote
by Robert M. Fells, Esq.
50 Update
58 Supply Line
64 New Members
66 Calendar
66 Classifieds
66 Ad Index
f
4
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ICCFA Magazine
Trends in state and federal death-care regulation

Staying on top of regulatory and legislative trends is increasingly
important as the death-care profession faces more and more
challenges. A regulation or law that seems like it would benefit
your business today might stifle it tomorrow.
by Poul Lemasters, Esq.
16 LEGAL & LEGISL ATIVE UPDATE
Protectionist laws on the rise; Funeral Rule review coming up

ICCFA Government and Legal Affairs Committee Chairman Irwin
Shipper talks about what has been and what might be happening in
the legal, legislative and regulatory arena that could affect cemeteries,
funeral homes and crematories.
interview of Irwin W. Shipper, Esq., CCE
30 HUMAN RESOURCES
Big changes in overtime rules are on the way

The overtime rules are going to change on December 1. You need to
figure out how that will affect your funeral home or cemetery operation and what your options are.
by Michael Pepperman, Esq., and Ivo Becica, Esq.
32 MANAGEMENT
Cemetery Impossible: What can you do when your cemeterys

sales are good but its cash flow is not? It might seem that steady
sales should bring in a steady income, but its not that simple when
you run a cemetery. It all depends on how you collect payment and
whether you control costs.
by Daniel M. Isard, MSFS
Cemeteries Crematories Funeral homes suppliers pet loss proFessionals
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ICCFA news
61 ICCFA Fall Management Conference
Competitive advantage, talent

management & customer engagement,
October 5-7
61 Thank you Fall Management Conference corporate partners
63 PLPA College:
School is in session in Chicago,
August 25-28
ICCFA calendar
go to www.iccfa.com
for program, registration & scholarship info
Cremation Training
August 24-25 (arranger &

operator) Gupton-Jones
College of Funeral Service,
Decatur, Georgia
ICCFA Cremation Program
Coordinator Poul Lemasters, Esq.
2016 Fall
Management
Conference
October 5-7 Kiawah

Island Golf Resort,
Kiawah Island, South Carolina
Conference Chairs: Gwen Mooney,
CCFE, and Wanda Sizemore
2017 Wide World of Sales
Conference
January 11-14 Hyatt Regency,

Phoenix, Arizona
2017 Annual
Convention
& Exposition
April 5-8
Renaissance
Nashville & the Omni Nashville
Conference Chairs: Mitch Rose, CCFE,
and Nectar L. Ramirez
2017 ICCFA University
July 20-26 Fogelman Conference Center, Memphis, Tennessee Chancellor:Jeff Kidwiler,

CCE, CSE
n to apply for iCCFa membership:
Download an application at www.iccfa.com
or
Call 1.800.645.7700
ICCFA Magazine
36 MANAGEMENT/LEGAL
Protecting yourself against professional liability lawsuits

We live in a litigious society where anyone can file a lawsuit.
There are steps you can take to decrease your chances of being
sued over what happens at the funeral home or cemetery.
by Jeffrey J. Chomko, Esq., and Allison Beatty, Esq.
40 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The keys to service: The sensitive balancing act

Which is worse: the funeral director or cemeterian who talks too little
or the one who talks too much? In truth, both are bad for the profession
and bad for families. The key to find the right balance.
by Todd W. Van Beck, CFuE
46 FINANCES
Funeral and cemetery insurance assignments 101

Accepting an insurance assignment might seem to be an easy and
safe way to ensure youll be paid for the funeral or cemetery services
you provide, but its not always so straightforward. You need to
know the potential pitfalls and common roadblocks you can face
when dealing with this funding alternative.
by Daryl Wallace
48 ESSAY
Who packs your parachutes? Are you someone who thinks you get
the job done with no help from anyone else? Think again.
by Rich Sells, CCE
www.iccfa.com
ICCFA Magazine
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can read the magazine online
Web Expo directory of suppliers and

professionals
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Presidents Letter
by ICCFA
2016-2017
President Michael
Uselton, CCFE
muselton
@kays-ponger.com
uselton is a managing partner of Gibraltar
remembrance services,
palmetto, Florida.
to support useltons goal

of raising $100,000 to help
fight lung cancer, todays #1
killer of women, go to http://
action.lung.org/goto/Iccfa
Whos your resource?
s I am writing this Presidents Letter,

our funeral homes are preparing for a
candlelight memorial for the victims of the
Orlando tragedy. I realize that you are reading this
a couple of months after the fact, but the message
does not change. Whether it is a senseless act such
as the Orlando massacre, a deadly accident or any
significant loss within your community, you have to
ask yourself: to whom does the community turn for
direction and support? Who is the resource?
You would like to say the answer is that you and
your company are the local resource for support,
direction and healing when there is a loss in your
community. But is that truly the case? We all have to
look deep within ourselves to answer truthfully.
You see, it all begins with relationships.
Everything in life involves relationships. Do you
have strong relationships with local public servants,
community leaders and organizations? Do you make
sure you dont wait for times of tragedy to reach
out and offer your services (which, quite frankly,
can be borderline at-need soliciting and negatively
perceived). You want community leaders to turn to
your organization because it has established top-ofmind awareness with them. That does not happen
overnight; it takes long-term relationship-building
for you to become the go-to resource in your
community.
During the Orlando tragedy, there were many
resources within our profession called upon to
act. From our state FEMORS (Florida Emergency
Mortuary Operations Response System) being
immediately onsite, to the attorney generals
office Bureau of Victims Assistance, to funeral
professionals who helped one another and donated
services, time, resources and equipment. The
resources were called on and they responded.
When its a matter not of action to address
an immediate need but of education about our
ICCFA officers
Magazine staff
Susan Loving, managing editor

sloving@iccfa.com; slovingiccfa@yahoo.com
ICCFA Magazine
The ICCFA is your resource
No association can compare to the core member

benefits the ICCFA provides members. The ICCFA is
your total resource for education within the cemetery,
cremation, funeral and pet loss profession.
The Fall Management Conference this year is
being held October 5-7 at the Kiawah Island Golf
Resort in Kiawah Island, South Carolina. Co-Chairs
Gwen Mooney, CCFE, and Wanda Sizemore have
assembled an excellent program where youll be
able to add tools to your toolbox that will help you
become or remain the resource within your market.
Dont miss this opportunity to network and learn
from the experts.
Lung Force donations
Once again, on a personal note, a special thank-you

to those who have donated to the Lung Force pledge.
Our goal during my presidency is $100,000 toward
defeating the #1 killer of women. Your commitment
and donations are making a difference. Please donate
today at http://action.lung.org/goto/Iccfa.
r
VOLUME 76/NUMBER 7
Michael Uselton, CCFE, president
Scott R. Sells, CCFE, president-electt

Jay D. Dodds, CFSP, vice president
Gary M. Freytag, CCFE, vice president
Paul Goldstein, vice president
Christine Toson Hentges, CCE,
vice president
Richard O. Baldwin Jr. CCE, treasurer
Robbie L. Pape, secretary
Robert M. Fells, Esq., executive director &
general counsel
profession, to whom does your community turn?

Whether it is the local hospice training new social
workers, the death and dying course at a local school,
continuing education for local public servants or
referrals for networking, to whom are they turning?
You see, you dont just become a resource by
advertising or by telling someone you areyou
earn it through good, ole-fashioned relationshipbuilding. You dont have to do it alone. You have
cemetery staff, funeral attendants, sales advisors,
administrative staffall of whom have relationships
within your community. They are your branches and
leaves in growing your funeral home or cemetery
to be the local resource. Take advantage of all these
relationships and watch your circle of referrals grow.
Become the true resource in your community!
Rick Platter, supplier relations manager

rplatter@iccfa.com; 1.800.645.7700, ext. 1213
Katherine Devins, ommunications & member
services manager
kd@iccfa.com; 1.800.645.7700, ext. 1224
Robert M. Fells, Esq., executive director &
publisher
rfells@iccfa.com ; 1.800.645.7700, ext. 1212
Brenda Clough, office administrator
& association liaison
bclough@iccfa.com; 1.800.645.7700,
ext. 1214
Daniel Osorio, subscription coordinator

(habla espaol)
danielo@iccfa.com; 1.800.645.7700, ext. 1215
ICCFA Magazine (ISSN 1936-2099) is published
by the International Cemetery, Cremation and
Funeral Association, 107 Carpenter Drive, Suite
100, Sterling, VA 20164-4468; 703.391.8400;
FAX 703.391.8416; www.iccfa.com. Published
10 times per year, with combined issues in
March-April and August-September. Periodicals
postage paid at Sterling, VA, and other offices.
Copyright 2016 by the International Cemetery,
Cremation and Funeral Association. Subscription

rates: In the United States, $39.95; in Canada,
$45.95; overseas: $75.95. One subscription is
included in annual membership dues. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to ICCFA
Magazine, 107 Carpenter Drive, Suite 100,
Sterling, VA 20164-4468. Individual written
contributions, commentary and advertisements
appearing in ICCFA Magazine do not necessarily
reflect either the opinion or the endorsement
of the International Cemetery, Cremation and
Funeral Association.
Which of the 3
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Wilson St. Pierre Funeral Service & Crematory,
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888.250.7747 | www.JohnsonConsulting.com | 8095 N. 85th Way, Scottsdale, AZ 85258

A Total Solutions Company
Mergers & Acquisitions Valuations Accounting Management Services Financing Customer Surveys
2014 MKJ Marketing
Washington Report
by ICCFA General Counsel
Robert M. Fells, Esq.
rfells@iccfa.com
1.800.645.7700, ext. 1212
direct line: 703.391.8401
Fells is ICCFA execu-
tive director and general

counsel, responsible for
maintaining and improving
relationships with federal and state government
agencies, the news media,
consumer organizations and related trade
associations.
MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

Why we vote. A series of
articles on the importance of
engagement in the democratic
process in the United States.
www.iccfa.com
Fells will participate in the Government & Legal Breakfast at the ICCFA Fall
Management Conference, October 5-7,
Kiawah Island Golf Resort, Kiawah Island,
South Carolina. A panel of specialists will
provide up-to-date information about taxes,
labor law and litigation.
www.iccfa.com
Funeral Radio. ICCFA General Counsel
Robert Fells, Esq., talks about legal and
legislative issues affecting funeral, cemetery and cremation businesses at
www.funeralradio.com
MORE RESOURCES
Wireless. ICCFA members, send us
your email address and well send you
our bi-weekly electronic newsletter full of
breaking news.
10
ICCFA Magazine
Why you should vote
or this issue, which is our annual

government and legal relations
edition, this column becomes a sort
of think piece rather than a reporting
vehicle. Indeed, at this point in the year we
have much to think about.
The national elections in November are
only a few months away and even people
who normally dont follow politics are
saying that the outcome will be historic.
I dont know of anybody who is happy
with our choices for the next president
of the United States. An old canard that
is trotted out by some so-called deep
thinkers will sooner or later be heard
proclaiming that We have to choose
between the lesser of two evils.
That bit of wisdom has been circulated
every four years since my earliest memories and it is one of the dumbest remarks
Ive ever heard.
Nobody running for president, whether
now or in the past, is evil. Some candidates
are too obviously self-serving. Others
shamelessly pander to voters under the
promise of the government will take care
of you. All position themselves as the
great unifier who will bring the American
people together and then, by golly, what
great things we will accomplish when were
all working on the same page. Has there
ever been a presidential acceptance speech
at the national conventions that did not
make this claim? I doubt it.
Perhaps the problem is that Ive seen
this movie before, many times. But as
my many years pile up, I have invented a
sort of Voters Guide you will never see
anyplace else.
We all know when we are being
motivated to vote, but increasingly we are
being manipulated not to vote.
So, FWIW (for what its worth, as
they say online), here are the signs you
should recognize when you are being
manipulated to stay away on Election Day:
1. Youve got better things to do.
Dont let anybody tell you that your lonely
little vote doesnt count or that none of
the candidates are worthy of your vote.
The party faithful will certainly be voting
come hell or high water, even if they have
to crawl on their hands and knees to the
polling place.
But its a nasty little secret that
Dont let anybody tell you that

your lonely little vote doesnt
count or that none of the
candidates are worthy of your
vote. The party faithful will
certainly be voting come hell
or high water, even if they have
to crawl on their hands and
knees to the polling place.
elections are decided by the independent
voters who have no party affiliation or
loyalty. These wildcards must either be
harnessed or discouraged. For example, if
you typically dont vote, I will urge you to
vote for my candidate.
But if I think that your vote will be for
the opposition, I will instead convince you
to stay home and not waste your time
voting. Yes, its that calculated. Nobody
gets out the vote by urging people who
are likely to vote for the other party to go
to the polls.
2. Laugh your way out of voting.
I enjoy political humor from the right or
the left as much as anybody. But much of
it is calculated to trivialize the candidates
and suggest to viewers (Im thinking of
late night talk shows) that the politicians
are all a bunch of clowns, so dont waste
your time voting.
Again, this increases the clout of people
who take the candidates seriously and
show up on Election Day. If youre not
going to vote with them, they would much
rather you stay home.
3. Whats in it for me? Since at least
the mid-1960s, members of Congress have
been promising constituents that they will
benefit from government largesse if they
just vote for them. Often it takes the form
of bringing projects to the state for jobs, or
personal benefits based on an individuals
circumstances.
This is why term limits failed: because
senior members of Congress who brought
home the bacon would step down and
somebody else would channel the bacon
to another state.
When voters realized that term limits
were a two-edged sword, the idea died.
WASHINGTON REPOR T
This also explains why certain senior
members of Congress who would be longretired in any other profession are still
showing up for work.
4. Absentee voting. Not exactly a secret,
encouraging people to vote by absentee
ballot has become an increasingly popular
election strategy. Its easy to qualifyIve
done it myself, since you only have to say
there is a reasonable likelihood that you will
be unavailable to vote on election day (out
of town, sick, in the hospital, etc.) and so
you want to vote now instead.
Back in the day, absentee ballots were
not counted until all the Election Day
ballots had been counted. Absentee ballots
rarely changed the outcome of an election,
whether local or national. But when
strategists realized that many people who
intended to vote stayed home on Election
Day because it was raining or too cold or
too hot, absentee voting suddenly became
an important tool in winning.
So if you are iffy about showing
up on Election Day, find out where you
can vote in advance by absentee ballot.
You will only be encouraged to use this
method of voting by people who think
youre voting for their guy. Think of it as a
political version of preneed.
5. Finally, heres my favorite: The
federal government is so vast today that
it doesnt make much difference who
is president. You only have to look at
our last two presidents, George W. Bush
and Barack Obama, to realize the huge
consequences their actions had on our
nation and on all of us as individuals.
Executive orders are in effect laws that
a president can issue all by himself and
without the consent of Congress. There
are limitations to the actions a president
can take through executive orders, but a
challenge must go to the Supreme Court,
and that third branch of our government
is not known for its speedy response to
litigation.
So as a practical matter, the president
can make his own laws that will be
effective for a certain length of time before
corrective action can be taken, if its ever
taken.
One last thought: executive orders can
be repealed by the new president signing
a new executive order rescinding the
previous one. So yes, the president can and
does yield a great deal of influence that can
r
affect each of our lives.
Start every day at the ICCFA Caf at www.iccfa.com
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by Poul Lemasters, Esq.

513.407.8114
poul@lemasters
consulting.com
ICCFA Magazine
author spotlight
lemasters is prin-
cipal of lemasters
Consulting, Cincinnati, ohio.
www.lemasters
consulting.com
he is an attorney and funeral director,

graduated from the Cincinnati College of
mortuary science in 1996 and from northern Kentucky university, Chase College of
law, in 2003. he is licensed as a funeral
director and embalmer in ohio and West
Virginia and admitted to practice law in
ohio and Kentucky.
ICCFA membership benefit
Lemasters is the ICCFAs special
cremation legal counsel. ICCFA members in good standing may call him to
discuss cremation-related legal issues
for up to 20 minutes at no charge to the
member. the association pays for this
service via an exclusive retainer.
lemasters also provides, to iCCFa members in good standing, free GPL reviews to
check for Funeral rule compliance.
Go to www.iccfa.com to the Cremation support section, where you can post a

question for lemasters to answer.
More about this topic
see iCCFa magazines interview

with irwin shipper on page 16 for more
information about these issues and what
the iCCFa is doing to speak out on behalf
of its members.
read Bob Fells Washington report
in each issue of iCCFa magazine and
Wireless, the associations biweekly
e-newsletter, to keep up-to-date on legal,
legislative and regulatory issues.
LEGAL
staying on top of regulatory and legislative trends
is increasingly important as the death-care profession faces
more and more challenges. a regulation or law that seems like

it would benefit your business today might stifle it tomorrow.
Trends in state and federal

death-care regulation
taying in business is no easy task.

Some people might think that having
a successful business means you are
set for the future. But the problem, as we
all know, is that things change.
Success is not a static measurement;
success changes as times change. Think
about it: Twenty years ago, a great ad
in the Yellow Pages may have been
successful for your business. Today an ad
in the Yellow Pages may mean you are
going out of business!
There are many factors that cause the
changes that affect your business. Just to
name a few, consider consumer buying
habits, societal trends and media influence.
Another factor to consider is the
regulation of death care. As an example,
imagine if your state allowed an unlicensed individual to provide cremation
services to the public. Think of this as a
direct disposer of sorts, with no ability to
provide full services, but the ability to
provide a direct cremation to the public.
Could that affect your business? Could
you readily compete against this new
business model?
Currently there are some things going
on in the regulatory world that could affect
your business in many ways. Some are
good; some are bad. The problem is that
many times what people initially think is
going to be good for their business ends up
being bad.
This article looks at three trends in the
regulatory world that could affect how
laws and rules could change, affecting
your business.
Protectionism
In some states, new laws and rules are

being created to protect the current
business model. Some protectionist
12
ICCFA Magazine
legislation has existed seemingly forever.

Consider Wisconsin, where a cemetery
cannot own or operate a funeral home.
The law, which is not a new, is a barrier
of entry to anyone who owns a cemetery.
Funeral home owners argue that it is unfair
to allow cemeteries to own funeral homes
because their businesses will be hurt, while
cemeteries argue it is unfair to restrain
them from competing.
Recently, in New Jersey, the court
decided that religious cemeteries were
exempt from a state law prohibiting
monument sales by cemeteries. New
Jersey law says that only monument
dealers may sell monuments to consumers.
After the court decided that religious
cemeteries were exempt, the law was rewritten to specifically include religious
cemeteries, prohibiting any future
monument sales by them. This law went
into affect in 2016 and is one more
example of protectionist legislation.
Unfortunately, the trend is continuing.
Recently there have been additional states
trying to impose laws that will impose
protectionist limits against one sector or
another, all in an effort to protect some
other sector of the business.
Maryland tried to pass a law that
would require all transport vehicles to be
inspected and approved, including those
from out of state.
New York recently introduced a bill to
restrict the sale of monuments/memorials
by religious cemeteries.
Tennessee recently tried to pass a bill
that would allow funeral homes to offer
discounts for prearranging (currently the
law prohibits discounts on a prearranged
funeral), but the bill failed. The current
law, viewed by many as a protectionist law
because it protects funeral homes from
MORE URNS.
LOWER PRICES.
www.perfectmemorials.com
1-800-979-8767
LEGAL
everyone thinks that laws and regulations are always tougher on them than others.
the truth is that no regulation is easy; there is always a catch somewhere.
having to compete on price, was defeated
despite many consumer groups wanting
the change.
And appears that there are more
protectionist laws in the works.
Uniformity
As much as everyone wants to be

different, death care tries to put everyone
on equal footing, at least when it comes
to regulations. Uniformity is almost the
opposite of protectionism.
The idea under protectionism is that
no one should be able to do what we do.
Uniformity says that you can do what I do,
but you have to follow the same laws. In
theory, this sounds like a simple and fair
premise, but nothing is ever simple, nor
are most things fair to all.
Consider recent bills in Pennsylvania
attempting to change cemetery trusting
laws. The bills have included requirements
of 100 percent trusting, trusting of
merchandise only and prohibitions against
constructive delivery. All versions have
been attempts to bring cemeteries onto the
same regulatory field as funeral homes.
This can also be seen at the federal
level. Recently a bill was introduced to
require the FTC to revise the Funeral
Rule to include cemeteries. (Rep. Bobby
Rush [D-IL], Bereaved Consumers Bill of
Rights Act, H.R. 5212). The idea of this
bill is that including cemeteries would be a
fair, uniform application of laws.
The problem with this is that it doesnt
take into account the difference in the
businesses. While the consumer sees
funeral homes, cemeteries, crematories
and everyone else in death-careas
one group, the consumer does not see or
understand what makes each business so
different.
On a basic level, look at how differently
funeral homes and cemeteries run their
businesses. Funeral homes operate, for the
most part, an at-need profession. Funeral
homes build their businesses on at-need
delivery of services and merchandise.
While there is a preneed component,
funeral homes do not make money until
the at-need delivery. This is the basis of
their business.
Cemeteries, however, are preneed
businesses. They rely on a preneed
14
ICCFA Magazine
business model that provides operating

income on future delivery of services and
merchandise.
There is an at-need side to running a
cemetery, but thats not the basis of the
business. Plus, cemeteries have a perpetual
care requirement that is far different
from what funeral homes deal with. Once
the funeral is over, the funeral home is
typically done.
The cemeterys responsibilities, on the
other hand, are just getting started when
the interment or inurment occurs.
This constitutes a major difference in
business models that makes it difficult to
formulate truly uniform laws.
This does not stop groups from trying,
though. Everyone thinks that laws and
regulations are always tougher on them
than others.
The truth is that no regulation is easy;
there is always a catch somewhere.
Regulatory boards
Something many outsiders are surprised

about is that most death-care regulatory
agencies are comprised of members from
the industry.
For example, it is common for a state
board to have five to seven members,
a majority of whom (or perhaps all
of whom) are not only licensed in the
profession they regulate but also have
ongoing businesses in that state.
The real surprise to everyone should
be that this is how many professions are
regulated.
This can lead to an anti-competitive
regulatory environment. Imagine you are
a new provider, with a very New Age idea
in death-care, trying to get a license to start
your business.
You go in front of that regulatory board,
comprised of soon-to-be competitors, to
ask for permission to start your business.
Do I have to spell out for you the possible
conflict-of-interest situation?
Recently this issue made its way all
the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the
case Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade
Commission, 768 F.Supp.2d 818 (2011),
the Supreme Court considered whether a
dental board could prevent non-dentists
from providing teeth-whitening services.
The conflict began when dentists
began complaining about teeth-whitening

services because they were undercutting
their prices and hurting their businesses.
The regulatory board was comprised
mostly of dentists.
Upon review, the Supreme Court
decided that when most of the board
members are also members of the
regulated occupation, the board members
could face anti-trust claims.
Based on this case, there is a current
push to change the make-up of these
regulatory boards. There are three current
thoughts on how to do so: reducing the
number of industry members on the
board; consolidating boards so that one
board oversees numerous occupations to
avoid industry control; or create oversight
boards that would review decisions by the
industry boards to monitor neutrality.
This recent case has had an affect on
regulatory boards both in their processes
and in their make-up. Based on this case,
being a board member carries a new level
of potential liabilitysomething to be
considered when offered an appointment.
Conclusion
What do these legislative and regulatory

trends mean? It means that, as a
profession, we are always looking for ways
to regulate and protect what we do.
This article is not meant to support
or comment on recent laws or practices.
(If you want to hear that, you need to
come hear me live!) Its meant to make
everyone aware of what is going on in the
profession.
Take a look at your business and
understand not only what youre doing
today, but alsoand more importantly
what you might want to do tomorrow.
What products and services might you
want and/or need to offer families in the
future to stay relevant and profitable? Do
current/proposed laws and regulations
allow you to do so?
Be careful for what you ask for. Even
regulations that seem like they will benefit
your business typically bring bad with the
good.
The scary part is that the good is easy
to see in the beginning. Its the bad that
sneaks up and bites you.
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ICCFA Magazine subject spotlight

ifshipper@aol.com
Irwin W. Shipper,
Esq., CCE, has been
involved in the cemetery
business for more than
60 years.
He is an ICCFA past
president; has chaired
the ICCFA Government
and Legal Affairs Committee since 1992; and
is a member of the ICCFA Hall of Fame.
L E G A L & L E G I S L AT I V E U P D AT E
ICCFA Government and Legal Affairs Committee Chairman

Irwin Shipper talks about what has been and what might be
happening in the legal, legislative and regulatory arena that
could affect cemeteries, funeral homes and crematories.
He is president of Rose Hills Memorial

Park in Putnam Valley, New York.
He served as president of Beth Israel
Cemetery Association and Woodbridge
Memorial Gardens, Woodbridge, New
Jersey. He was with The Loewen Group for
several years before returning to private
cemetery ownership.
He chaired the New Jersey State Cemtery Board, 1972-1994.
He earned his law degree from Brooklyn
Law School.
He is a board member of the Jewish
Federation of Palm Beach County, Florida,
and is on the executive committee of the
Commission for Jewish Education of Palm
Beach.
MORE ABOUT THIS SUBJECT
The Government & Legal Affairs
Breakfast, including Irwin Shipper, CCE,
and Bob Fells, Esq., will be part of the
ICCFA Fall Management Conference,
October 5-7, Kiawah Island Golf Resort,
Kiawah Island, South Carolina.
www.iccfa.com
Funeral Radio.
ICCFA General
Counsel Robert Fells, Esq., talks
about legal and
legislative issues
affecting funeral, cemetery and cremation
businesses at www.funeralradio.com.
16
ICCFA Magazine
From left, ICCFA Cremation Counsel Poul Lemasters, Esq.; Ed Horn, CCE; Tom
Daly, CCE; Larry Anspach, CCE; ICCFA Executive Director Bob Fells, Esq.; an aide
to Rep. Dina Titus, D-NV, and Titus. ICCFA representatives Capitol Hill visit in May
included meetings with several senators and representatives from both parties, as
well as a long discussion with Federal Trade Commission staff members.
Protectionist laws on the rise;

Funeral Rule review coming up
Irwin, it is a pleasure to welcome you to

our 24rd annual interview. We usually start
by asking you about whats new in funeral
service concerning government relations.
Can there really be anything new?
I think this particular interview may prove
that new issues can come up, or at least, that
old issues we thought were in the past have
returned.
OK, what makes you say that?
Well, lets look at efforts in the states to
enact protectionist laws and regulations
that, in effect, say that nobody else can sell
what I sell. A common example are the
approximately 10 states that prohibit anyone
but a licensed funeral director from selling
caskets to the public.
But these laws have been on the books for
many years. I am referring to several states

that have moved to enact new protectionist
laws within the last year or two.
Whats driving this new effort?
I think this effort is the result of a contracting
market as an increasing number of consumers
opt for cremation without burial and
memorialization, and with little or no funeral
services.
For some reason, the states in the Northeast usually seem to be the most active in
pushing anticompetitive, protectionist legislation. For example, the last two years have
been tumultuous in Pennsylvania as bills have
been introduced to make it more difficult
to sell vaults and grave liners preneed. Also,
religious cemeteries in Pennsylvania have
been the target of legislation to stop them
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It appears that New York is considering a copycat law of the one recently passed
in New Jersey outlawing memorial sales by religious cemeteries.
from increasing their
the small businesses in
marketing efforts.
their constituencies are
deserving of protectionist
But doesnt some sort
laws that tilt the playing
of rationale need to
field in their favor.
be claimed to justify
The real problem, in
legislation?
Northeast and the New
It doesnt have to be a good
England states in particular,
rationale. Sometimes a bill
is that by severely limiting
can be considered inside
cemeteries to selling
baseball, attracting little
only burial spaces and
interest by the news media
related services, they are
and therefore no interest by
economically choking
the general public.
them out of existence.
But when word gets out
Cemeteries in these
and the bills sponsors must
states are prohibited from
justify introducing it, we
ICCFA members noted that this congessional office building hallway had
selling merchandise that
hear one of two reasons.
a very mausoleum feel to it. From left, Ed Horn, CCE; Tom Daly, CCE; and cemeteries in all the other
Consumer protection
ICCFA Vice President Paul Goldstein.
states have always been
is always used as a
allowed to sell. These
business is organized as a for-profit or notprotectionist battle cry. This
additional
forms
of
income are needed to
for-profit, there is no free ride as far as the
is the rationale that has been cited for years
pay
current
operating
expenses in addition to
government is concerned.
to justify prohibitions that defy everything
building their care funds.
that capitalism and free enterprise are meant
You mentioned Pennsylvania. What are
But state legislators see this situation
to stand for. There was even an effort to stop
some of the other states?
politically and seek to help one business
a monastery in Louisiana from making and
Over a year ago, New Jersey monument
group by financially strangling another one.
selling caskets using this rationale.
builders took the Catholic Archdiocese
Years ago, we were once in a meeting with
When not-for-profit cemeteries are
of Newark to court, claiming that it was
a New Jersey legislator who said: I agree
involved, the battle cry changes from
violating state law by selling memorials. It
with you 100 percent. The only problem is
consumer protection to unfair competition by turned out that the existing statute exempted
that you dont give us enough money.
a non-tax-paying entities. This argument says religious cemeteries, so the monument
State legislatures are driven by lobbying
that nonprofits dont pay taxes on their sales
builders lost their case.
and politics, and good sense doesnt
proceeds whereas for-profit companies must
But then they lobbied to amend the law
necessarily prevail. If they took a big
pay taxes before realizing any profits.
so that the prohibition would be extended
picture approach, they would readily
Is that not correct?
to religious organizations. The bill passed
understand that the monument builders
and went into effect this past March. Again,
Its correct that nonprofits dont pay taxes on
future market depends directly on the public
the argument used was unfair competition
revenues, but its not unfair competition
continuing to bury their dead.
by nonprofits while ignoring that they cant
even the IRS agrees. For-profits and notIf cemeteries are not properly maintained,
engage in profit-taking.
for-profits battle it out all over the economy,
the public will lose confidence in the
Also, with respect to selling memorials,
selling similar goods and services in
cemeterys ability to care for their loved ones
the
cemetery is responsible for maintaining
hospitals, museum gift shops, cemeteries,
graves. This will greatly reduce the market
them in perpetuity while the monument
food services and dozens of other businesses
for markers and memorials.
builders responsibility ends when the
without difficulty.
In effect, monument builders in these
memorial has been installed. The cemetery is restrictive states will end up having a legal
What is not said is that after paying
forever, and if a client comes in 30 years after monopoly on a product nobody wants.
reasonable expenses, nonprofits must place
a monument dealer has closed, the cemetery
the proceeds back into the business. ForYoud discussed Pennsylvania and New
is the only long-term guarantor available.
profits may take their after-tax proceeds and
Jersey. Are there other states pushing new
So Id say that nonprofit cemeteries can
keep them.
protectionist laws?
justify their tax break because they must
The IRS determined years ago that a taxUnfortunately, yes. It appears that New
exempt cemetery may sell headstones, vaults build their long-term trust funds using the net
York is considering a copycat law of the one
proceeds.
and even flowers for placement in its own
recently passed in New Jersey outlawing
cemetery without violating its tax exemption. Dont the legislators understand these
memorial sales by religious cemeteries.
In other words, unlike for-profit cemeteries,
distinctions?
Many Northeast and New England states
there can be no profit-taking. So whether a
I think they understand but perhaps feel that
mandate that cemeteries operate as not-for18
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Talking to FTC staff, from left, ICCFA member Larry Anspach, CCE; ICCFA General Counsel and Executive Director Bob Fells,
Esq.; ICCFA Cremation Counsel Poul Lemasters, Esq.; and CANA Executive Director Barbara Kemmel, who joined ICCFA representatives for part of their annual Capitol Hill visits.
profits even if they are stock companies. This

means that even if a cemetery is willing to
reorganize as a for-profit in order to compete
fairly with for-profit businesses, it cannot
legally do so.
In effect, these cemeteries are economically trapped with few resources and no
ability to engage in the commerce necessary
to survive.
I also want to mention a bill introduced
in Tennessee. This legislation may have
more of a public-spirited motive, but is badly
shortsighted. It would cap the amount that a
cemetery could charge for an administrative
or recording fee to $100.
This amount is not indexed for inflation,
so technically it could remain at $100 for
decades. To change the amount, the statute, if
it became law, would have to be amended.
This means that both houses of the
Tennessee legislature would have to agree
to an increase, which would then have to be
approved by the governor. More troublesome,
we are not aware of any data that explains
how the $100 amount was decided upon, so it
appears arbitrary and subjective.
Is the growing popularity of shopping on
the internet, or ecommerce, as its called,
a way to work around some of these state
restrictions?
Thats correct. For example, a consumer who
wants more options can avoid a states law
20
ICCFA Magazine
that limits consumers to purchasing caskets

only from licensed funeral directors by
purchasing the casket online from an out-ofstate retailer and having it shipped in.
Ecommerce is largely unregulated at the
state and federal levels. We understand that
the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is
planning to become more involved in this
area. According to the FTCs annual review
of consumer complaints, internet fraud is one
of the highest problem areas.
The ICCFA supports government efforts
to police the internet for sellers that engage in
misleading and deceptive sales practices.
Speaking of the FTC, isnt the Funeral Rule
coming up for review soon?
Originally, the review of the Funeral Rule
was scheduled for 2019. More recently,
there has been an interest by FTC staff in
moving it up to 2018. Just a few weeks ago,
we heard informally that staff would begin
review proceedings next year. So at this point,
the Funeral Rule review is right around the
corner.
Do we know the areas that the review will
likely focus on?
Members of the ICCFA Government and
Legal Affairs Committee met with FTC staff
in May. We came away from the meeting
with an impression on several issues.
First, the Funeral Rule is unlikely to
disappear anytime soon, and as far as we

know, nobody is calling for it to be repealed.
Second, the FTC staff is very interested
in applying the rule to some aspects of
ecommerce. For example, there may be
an option, or perhaps a requirement, for
funeral providers to post their prices on
their websites. Presumably, that would not
apply where a funeral home does not have a
website.
We asked FTC staff if they would consider
an incentive whereby if a funeral provider
posted its prices on the web, it would be
considered in compliance with the Funeral
Rule. In other words, they would not be
subject to secret shoppers inspections.
This idea will be discussed during the review
proceedings.
The idea of posting prices on the internet
seems like a much better way of getting price
information to consumers. Do you expect
any opposition to it?
Id say that if the web price posting is
mandatory there could be a problem. But
if it were optional and a funeral provider
complied, that business should be judged in
compliance with the Funeral Rule and not be
visited by secret shoppers.
I hope Im wrong when I say this, but
if theres any opposition to this option as
complying with the rule, Im concerned that
it may come from consumer groups. They
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A brand new Congress will convene in January 2017 and the political landscape might look
quite different than today. A bill to expand the FTCs jurisdiction could have a lot more support by then.
Talking to FTC staff, from left, ICCFA Cremation Counsel Poul Lemasters, Esq.; ICCFA General Counsel and Executive Director Bob
Fells, Esq.; and ICCFA members Steve Schacht, CCFE; and Jim Price, CCFE, CCrE; and ICCFA Board Member Caressa Hughes.
might want to take the position that the

funeral providers must post their prices on the
web but also be subject to secret shoppers as
well. But as I say, I would like to be proved
wrong about this.
Is the FTC expected to explore other issues
besides ecommerce?
Yes, theres an interest in defining the term
direct cremation. It seems this term means
different things to different providers, so
the FTC staff is seeking ideas on how a
standard definition can be developed to avoid
confusion.
What about the issue of expanding the rule
to all sellers of funeral goods or services?
This issue has come up each time the rule
has been reviewed. When the FTC staff
announced its findings at the end of the last
review in 2008, it wrote at length, giving
many reasons why the rule should not be
expanded to other sellers, especially nonprofit
cemeteries.
Many U.S. cemeteries are organized
as not-for-profit and the FTC Act, which
empowers the commission, explicitly
excludes nonprofit organizations from the
FTCs jurisdiction.
Could that exclusion of nonprofits be
changed?
Yes, but Congress would have to pass a law,
signed by the president, of course, to amend
the FTC Act and to give the commission the
legal authority to investigate and take action
22
ICCFA Magazine
against nonprofit groups.

This has seemed unlikely, but a bill to do
just that has recently been introduced into
the House of Representatives by Rep. Bobby
Rush (D-IL). This bill, H.R. 5255, would give
the FTC legal authority over nonprofits.
The bill was one of 17 FTC-related
bills reviewed by the House Energy and
Commerce Subcommittee on Trade on
May 24. The ICCFA provided testimony in
opposition to the bill.
I think the chances of this legislation
passing both houses is slim. However, we
were surprised to hear the FTC chairman
testify at the hearing in favor of the bill, and,
of course, in favor of regulating nonprofits.
This is a major development, because in the
past the commission has declined efforts to
expand its authority to the nonprofit sector.
So while we are not expecting to see any
action on such a proposal in this Congress, a
brand new Congress will convene in January
2017 and the political landscape might look
quite different than today. A bill to expand
the FTCs jurisdiction could have a lot more
support by then.
Wasnt Congressman Rush the sponsor of a
bill that would have authorized the FTC to
regulate cemeteries, including nonprofits?
That was back in 2009-10. The Rush bill was
actually voted favorably out of the House
Energy and Commerce Committee but was
never called up for a floor vote.
Earlier this year, Congressman Rush again
introduced this bill, now H.R. 5212, that

would require the FTC to regulate cemeteries
as well as certain aspects of all sellers,
including funeral homes.
The bill was also heard at the May 24
hearing that I just mentioned, and the ICCFA
submitted testimony in opposition to it,
as it has done in the past. Again, it seems
unlikely that this bill, known as the Bereaved
Consumers Bill of Rights Act of 2016, will
go anywhere in the final months of this
Congress.
You mentioned the annual FTC report on
consumer complaints. We know that in
recent years, they have broken out funeralrelated complaints from the total. How did
the industry fare this time?
The report for 2015 came out in March and
contained a record high number of complaints
overall. The complaints are collected from
a number of federal and state agencies and
include all the Better Business Bureaus in
North America.
The total number tabulated for 2015 is
3,083,379 for all categories of consumer
complaints. This number is an increase over
the totals from the last two years: 2,629,987
in 2014 and 2,175,355 in 2013.
The top categories are debt collection at
29 percent and identity theft at 16 percent.
However, checking for funeralrelated
complaints specifically, we found that the
number and percentage of these complaints
have declined for the second consecutive
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Walking into the Cannon Building and

yet another security screening are CANA
Executive Director Barbara Kemmel,
ICCFA Board Member Caressa Hughes
and ICCFA Vice President Paul Goldstein.
ICCFA Vice President Christine Toson

Hentges, CCE, talks to Rep. Patrick
Murphy, D-FL. In the background is a
painting of a Florida scene. Murphy is
running for Mario Rubios Senate seat.
Resting between congressional visits

are ICCFA member Steve Schacht, CCE,
and ICCFA Cremation Counsel Poul Lemasters, Esq., wearing patriotic socks
befitting the occasion.
year, even as the number of total complaints overall has risen: 20131,296
complaints or 0.06 percent of the total;
20141,222 or 0.05 percent; 20151,123
or 0.04 percent.
Thats impressive in the sense that its
impressively low. But do other interested
groups draw that same conclusion?
Not necessarily. For example, some will say
that while the number of reported funeral
complaints may be low, those do not account
for many other complaints that are not filed or
not otherwise recorded.
I think there is some merit to this
observation, and the ICCFA has never
assumed that the reported complaints are the
entire universe of existing complaints. The
problem is, how far can you go in using the
number of current complaints to extrapolate
the unreported ones?
Is it valid to surmise that for every one
reported complaint there is one other that is
unreported? Maybe there are two or three
unreported for every one reported complaint.
Maybe its 50 or 100? The point is that we
get into speculation when we theorize adding
unreported complaints to the known total.
Then how can the ICCFA answer critics
who will say that if there are 1,123 reported
funeral complaints for 2015, then there
must be 50,123 unreported complaints for

the year?
When we enter the realm of speculation it
helps if there are other benchmarks we can
look at. For example, the Centers for Disease
Control report the number of deaths per year
in the United States is, on average, between
2.4 million and 2.5 million.
If we can assume that many of these
deaths result in funeral services of some kind
or other, including cremation, then we are
looking at between 5,000 and 6,000 funerals
per day throughout the year.
I believe it is reasonable to assume that if
there were any serious problems with funeral
service it would be widely known by word of
mouth from the millions of people who plan
or attend a funeral during the year.
Another point worth mentioning is, if we
are going to add an estimate of unreported
complaints to the number of reported ones,
we should do it across the board, not just with
funeral complaints.
That would mean that the numbers of
all types of complaints would exponentially
increase, and that percentage-wise, funeralrelated complaints could still remain at 0.04
percent of the total.
In any case, the FTC annual complaint
report is the best documentation we have
in the areas of consumer complaints and
the number of complaints generated. This

gives us actual data, where before almost
any number you might cite was largely
speculation.
In past interviews, you have discussed the
difference between specific funeral industry
issues affected by federal legislation and
regulation, and more generic issues that
affect many different industries across the
board. Are we seeing more of those issues
this year?
Yes, we are. We have just discussed funeral
industry-specific actions such as the Rush bill
and the Funeral Rule review. In those cases,
we are out there by ourselves without the
support of the wider business community.
On the other hand, when we are dealing
with regulations that affect the business
community in general, such as the new
overtime regulations, there are plenty of big
industries with big guns much larger than
anything we can ever have to fight those
battles.
I call these Chamber of Commerce
issues because we are in good company. We
typically join coalitions to give support to the
efforts of larger industries while reserving our
resources for those legislative and regulatory
battles where we find ourselves out there all
by ourselves.
This also highlights that when we fight
24
ICCFA Magazine
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ICCFA member Larry Anspach, CCE, and Sen. John Barrasso, R-WY, share a laugh
in the senators office.
Rep. Joseph Crowley, D-NY, talks to ICCFA representatives in a conference room

adjacent to a room where a House hearing was taking place. At left is ICCFA Board
Member Ed Horn, CCE, also from New York City.
ICCFA Board Member Caressa Hughes listens to Sen. Charles Chuck Grassley,
R-IA, who chairs the Judiciary Committee.
26
ICCFA Magazine
funeral industry-specific battles, we should

always try to be on the same page with
other funeral groups. As industries go, we
are relatively small, so we undercut our
effectiveness when we disagree on positions
and dont pool our resources.
One of the most valuable benefits of ICCFA
membership is the constant search in the
Congressional Record, the Federal Register
and court decisions for new or proposed
mandates that can affect our members. Can
you comment on this?
While all this information is publicly
available, you have to look for it, and I
think few people realize what a voracious
rulemaking and lawmaking machine the U.S.
government has become.
For example, in the 18 months the 114th
Congress has been in session, at this point a
total of 9,991 bills and resolutions have been
introduced by the 535 members of Congress.
Of that number, 165 bills became law and
535 resolutions were passed.
The numbers are more startling in the
federal agencies that draft regulations
interpreting federal statutes. As of today, the
agencies have deadlines to receive public
comments on 194 regulations over the next
seven days.
In the last seven days, federal agencies
have published 506 new regulations. Over the
last 90 days, they published over 6,400 new
regulations. These numbers are business as
usual and are typical of the normal output of
Congress and the agencies.
If we dont keep track of these hundreds
and thousands of documents, we risk being
hit by new requirements we knew nothing
about. So I would say that our search and
retrieval activities are an extremely important
member benefit.
What about our lobbying activities on
Capitol Hill? Recently, NFDA announced
that it had hired an outside lobbying firm.
How do you see that development?
Its understandable that the NFDA would hire
a lobbying firm to help them sort through
the massive number of notices and proposals
generated by the federal government. We
share that concern.
However, the ICCFA believes that
our industry is more effectively and more
efficiently regulated at the state level. At best,
increased federal regulation of our members
would complicate compliance efforts and
duplicate requirements that already exist at
the state level.
to page 28
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Seriously, there is a lot more interest in
contributing to the associations PAC during
an election year than during an off year.
Our principal method of raising funds is
through our PAC raffle, and we sell tickets
at both the annual convention and the Fall
Management Conference, which is coming
up in October. We have raised over $100,000
in the relatively few years of its existence.
Paul Elvig is our PAC fundraiser-in-chief, and
he does an outstanding job with a difficult
assignment.
We give to candidates of both parties,
and we are more interested in the fact that
a congressional member has a relationship
with an ICCFA member than what his or her
political views are. As a practical matter, most
From left, ICCFA Vice President Paul Goldstein; ICCFA Executive Director Bob
Fells, Esq.; Rep. Joe Barton, R-TX; ICCFA Board Member Caressa Hughes; and
legislation in Congress that can affect our
ICCFA members John Resich, CCE; Steve Schacht, CCE; and Larry Anspach, CCE. members tends to be bipartisan in nature, so
we really need to promote good contacts in
from page 26
following. During this years visit in May,
both parties.
we mentioned the anticipated FTC Funeral
The ICCFA is not seeking any legislation
The November election could be a real
or regulations from Congress or the agencies. Rule review for next year. We bring it up as
game-changer and is certainly one of the
an FYI, and the usual response is an offer to
Such a move would undercut our position
most unpredictable elections we have seen in
assist us. Following our visits, we send an
that our members are best regulated at the
many years. We will work with whomever
ICCFA PAC contribution to every member
state level.
is elected, and we have found that simple
of Congress who was willing to meet with
As it is, there are dozens of federal laws
education about what our industry does is the
us. This reinforces our meeting and reminds
and regulations that apply to all businesses,
most effective lobbying we can do.
them of who we are.
including cemeteries, funeral homes and
But if we are not proactive, we risk other
Lately, some of our visits to members
crematories. The ICCFA sees no justification
people talking about us. When we create a
we see every year are anticipated by them to
for more federal mandates to be imposed on
communications void, others will be happy
an extent that we dont have to bring along
our members.
to step in to fill that void. And the chances
one
of
their
constituents
in
order
to
have
a
When members of the ICCFA Government
are that we arent going to like what they say
productive
meeting.
and Legal Affairs Committee visit Capitol
about us.
Speaking of the ICCFA PAC, how is
Hill each spring, what is their message as
So the ICCFA PAC gives our members
fundraising for that going?
they meet with members of Congress?
a voice in who tells our story on Capitol
Im sure nobody has an easy time raising
We have three basic points we make with
Hill. Those who support the PAC want us to
PAC money, because all contributions must
every representative and senator we meet
provide that information.
be from personal funds, are not tax-deductible
with. First, were not asking them for
We cant talk about fundraising without
and cannot be reimbursed by the donors
anything. That is, we are not seeking their
mentioning the Government and Legal
employer. Other than that, its a cinch!
support or opposition to any pending bill.
Fund. What is the status of the
This sets the mood for a positive
fund?
discussion.
We have more flexibility in
Next, we offer our assistance
seeking contributions to the G&L
to any of their constituents who
Fund. Corporate contributions can
may have a question or a problem
be accepted, and though they are
with a cemetery or a funeral
not tax-deductible as charitable
home. This offer is well received
contributions, they can be
and often the congressperson will
deducted as business expenses.
ask a staff person sitting nearby if
The fund pays for research and
they are aware of any constituent
retrieval
expenses; underwrites
having such problems. The
our
legal
telephone consultation
answer is invariably no, which
services
with
our tax, labor and
carries a lot more credibility than
cremation
attorneys;
and pays for
our making the same claim.
Larry
Anspach,
CCE,
with
Jinny
and
Mike
Doherty
of
Fairfax
the
drafting
of
our
amicus
briefs
Third, if appropriate, we
Memorial
Park,
located
in
a
suburb
of
Washington,
D.C.
The
we
file
in
federal
courts.
will mention some upcoming
Dohertys again hosted a dinner to thank ICCFA members
I should mention that
regulatory action we are
who donated their time to the associations Capitol Hill visits.
28
ICCFA Magazine
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Please
the ICCFA submitted testimony in the

Pennsylvania, New York and Tennessee
legislation that I discussed at the beginning of
this interview. So the G&L Fund is working
all the time to advance the government
relations agenda of the ICCFA.
I hope that when our members receive
a fundraising letter from me, they will
generously support the fund.
Irwin, we traditionally close our annual
interview by asking you to predict issues we
will be seeing in the next 12 months. Your
batting average is pretty good, so what do
you see ahead for the rest of 2016 and into
2017?
This isnt exactly a prediction, but for years
Ive been saying that government regulation,
especially at the federal level, will continue to
expand without end. Ive already given a few
examples of this growth.
Since we want the ICCFA to remain in
the forefront of advocacy for our industry,
we have decided to retain an outside lobbyist
to assist us. The major purpose is to increase
our presence on Capitol Hill and be assured
that the ICCFA is the go-to organization on
funeral, burial and cremation issues.
There are a number of factors that
determined our decision to hire a lobbyist.
First, today there is so much more regulation
and legislation going on that we would be
foolish not to recognize that we need more
help.
Second, we need to respond quickly when
other groups are attempting to lobby for
things that would hurt our members. Many
things are discussed on Capitol Hill that
dont make their way into the Congressional
Record. As I said before, if we dont make
our case, then others will do it for us and we
arent going to like it.
So with this in mind, I can predict that
after the elections we will see much more
attention paid to nonprofit organizations.
Limiting or eliminating many tax-exempt
categories has been a favorite topic in
Congress for many years.
Now with the deficit higher than ever and
for-profit businesses lobbying to withdraw the
exemptions of nonprofits that compete with
them, the conditions for a perfect storm may
have been created.
For this reason, and for other reasons I
havent discussed yet, this is the time for the
ICCFA to grow the strongest government
relations program in our history.
Thank you, Irwin.
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29
by Michael S. Pepperman,
Esq., and Ivo Becica, Esq.
215.665.3032
Michael.Pepperman
@obermayer.com
ICCFA Magazine
author spotlight
Pepperman chairs the
labor relations practice

group at the Philadelphia
firm of Obermayer Rebmann Maxell &
Hippel LLP, where he is a partner. His
practice is restricted to the representation
of management in labor and employee
relations.
Becica is an associate in the labor relations

and employment law
department at Obermayer
Rebmann Maxell & Hippel
LLP.
www.obermayer.com
MoRE ABout tHIS SuBJECt
Form more information on the new
rule and other labor and employment

law topics, visit the authors blog at
www.hrlegalist.com and sign up for
email updates.
ICCFA membership benefit

Pepperman is the ICCFAs special
counsel for labor relations, human resources management and employment

law. ICCFA members in good standing
may call him to discuss these issues for
up to 20 minutes at no charge to the member. The association pays for this service
via an exclusive retainer.
HUMAN RESOURCES
The overtime rules are going to change on December 1.

You need to figure out how that will affect your funeral home
or cemetery operation and what your options are.
Big changes in overtime

rules are on the way
n May 17, 2016, the White

House announced new changes
to the federal overtime rules that
will significantly expand the number of
employees eligible for time-and-a-half
overtime pay for all hours worked over 40
per week.
When the new rules go into effect on
December 1, 2016, the Department of
Labor (DOL) estimates that more than four
million employees will be affected by the
changes this year alone. The new rules will
have a significant impact on businesses,
including cemeteries and funeral homes.
Background
For almost 90 years, the Fair Labor

Standards Act (FLSA) has set the federal
minimum wage and mandated overtime
pay (time and a half) for employees who
work over 40 hours per week. When
Congress passed the FLSA back in 1938, it
gave the secretary of labor the authority to
decide which employees are exempt from
minimum wage and overtime.
You may already be familiar with the
terms exempt and non-exempt from
your employee handbooks and policies.
The new rules effective this December will
significantly narrow the exemptions.
Whos exempt right now?
In order to be considered exempt from

overtime, employees must meet a threepronged test:
1. be paid a fixed salary (the salary
basis test);
2. be paid at least the minimum salary
(the salary level test); and
3. be assigned certain job duties and
responsibilities (the duties test), including
the so-called white collar exemptions for
executive, administrative and professional
employees.
30
ICCFA Magazine
The minimum salary for exempt status

(last updated in 2004) is currently $455
per week (about $23,600 per year). This
means that everyone who makes less than
$23,660 per year is automatically entitled
to overtime, regardless of what their job
duties, responsibilities and education levels
are. Those who make more than $23,600
will be exempt if the company can show
that they meet the duties test.
Over the past decade, more salaried
employees have exceeded the relatively
low salary threshold, and have become
potentially exempt, thus attracting the
attention of the Obama administration and
prompting this latest round of changes.
The upcoming changes
The new rule does not change the duties

test. However, the salary threshold, under
which employees are automatically
guaranteed overtime if they work over 40
hours per week, will increase to $913 per
week ($47,476 per year) on December 1.
Thats double the old threshold of $23,660.
For the first time, the DOL will no
longer rely on a static minimum salary.
Instead, the salary threshold will be
increased every three years, starting on
January 1, 2020.
Each update will be tied to the 40th
percentile of full-time salaried workers
in the lowest-wage US Census region
(currently, the South).
The DOL estimates that the January
2020 adjustment will bring the new
threshold to around $51,000 per year. The
DOL will provide at least 150 days notice
before each update.
Bonuses, commissions
and incentive payments
At the urging of the business community,

the DOL has agreed to count bonuses,
HUMAN RESOURCES
At the urging of the business community, the DOL has agreed

to count bonuses, commissions and other types of incentive payments
toward the new salary threshold. However, there are a few caveats.
commissions and other types of incentive
payments toward the new salary threshold.
However, there are a few caveats.
In order to count toward the new
threshold, bonuses, commissions and
other incentive payments must be nondiscretionary (meaning that they are
payable if the employee satisfies certain
performance criteria, as opposed to
entirely at the employers discretion)
and payable on at least a quarterly basis.
Only 10 percent of the threshold can
be met using bonuses, incentive pay or
commissions.
In order to meet the threshold,
employers can make a catch up payment
within one pay period of the end of each
quarter. The regulations do not allow
employers to supplement bonuses at the
end of the year to meet the threshold.
earnings of the 90th percentile of full-time

salaried workers nationwide.
Changes to the highly compensated

employee salary threshold
Potential impact on cemeteries

and funeral homes
Under the existing rules, employees

who make over $100,000 per year are
considered highly compensated employees, and are exempt from overtime if they
satisfy a relaxed version of the duties test.
The new rule increases the salary
threshold for highly compensated
employees to about $134,000 per year.
This threshold will also be adjusted every
three years to equal the annual weekly
Who is subject to the new rules
Unlike some other laws that dont apply

to organizations with fewer than 50
employees, the overtime rules apply
to all organizations with at least two
employees that (1) have an annual dollar
volume of sales or business of at least
$500,000; or (2) are hospitals, businesses
providing medical or nursing care, schools,
preschools and colleges and government
agencies.
Individual employees also can be
covered if they are engaged in interstate
commerce (i.e. assembling goods for
sale or handling interstate transactions).
Nonprofits are also covered if they meet
these tests.
When the new rules go into effect,

employers will have a decision to make
regarding their employees who are no
longer exempt from overtime. Depending
on their employees, needs and budget,
businesses can choose among the
following options to comply with the new
rules:
1. increase salaries to keep certain
employees exempt;
2. convert employees to hourly and pay

overtime;
3. keep employees on salary but pay
overtime; or
4. shift duties and responsibilities to
reduce or eliminate overtime for newlyeligible workers.
ICCFA members may have employees
who are currently exempt under the old
rules, but will no longer be exempt when
the new rules go into effect.
For example, some employers may
exempt funeral directors, embalmers and
cemetery superintendents from overtime
based on the above mentioned white collar
exemptions. However, if these employees
are making less than $47,476 per year, as
of December, their duties, responsibilities
and education levels will no longer entitle
them to an exemption.
Employers who misclassify workers as
exempt risk an audit from the Department
of Labor or lawsuits filed by employees,
both of which can result in substantial
penalties.
Periodic self-audits are a good way
for employers to correct and avoid costly
classification mistakes. The upcoming
changes provide an opportunity to
re-examine how your employees are
classified, without the appearance that the
audit is in response to past missteps.
r
Investing for the future because forever is a long time

With more than 20 years experience in managing endowment care funds, well help ensure they withstand the
test of time long after the last plot has been purchased. Call for a complimentary review of your endowment
care investments.
Pat Severo, CIMA, AWM
Managing Director Financial Advisor
SB Wealth Strategies
9665 Wilshire Boulevard, 3rd Floor | Beverly Hills, CA 90212

Phone: (310) 205-7797 | Toll Free: (866) 657-8876
Fax: (310) 205-7727 | pat.severo@rbc.com
2016 RBC Wealth Management, a division of RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Member NYSE/FINRA/SIPC.
31
by Daniel M. Isard, MSFS

1.800.426.0165
danisard@f4sight.com
MANAGEMENT
ICCFA Magazine
author spotlight
Isard is president of
It might seem that steady sales should bring in a steady income,

but its not that simple when you run a cemetery. It all depends
on how you collect payment and whether you control costs.
The Foresight Companies

LLC, a Phoenix-based
business and management consulting firm specializing in mergers and acquisitions, valuations, accounting, financing and customer surveys.
He is the author of several books, and
the host of The Dan Isard Show.

http://funeralradio.com
MoRE FRoM tHIS AutHoR

Educational information, including
copies of this article, can be found at

www.f4sight.com
You can follow Isard on Twitter at

@f4sight and like his page on Facebook.
Editors note: The Cemetery Impossible
column is written by the staff of The
Foresight Companies. If you have a
question you want to be featured in this
column, please send it to danisard@
f4sight.com. Dan Isard or a member
of his staff will call you to get more
information and a recommendation will be
provided via this column, helping not only
you but also others who are facing similar
challenges.
32
ICCFA Magazine
Cemetery Impossible
What can you do when your cemeterys
sales are good but its cash flow is not?
Dear Cemetery Impossible,
I own a mature cemetery with 100 years of
history. We are about half sold out. We sell
nearly 100 interment graves in advance of
need a year and complete about 75 actual
interments.
However, I find that I just dont have any
cash flow. My salesman is driving a Mercedes and I have a Taurus. What am I doing
wrong?
Sincerely, Troubled in a Taurus
Dear Troubled,
Times have changed, but most operating
cemeteries have not adapted. Whether
you are operating a for-profit or nonprofit
operation, you need to generate a profit in
order to maintain your cemetery.
With your numbers, you have the chance
to be profitable. However, when you
describe the auto that you drive versus what
your salesman drives, I suspect that the
sales commission is out of whack.
Before I describe what the sales
commission should be, let us acknowledge
the obstacles. First, as a dealer in your own
inventory you are prohibited from filing
your taxes on the cash basis.
The 100 advance sales are a mix of those
purchased with payment made in full, some
paid with a percentage of cash down and
some with payment made via installments.
Dont be embarrassed by this. Most
well-operated cemeteries have a number of
installment sales. In the 1990s, one public
cemetery company had almost 76 percent of
its total revenue coming from installments.
This is a problem, but a manageable one.
The solution is to understand your costs of a
sale and make sure you recover them.
If we just analyze interment rights
we know that the costs break down
approximately thusly:
11-12 percent cost of goods sold
20 percent commissions
10 percent marketing and advertising
cost
24-26 percent income tax
For example, if you sell a grave space
for $1,000, the costs of that grave space add
up to about 65-68 percent, or $650-$680.
If you get half of the sale price ($500) as a
down payment, you are running negative
cash flow by 15-18 percent.
In the late 1990s, we saw Loewen
entrust their future to their cemetery
department, which dramatically increased
sales. However, Loewen was hemorrhaging
cash because they didnt understand the
revenue was taxed as if they received the
whole payment even though they collected
only a fraction of it.
In Loewens case, the commission paid
was a percentage of the face amount of the
contract. They paid 20 percent or more out,
when in many cases they only got 10-20
percent of the face amount down. History
has shown that formula does not work.
We cannot adjust the marketing and
advertising costs. We cannot adjust the tax,
at least not without being ready to spend
time in a federal penitentiary. The cost of
goods is set by the accountants.
The only variable, the only thing we can
adjust, is the commission. While I dont like
cutting commissions, I do like using them
to encourage the kind of behavior we need
to be profitable.
The behavior you want is payment in
full. The best way to get it is to reward
your sales team by adjusting commissions.
I like to adjust commissions two ways.
The first is to use the commission to
MANAGEMENT
reward the consumer behavior you want
the salesperson to obtain. So, if you can
afford that 20 percent commission, pay it.
But only pay it for contracts that are paid
in full.
When you have to produce an invoice
to collect installment payments, each of
those invoices has a cost. Based upon
the technology used and skills of your
accounting team, a bill can cost anywhere
from $10 to $25, which is not insignificant.
This covers the time it takes to produce
the invoice, complete the collection of each
payment and reconcile the account each
month. If you send out 1,000 invoices each
month, that is one persons full-time job.
There is no cost for sending out bills if
the account is paid in full.
For contracts that are not paid in full,
you need to adjust commissions according
to the term of the amount outstanding.
For example, with 50 percent down
and the balance due over the course of 12
months, you can probably afford to pay
17 percent commissiononly on the cash
collected, the down payment. You would
not pay this commission rate on the face
amount of the contract.
If we have someone paying 35 percent
down with the balance due over 60 months,
you could pay a 15 percent commission
again, only on the downpayment collected.
A contract with payments to be made over
a longer period could bring the commission
down to 12 percent.
As installment payments come in, you
would then pay commission on the amount
received to your salesperson.
If you want to pay a higher commission,
the salesperson should reduce some of
your costs. As shown previously, the cost
of advertising and marketing is about 10
percent.
So if a salesperson learns to establish
referred leads, I would increase their
commission rate by some or all of this cost.
You can afford it. Referred leads have a
much higher closing ratio.
By correcting your commission to equal
a percentage of the amount collected (and
when collected) versus the face amount of
the contract, and increasing the commission
for referred leads, you can reduce your
costs and increase your cash collected.
This one-two punch can improve your
cash flow so you are making as much or
more than the salesperson. Get ready to
r
trade in your Taurus.
33
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by Jeffrey J. Chomko, Esq.,

and Allison Beatty Esq.
ICCFA Magazine
author spotlight
Chomko, jjchomko@
mdwcg.com, is a shareholder in the Philadelphia

office of civil defense
litigation law firm Marshall Dennehey Warner
Coleman & Goggin. As a
member of the professional liability department, he focuses his practice on the
representation of professionals in a wide
variety of matters across many industries.
Beatty, AJBeatty@
mdwcg.com, is an associate with MDWCG, also in
the professional liability
department.
Chomko and Beatty
both come from families
involved in the cemetery
and funeral business.
www.marshalldennehey.com
36
ICCFA Magazine
MANAGEMENT/LEGAL
We live in a litigious society where anyone can file a lawsuit.

There are steps you can take to decrease your chances of being
sued over what happens at the funeral home or cemetery.
Protecting yourself against

professional liability lawsuits
hey say there are two certainties in

life: death and taxes. At some point,
everyone will die, and their loved ones
will require the services of a cemetery and/
or funeral professional, often during one of
the most emotionally difficult and vulnerable
times in their lives. The competency and
manner in which these services are delivered
is critical to avoiding potential professional
liability claims.
Prior to the 19th century, the process of
preparing a deceased persons body for burial
was a private family matter. In fact, there was
a time when embalming a family members
body often took place inside the deceaseds
home. This evolved as family members began
dying in hospitals, and a need developed
for paid professionals to assist with the care
of the deceased, giving rise to the funeral
industry.
Interestingly, it took until 2002 for every
state (except Colorado) to require a license
for funeral directors to perform their work.
Until then, there were multiple states in
which funeral directorsoften the people
responsible for performing some of the most
important pre-burial processes involving
dangerous chemicals, legal documents and
emotional individualswere not licensed or
significantly regulated.
Today, funeral and cemetery professionals
continue to be regulated differently, depending on the state in which they practice. In fact,
Colorado still does not have any licensing
requirements for either funeral directors or
embalmers.
The enforcement of such regulations
also varies widely among states. Thus, it is
imperative that professionals are educated on
their particular states requirements to remain
compliant and avoid regulatory issues and
potential lawsuits.
While it is important for professionals
to know their state-specific licensing and
regulatory requirements, it is even more
essential that they remain vigilant in their
practices to prevent potential civil liability.

As with any public service profession, a
career as a cemetery or funeral professional
comes with its risks and challenges. One of
those risks is the possibility of a lawsuit for
allegedly failing to perform or deliver ones
professional services properly, or to the level
of satisfaction a particular customer expects.
We live in a litigious society. Anyone
can file a lawsuit seeking damages caused
by anothers conduct. Being sued can be
overwhelming, especially since it can lead to
significant financial obligations (in terms of
a damage award and legal fees or costs) or
professional licensing problems.
Exercising diligence and complying with
industry best practices help to minimize the
possibility of such claims. Highlighted below
are some examples of claims brought against
cemetery and funeral professionals, along
with some tips to prevent them.
Claims under
consumer protection laws
Every state in the country has a consumer

protection law meant to shield consumers
from deceptive and unfair practices by
professionals. While these laws widely vary
between states, each consumer protection
laws basic premise is that unfair and
deceptive practices are unacceptable and can
create statutory liability.
Because they offer services and goods
to consumers, cemetery and funeral
professionals may be subject to liability under
these statutes. A finding of liability could
mean the potential for significant financial
exposure for professionals who are found
to have used questionable and deceptive
business practices. Indeed, many states
permit consumers to recover attorneys fees
incurred for bringing their claims, as well as
treble damages, which are primarily meant to
punish the wrongdoer.
For example, in Pennsylvania, the
consumer protection law under which a claim
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MANAGEMENT/LEGAL
could be alleged is the Unfair Trade Practices
and Consumer Protection Law (UTPCPL).
This law recognizes a private right of action
to consumers harmed by deceptive business
practices.
If a consumer successfully proves that a
professional has violated the UTPCPL, the
consumer could potentially recover attorneys
fees, actual losses and up to three times
the actual losses incurred, depending on
how reprehensible the alleged wrongdoers
conduct is determined to be.
In one such case, a father purchased a
casket for his son to be buried in with the
understanding that it was going to be made
entirely of bronze. (See Baynes v. George
Mason Funeral Home Inc., 2011 U.S. Dist.
LEXIS 59220 [W.D. Pa. June 2, 2011].)
While being stored in a temporary
mausoleum, the casket began to deteriorate,
rust and leak a horrendously unpleasant fluid.
Upon being informed of the failing casket, the
father learned that the casket was not made of
bronze, but instead had been constructed of a
low-grade steel.
The father sued the funeral director
under the UTPCPL, alleging that he had
intentionally misrepresented the quality of the
casket and, in fact, had sold him something
other than the agreed-upon product.
Ultimately, the court decided that the
funeral directors misrepresentations caused
the fathers losses and required the funeral
director to pay for a new bronze casket in
which to re-bury his deceased son. Additionally, because the funeral directors
conduct was found to be intentionally fraudulent, the court awarded the father treble
damages, permitting him to recover three
times his actual losses, resulting in an award
of $18,000.
Avoiding liability under the various
state consumer protection laws should be
an objective of all professionals. In order to
accomplish that goal, it is best to avoid any
business practices that may be deemed unfair
or deceptive or that could create confusion or
misunderstanding by the consumer.
Accurate recordkeeping of all sales
transactions, including disclosures made
to a consumer about the particular service
or product being sold, is an excellent way
to protect a business from unsubstantiated
consumer protection law claims.
This documentation also should include
appropriate disclosure language about the
products and a disclaimer that the products
were agreed to after various options were
38
ICCFA Magazine
discussed.
However, consumer protection laws are
not the only source of potential claims. Given
the nature of the end-of-life process, claims
for emotional distress are also a possibility.
Emotional distress claims
In addition to permitting recovery of actual

monetary losses, many states recognize a
next-of-kins right to recover for emotional
damages caused by anothers improper
treatment of their relatives deceased body.
(See Massaro v. Charles J. OShea Funeral
Home, Inc., 738 N.Y.S.2d 384 [App. Div.
2d Dept 2002]; Stephens v. Waits, 184 S.E.
781 [Ga. App. 1936]; Brownlee v. Pratt, 68
N.E.2d 798 [Ohio App. 1946]; Sanford v.
Ware, 60 S.E.2d 10 (Va. 1950); Weingast v.
State, 254 N.Y.S.2d 952 (1964); Lott v. State,
225 N.Y.S.2d 434 [1962]; Papieves v. Kelly,
263 A.2d 118 [Pa. 1970].)
While accidents happen, these claims
usually arise in situations where cemetery
or funeral professionals fail to take basic
precautions when handling a deceased
persons body.
For instance, in Pennsylvania, a cemetery
was sued for the emotional distress its
employees caused by failing to properly bury
and then relocate the body of their customers
mother. (Palmer v. White Chapel Gardens, 38
Pa. D. & C.3d 608 [Bucks Cnty. 1983])
After receiving instructions from the son
of the deceased to disinter his mothers body
to be reburied in a family grave plot, the
cemetery employees began searching for the
deceaseds body. According to the cemeterys
records, the deceaseds body was located in
section P-300. However, upon searching that
location, it was discovered that the records
were inaccurate.
The cemetery professionals continued
searching, digging up 160 square feet with a
backhoein the presence of the deceaseds
son. The haphazard nature of the search
and failure to maintain accurate records
allegedly caused the son to be left saddened,
depressed, angry and humiliated.
Ultimately, a jury found in favor of
the son, awarding him damages for the
emotional distress he sustained as a result of
his mothers body being lost and mishandled
by the cemetery. These cases have a builtin sympathy factor, and the potential for a
damage award cannot be underestimated.
In another case, the children of a
deceased woman brought a claim seeking
to recover for their mental and emotional
distress allegedly caused by a funeral homes

mistreatment of their mothers deceased
body. (Moffatt v. Baird Funeral Home Inc.,
69 Pa. D. & C.4th 532 [Mercer Cnty. 2004])
Specifically, the children claimed
that the funeral home professionals had
failed to properly embalm their mothers
body, causing severe burns, bruises and
discoloration all over her body. The children
also alleged that the funeral director refused
to move their mothers remains to a new
location, thereby intentionally withholding
her body without the right to do so.
Based on the childrens allegations, the
court permitted their claim for intentional
infliction of emotional distress to proceed,
concluding that, if the children could come
forward with evidence to support their claims
against the funeral home, they would be
entitled to compensation for the distress they
incurred.
Clearly, in the examples illustrated above,
the emotional distress sustained by the
customers was almost entirely preventable
through proper recordkeeping and employee
supervision by the cemetery and funeral
professionals.
Additionally, having a protocol in place
to ensure that a deceaseds family member is
not present for any potential exposure to such
haphazard treatment of their relatives body
is also a way to prevent a potential emotional
distress claim.
Why? Because almost every scenario in
which a cemetery or funeral professional can
be held liable for causing emotional injuries
to a customer requires the customer to be
present and view the mishandling of their
loved ones body.
Conclusion
Cemetery and funeral professionals are

subject to liability in the normal course and
scope of their employment, particularly since
their services are delivered to customers
during emotionally vulnerable times.
Best practices in risk management indicate
that accuracy in recordkeeping, adherence
to state regulatory laws, proper employee
training and conducting ones business with
honesty, integrity and professionalism are
keys to avoiding liabilities and exposures.
Purchasing professional liability insurance
and consulting with experienced legal
counsel are also effective ways to ensure
proper protocols are in place and to protect
ones business should a potential liabilitycausing situation arise.
r
by ICCFA Magazine columnist

Todd W. Van Beck, CFuE
vanbeck@
guptoncollege.edu;
toddvanbeck@
gmail.com
ICCFA Magazine
author spotlight
Van Beck is one
of the most soughtafter speakers and

educators in funeral
service.
He is the director of continuing education for John A. Gupton College, Nashville,
Tennessee.
www.guptoncollege.edu
Van Beck is dean of ICCFA Universitys
College of Funeral Home Management

and received the ICCFA Educational
Foundations first ever Lasting Impact
Award in 2014.
Like Todd Van Beck

on Facebook today!
MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

Van Becks book
Reverence for the Dead:

The Unavoidable Link,
addresses in detail the
ethical standards of caring for the dead and the
ethical consequences of
not doing so.
www.amazon.com
Van Becks new book
The Story of Cremation, walks the reader

through the history of
cremation, its historical
uses to its use today. It
concludes with a discussion of the downsides of
cremation.
www.amazon.com
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Which is worse: the funeral director or cemeterian who talks

too little or the one who talks too much? In truth, both are bad for the
profession and bad for families. The key to find the right balance.
The keys to service: The

sensitive balancing act
e dont think about this much,

but in a real sense the funeral or
cemetery experience, the funeral
or cemetery interview, is full of phases,
divisions and stages. This is important, for
without phases, divisions and stages, the
experience and the interview get stuck.
If forward movement in the overall funeral
or cemetery experience is absent, this usually
indicates that we are stuck, and when we
get stuck, this most often results in there
being painfully slow movement forward. It
becomes an exercise in exhaustion for both
the professional and the family. In the worst
case, it ends up being an abuse of our client
familys time.
What we do is critically important, but
for us to think the funeal and cemetery
experience is the only thing a bereaved
client has to do is an exaggeration of our
importance.
A word of clarification. When I write
about a professional getting stuck, I certainly
dont mean to say that we ought to be
rushingnot in the least. Also, I dont mean
to communicate that being stuck means we
are doing or saying nothing.
In fact, being stuck in the arrangement
conference/interview or in the general
death-care experience is usually not because
the funeral professional is not talkingit
is precisely the opposite case: the funeral
or cemetery professional is wasting the
familys time, talking way too much. This
case study should illustrate my point.
In the rest of this article I will refer
specifically to funeral directors (since that
is my experience), but what I say also
can be applied to those making cemetery
arrangements.
The case of the kind but

unbalanced funeral director
who talked way too much
Most readers know that I like funeral

40
ICCFA Magazine
directors. I have always liked funeral

directors, and it makes no difference who
they are or where they come from. I like
talking with them, I like working with them
and most of all, I like learning from them.
Early in my career I was blessed by being
mentored by some mighty fine funeral
directors, and these great ones all had one
stellar characteristic in common: they were
kind-hearted people.
Looking back, it is clear that most of
these great personalities werent great
businesspeoplethey didnt know a profit
and loss statement from a pipe organ. They
were better than that: they were great
funeral people.
Having a kind heart, in my humble
opinion, is the one of the major keys
of service in our great and beloved
profession. I have had this philosophical
opinion about the DNA of funeral service
for many years. All funeral service is in
the end local and is a matter of what is
in the funeral directors heart. Nothing,
absolutely nothing, that promotes
permanent good in our great profession
happens until something good happens in a
funeral directors heart.
Of course, as we will soon see, having a
good heart does not equate to having inner
balance.
Not too many years ago, I was involved
in a consulting project with a large funeral
home operation. The company was very old
and highly respected. The family was very
proud of their heritage (the firm opened in
1888), and this particular funeral family got
alongthey liked each other.
On the staff of this funeral home was one
particular gentlemen I liked the moment I
was introduced to him. He had a cherub-like
baby face and a great big welcoming smile,
he dressed immaculately, he exhibited good
taste all the time and he kept his shoes
brilliantly polished. He had been at this
funeral home for decades.
The staff uniformly liked him (now
there is a miracle), he was meticulous
on funerals and he was an outstanding
embalmer. He even told me that he still
mathematically figured out the HCHO
demand for each and every decedent he
was privileged to embalm.
However, for all his outstanding
characteristics, this funeral professional
regularly got stuck in making arrangements, and as a consequence he would
innocently offend many of the families he
was asked to serve.
Family satisfaction surveys routinely
came back giving this funeral director
negative comments that reflected his
unbalanced approach to his professional
responsibilities.
Here are a few of the comments I
personally read: Great guy, but WOW can
he talk! I was ready to shoot myself!
I thought we would be in and out in short
orderhell, Dad prearranged everything!
I know he was trying to help us, but please
tell him to talk less and help us more by
finishing instead of going on and on and
on!
The most brutal comment: I was ready
to blow my brains out! The most creative
comment: Listening to him talk was like
attending an endless insurance seminar.
You get the idea. This gentle man, this
kind-hearted man, was out of balance
because he was just talking too much. He
didnt have a mean bone in his body, but
his inability to guide the clients funeral
experience was stymied because he just
kept talking.
No matter how sincere he was in
his heart, the comments on the family

satisfaction surveys proved beyond a
shadow of a doubt that what he was
rambling on about was overdone, and that
at a certain point clients concluded their
time was being abused.
In the end, this kind-hearted funeral
director was just too set in his ways to
change. The owners of the funeral home
were too nice to reprimand him, out of
respect for his good points. So, in the end,
the funeral owners simply waited it out,
tolerating the negative comments, until this
really nice funeral director retired.
This is only one example of being stuck.
Out-of-balance attitudes and activities can
happen on funerals, cremation activities,
burials, receptionsany of the myriad of
activities which go on in funeral homes.
Almost every activity in a funeral home,
to be optimally effective, requires forward
movement in both time and space.
It seems many times in the process
of learning the inner balance involved
in helping people (which is the premier
mission of the funeral profession), the
pendulum swings in an exaggerated
movement from way too far on this side to
way too far on the other side.
A good part of emotional health is to
be found when we discover how to live in
the middle of the tensions created by the
opposites in our lives.
Not to sound impossibly inconsistent
in this article, but an example of this
exaggerated zigzag movement would be
the opposite of the funeral director who
gets stuck in talking too much: the funeral
director who runs through the experience
so quickly that its hard for a client family
to determine just where one phase of the

overall funeral experience ends and the
next one begins.
One quick conclusion we can make right
now is that, given what I have just shared,
its clear that being an effective funeral
professional is not easy. So what to do? I
dont have the complete answer, but here
are some humble thoughts.
The symmetry of balance

one of the keys of service to others
Balance then is our watchword. Not too

much, not too little. That, my friends, is a
mighty difficult assignment and an almost
impossible task, but we can try.
I would like to humbly suggest that
locating that elusive balance in life is more
difficult today than it has ever been before
in the long and impressive history of our
great profession. Why? For the simple
reason that things everywhere seem
to be so unbalanced, so unstable, so
confusing when a loved one dies.
I would like to make it clear that I am
not telling other funeral professionals how
they should do things or not do things; I
am not that insightful.
This work is devoted to exploring the
nuances, the tiny little aspects in the big
overall picture of the funeral experience
and the funeral interview. It is not a Howto Guide you can purchase for $19.95 on
Amazon or the Home Shopping Network,
and if you buy two, the second one is free,
and I will toss in a free lip brush and trocar
tip with your order if you call in the next
10 minutes.
I have concluded that almost all
funeral professionals are well versed in
41
This then, my friends, is indeed a sticky wicket that confronts our profession
in the 21st century. Bereaved clients dont want direction, but then they do
want direction. Bereaved clients dont want advice, but then they do want advice.
Bereaved clients dont like suggestions, but then they want suggestions.
the techniques of the funeral interview

and in implementing and overseeing
funeral rituals in their own respective
communities. Clearly the public likes
funeral directors.
However, is it not a good idea to once
in a while take time to review and think
about what we are doing? It seems a good
idea to me. Let us proceed.
As obvious as this might be on the
surface, I would suggest that one aspect of
bringing more balance in our professional
work is in the important initial stage of a
funeral ceremony or a funeral interview.
Start at the beginning.
While you and I might well know
why the clients are sitting there, in these
turbulent days this might not always be
the case. Because of this, I suggest that to
balance out the initial phase of the entire
funeral experience, the matter about which
the funeral professional and client family
are meeting should be stated.
This seems obvious, but I have
discovered that some clients are so
confused, so grieved and so distracted that
they dont know precisely why they are
with us, what they want, what to expect
or what to do. In this state of chaos many
clients end up changing their minds, then
changing them again, which represents no
balance at all.
We are the educated professionals who
need to show empathy with each bereaved
client. In other words, we need to think about
how we would feel if we had just lost our
child or spouse yesterday.
I know this sentiment has been expressed
this same way a thousand times, but I believe
it is one worth repeating, and repeating, and
repeating, for one solid reason: What would
the funeral service profession be without it?
Today funeral professionals dont have
to talk a great deal, but they do have to
listen and lead a great deal. Balance is
easily composed of what I call listening
leadership. Listening and leadership
go hand in hand, and this is not an easy
assignment.
Let us return to our talkative, kind-hearted
funeral professional. His family surveys were
negative because he was talking so much he
42
ICCFA Magazine
couldnt lead. He literally ran out of time,

and hence was unable to listen intently to the
clients innermost wishes and directions. He
flopped at offering his valued clients all the
options and alternatives available because he
spent an hour on vital statistics alone.
Vital statistics are critically important,
but are they the central core of the funeral
ceremony and interview experience?
The challenge of listening leadership in
helping others is that many people dont like
to be ledthey resent the notion of being
led. In other words, many people are very
attracted to the idea of being the master of
my own destiny and doing my own thing.
They feel they dont need any advice.
This contemporary attitude is a far
distance to what bereaved families used to be
like, when they basically followed the funeral
professionals guidance and leadership with
great devotion. Because of this change,
listening while leading is of the utmost
importance in our quest for balance in being
of service to others.
My personal experiences have taught me,
through the school of hard knocks, that these
independent thinkers who resist and resent
the notion of being led, these very same
people can easily put the funeral director in a
very vulnerable and awkward position.
The very people who say they dont want
our help or will take care of most of this on
our own will be the ones who are quick to
blame us when the fact that they dont know
what they are doing causes embarrassing
blunders.
So, my friends in funeral service, if we
dont step up to the plate and balance out this
confusion by offering people gentle guidance
and suggestions, by planting creative
suggestions in their minds that they would
otherwise never consider, the consequences
can well turn out unpleasant for us.
This then, my friends, is indeed a sticky
wicket that confronts our profession in the
21st century. Bereaved clients dont want
direction, but then they do want direction.
Bereaved clients dont want advice, but
then they do want advice. Bereaved clients
dont like suggestions, but then they want
suggestions.
Does this situation strike any of the
readers as being out of balance? We expect

the bereaved family to be out of balance,
but what if the funeral profession is out
of balance? What will happen? Possibly a
negative family satisfaction survey.
In order to further analyze inner balance,
it might be helpful to put the overall funeral
experience, both the ceremony and interview,
into a system of phases. It works like this:
The initial phase in the funeral interview
starts immediately after the death. This phase
can cover many issues, but generally centers
around the decisions that the client family
needs to address concerning the death, the
practical decisions concerning the legal
disposition of a decedent and ceremonial
creativity.
Likewise in the overall, big-picture funeral
ceremony, the initial phase centers on where
people need to be, at what time, who is doing
what, how long this will last and many other
possible activities.
These two beginning or initial phases in
both the actual funeral ceremony and funeral
interview call out for a concentrated balance
from the funeral professionals perspective in
order to generate calm and trust from people
who may not realize they dont know what
to do. This can include people who have
attended scores of funerals for other people,
perhaps even many funerals at your location.
It is clear that in this all-important initial
phase of a funeral ceremony and/or a funeral
interview, balance is created more by what
the funeral professional does, how they lead,
how they listen, than what they say.
In todays current culture of fast living,
keeping up with the Joneses, I have found
to my utter fascination that the funeral
interview and funeral ceremony may not
even deal with the traditional matters
of practical information-taking, with the
funeral professional asking primarily closed
questions and being mostly preoccupied with
instructional procedural aspects that were
given by the client family.
While taking and following family
instructions is still a valid and important
segment of the funeral ceremony and
interview, the balance in the funeral
professionals interactions with the
contemporary client has most definitely been
Sometimes we make complex what is, in reality very simple.

Being helpful to another person most often is as simple as getting a box of Kleenex,
sitting down with someone and listening to a story of loss and grief.
tilted away from the traditional interview.
Historically these procedural matters,
asking for and receiving instructions, were
so high on the agenda of most funeral
professionals, that I concluded many years
ago that funeral directors were in reality
more like high functioning organizational
specialists instead of mere order takers, an
observation which I still believe to be valid
today.
However, and this is a big however, the
modern customer seems more skeptical,
cynical, and distrusting. Because of
this, the historic procedure of receiving
and acting upon instructions is being
replaced. In todays environment, from
the consumers point of reference (or
lack thereof), a ton of other unknown
and unexpected points can easily arise
and need to be dealt with by the funeral
professional in both the funeral ceremony
and interview.
Case study: Vatican II
As many readers already know, the first

funeral home where I worked, the place
which gave me my start, was Heafey &
Heafey Mortuaries in Omaha, Nebraska.
At this particular time in history, Heafey
& Heafey was primarily built on a clientele
associated with the Roman Catholic Church.
It is not that Heafeys didnt handle Protestant
funerals, it was just that we didnt handle
many of them.
I well remember the first funeral Masses
I assisted on seemed to me set in stone. The

rituals were set, solid and secure. It seemed
also that they were generally the same in
every Catholic Church in Omaha.
One of my jobs on funerals was to make
sure that the three candles on each side of the
casket, up by the chancel rail, six total, were
in place right after the casket was in place and
the bereaved family had been seated by Mr.
Heafey.
I really enjoyed that responsibility, and
I took it very seriously. I was good at it. Of
course, looking back, it wasnt that difficult a
job to do!
I had never heard of Vatican II. I didnt
know what it was, where it was or who
was doing it, but in short order there was
unbalance in my life as a funeral assistant.
One sunny Omaha morning, we pulled the
procession up in front of a Catholic church
in North Omaha. Everything was running
smoothly, until I walked up to the front of the
sanctuary and, lo and behold, there were no
candles!
I froze and looked at Mr. Heafey,
who gave me the look which always
nonverbally communicated the message:
You do nothing, and get out of here. I got
that look from him hundreds of times.
Naturally, most readers will immediately
recognize that changes in working a Roman
Catholic funeral had been put into place. It
is risky to fiddle with ancient and historic
traditions. But when they do get fiddled with,
they never, ever, go back to where they were.
Lets keep that in mind as we continue.

What happened to me on that funeral in
North Omaha was the first of more surprises
that awaited me. I searched for a new
inner balance in performing funerals and
interacting with the people involved.
This happened almost half a century
ago, and I now can testify that the surprise I
encountered in North Omaha and the tense,
unbalanced feeling it created has never
abated. Given the complications of life in the
21st century, I dont see the surprises in our
beloved profession stopping anytime soon.
For this reason, consideration of maintaining
inner balance is critically important.
Exploring and identifying the inner
balance of the modern funeral professional
includes the mammoth assignment of keeping
up with what is going on in funeral service,
not just in the USA, but globally.
I suspect that many contemporary funeral
professionals, my friends and associates, do
what I do many timeswalk away from a
funeral ceremony or interview experience
just scratching our heads and silently asking
ourselves, Where in the world did they get
that idea from? In other words, in these
turbulent times in the funeral world, anything
can happen.
I hope I have made my case concerning
the importance of exploring inner balance.
To conclude this portion of the Keys to
Service series, I would like to offer some
common sense ideas concerning how to raise
the bar in our quest for inner balance. I am
43
Here is how the strangest secret in life works: If you think long enough about being
a humble person, that is what you will become. If you think long enough about listening better
to other people, you will become a better listener. If you think long enough about being
a passionate funeral professional, you will become a passionate funeral professional.
not a psychologist, or a very insightful human
being, but I am a true lover of this great
profession. I hope the reader will find these
thoughts helpful.
I know I sound like a parrot many times,
but its from a pure conviction that the ethical
goal behind all funeral experiences and
interviews involves funeral professionals
following the noble goal of simply being
helpful to another human being.
Sometimes we make complex what is, in
reality very simple. Being helpful to another
person most often is as simple as getting a
box of Kleenex, sitting down with someone
and listening to a story of loss and grief.
I didnt realize I hadnt connected with the

client family.
More than 40 years later, I look back with
true pity for the first 200 or so client families I
helped, for I now expect that at least half
of them are still seeking some type of psychological help. Others may look back over their
careers and claim perfection, but not I.
There are no guarantees in the funeral interview process, or in the funeral ceremony
experience, but I do know that as time passed,
and as I listened to veteran funeral directors,
my inner balance did indeed improve and
mature, and what a blessing that was in my
life.
Listening: A key to inner balance
Humility
Some readers may know that my hobby is

not fishing, nor woodworking, nor sports.
My hobby is the study of the lives of the
presidents of the United States; I never tire of
this study. People who find out about this odd
and unusual hobby almost always ask, Who
was your favorite president? Of course, I
immediately name President Lincoln, but
then I surprise most everyone by sharing my
second favorite: Calvin Coolidge.
Calvin Coolidge was nicknamed Silent
Cal, and with good reason. He never talked
much, but listened intently all the time.
President Coolidge had a quote he used
frequently and which I have often thought
I should have recalled many times in my
life: You will never be asked to repeat
something you havent said.
I have seen it work. If we concentrate on
listening intently and then absorbing what we
hear, honest communication is almost sure to
follow, and honest communication is a key to
finding the balance needed to move a funeral
interview and then a funeral ceremony
forward. The core of inner balance is this:
being honest with ourselves so that we may
be honest with our clients.
I well remember when I started doing my
own funeral interviews and ceremonies. Due
to inexperience and immaturity, I was most
often so concerned with just getting the basic
required details correct, trying to understand
all that was going on, getting through the
funeral interview and then, on top of all that,
getting through the funeral ceremony, that
44
ICCFA Magazine
Being out of balance in our careers for whatever reason or cause, in our early years
anyway, is most often predictable and understandable. It harkens back to the ancient
apprenticeship system, still alive and well
in many states as part of the final training of
funeral directors and embalmers.
If truth be told, we have all been
there. We have experienced the feeling of
being insecure, or wanting recognition or
desperately wanting to be liked and approved
of. Do you remember back to a day when
things that today mean nothing to you were
significant and important? I do. I remember
I desperately wanted to drive the hearse. I
wanted to take the big black car down Dodge
Street in Omaha and have everybody turn,
stare and look at ME! Hey! Look at ME!
Today when I have to drive a hearseand
the operative word is driveI spend most of
my time trying to get my bulk in and out of
the vehicle and cussing all the way, promising
to go on a diet as soon as I park the blasted
vehicle back in the garage.
Being stuck in immaturity, awkwardness,
an unbalanced state in which we are centered
on the I instead of the Thou, does not
benefit anyone. What is called for is a good
old-fashioned dose of humility. When I was
driving the Heafey & Heafey funeral coach
down Dodge Street, I didnt have a humble
cell in my body.
Humility almost always redirects the focus
from us to others, from the I to the Thou.
It almost always redirects our unbalanced
notions about life and others to more mature,

balanced notions about life and others. This
is a priceless asset in creating a meaningful
funeral interview and funeral ceremony.
Gentle humility, coming from a deep inner
conviction in our search for inner balance,
is a valuable skill in literally every aspect of
funeral service.
Humility is not easy, and it takes time to
develop. A good first step in this development
of inner balance is to realize, first and
foremost, with genuine humility, what we
say is generally much less important than
we think it is.
The wonderful aspect of this simple
first step is that it is free. You dont have to
pay a therapist to find it; you dont have to
purchase a myriad of self-help books and
tapes to get it; you dont have to attend one
seminar after anotherthough great work
can be accomplished via all those things. All
you have to do is think about that highlighted
statement and honestly decide that its correct.
Do we really think everything that comes
out of our mouths has to rank with the content
and thought of, say, the Gettysburg Address
or the I Have a Dream speech? Of course
it doesnt; that is utterly ridiculous. Abraham
Lincoln and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King
Jr. hold rare and special places in history.
But tell this to people who are unbalanced
because of out-of-control arrogance and they
might not be able to grasp this truth.
When I began my career in funeral
service, I was so unsure of myself that I
felt the need to prove how confident and
important I was. I was so insecure and yet
so enthusiastic at the same time that my own
eagerness to do everything, to be everything,
to all people across the globeor at least in
Omahagot in the way. I was without the
asset of humility for way too longand got
into a lot of trouble, to boot.
Looking back at my own beginning work
in funeral service, I know I made many
embarrassing and foolish mistakes. Even
today, I know of no easy remedy for this,
except patience and awareness of self by
constantly looking inward to locate our inner
balance, then to lock onto, nurture and feed
that balance.
Here is some good news about the
inner balance which humility brings: In
our great profession, we truly do have a
brutally honest assessor who will put us
in our places despite any hurt feelings or
dented pride. Even the most out-of-control,
egomaniac funeral director cannot in the
end prevail against this critic.
Who is this person or persons, you ask?
It is the family client(s). I have discovered
in my own life, and usually to my own deep
embarrassment, this unblemished truth: The
client family, one way or another, will
usually set us straight. This can sting, it can
be brutal, but in the end, its a blessing.
Like most of what Ive written about in
this series about the keys to service, achieving
and maintaining balance is more of an art
than a science. That makes it tough to teach.
And theres no guarantee that your search for
balance will be successful. But you must try.
more people in your life, you will help more

people in your life.
Again, this sounds simple, but most of the
greats in every line of endeavor have found
this strange secret to be true, and embracing
it makes all the difference in the world.
If you think about being a prideful, selfish
person, that is just what you will become.
The idea is that for each thought there will be
definite consequencesgood and bad.
The symmetry of attaining inner balance,
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Conclusion
So, what to do? Here are some thoughts in

closing.
As is the case with every art, the individual artist must discover her or her own
style and the tools that work best. That holds
true for the quest to find inner balance in the
funeral and cemetery profession.
Styles usually mature with experience,
discernment and reflection. Individual styles
are special things. Ive decided they have
gone into the making of some of the greatest
funeral professionals I have known.
Your quest is to develop your own inner
balance in order to change your style for the
better. I am not interested in you adopting
my style or vice versa. I am interested in
stimulating you to develop and reflect upon
your own style, you own inner balance, your
own humility, your own maturity.
Earl Nightingale, the popular radio
commentator, once presented a program
called The Strangest Secret. The programs
name caught my attention. He said the
strangest secret in life is this: We become
what we think about. Sounds simple,
doesnt it? Dont be deceived; it is not.
Here is how the strangest secret in life
works: If you think long enough about
being a humble person, that is what you will
become. If you think long enough about
listening better to other people, you will
become a better listener.
If you think long enough about being
a passionate funeral professional, you will
become a passionate funeral professional.
If you think long enough about how to help
of becoming listening leaders, of possessing

earned humility, of becoming what we think
about, calls for every person in our beloved
profession to explore.
All four characteristics are part of the
overall Keys of Service approach, which is
the hallmark of quality and dedicated service
to humanity. It has been at the forefront of
our professions longstanding quest to be of
service to people as they journey through the
r
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45
by Daryl Wallace
ICCFA Magazine author spotlight
daryl@1lincoln.com
817.850.9801
Wallace is president and CEO of

Lincoln Factoring
LLC, Fort Worth,
Texas, which has
specialized in funeral
and cemetery insurance assignments
since 2003.
www.lincfact.com
FINANCES
Accepting an insurance assignment might seem to be an easy

and safe way to ensure youll be paid for the funeral or cemetery
services you provide, but its not always so straightforward.
You need to know the potential pitfalls and common roadblocks
you can face when dealing with this funding alternative.
Funeral and cemetery

insurance assignments 101
ash flow is necessary for the

successful operation of your
organization. The importance of
cash flow in day-to-day operations cannot
be overstatedeven nonprofit cemeteries
need to be able to pay their employees and
suppliers. Therefore, you must make sure that
each and every funeral and/or burial is fully
paid for.
One the fastest and easiest way to do this,
other than cash payment, is through insurance
assignments.
However, is it really in your best
interest to have your staff handle this
huge responsibility of account receivable
management (processing and payment of
insurance assignment)? If such assignments
are processed incorrectly, mistakes can create
a negative cash flow for your funeral home
and/or cemetery.
Accepting insurance assignments to
pay for your services is an essential part
of sustaining cash flow, but most funeral
homes or insurance funding companies do
not properly verify the life insurance prior to
performing the funeral service.
The problem is that most funeral home
and cemetery employees are not properly
trained in the process of handing insurance
assignment verification.
Most insurance funding companies
include a strict recourse clause in their
insurance assignments that does not fully
protect your business interests. The result is
increase financial risk for you.
Not properly verifying the life insurance
policy poses significant risks. The life
insurance may be contestable for several
different reasons:
The person the family thinks is the
beneficiary may not be the actual beneficiary.
There may be loans or a lien against the
life insurance proceeds.
46
ICCFA Magazine
The life policy may have been

collaterally assigned.
The policy may have a defect, such
as the date of birth given in the application
not matching the actual date of birth of the
insured.
The life policy may be a decreasing term
or accidental death policy.
These are just a few of the details that,
if not properly verified, could compromise
what the insurance assignment will pay. So
it is critical to verify the life insurance policy
properly to ensure your services will be
properly and fully paid for.
Im going to address a few of the issues
you might run into when handling insurance
assignments, and dispel some common
misconceptions.
The insurance company might tell you
it cannot release any information due to
HIPAA regulations. This is incorrect. Life
insurance information is not protected health
information under the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act.
Under a related rule, covered entities
may disclose a decedents personal health
information to family members and others
involved in the decedents care before death,
and to a funeral director after death, in order
for the funeral director to perform his/her
duty.
The insurance company might demand
a death certificate before releasing
information. An insurance company does
have legal basis to require a certified copy of
the death certificate before it will release any
information concerning the decedent.
An insurance company does not have a
legal right to get a certified death certificate
with cause and manner of death prior to
paying benefits.
The deceaseds employer might balk
at releasing benefit information under
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47
by Rich Sells, CCE

sellsne@cox.net
E S S AY
ICCFA Magazine
author spotlight
Sells served as ICCFA
president in 1999-2000 and

is a member of the associations Board of Directors. He
has served on the ICCFA Governmental &
Public Affairs Steering Committee and as
vice president of the Southern Cemetery,
Cremation and Funeral Association.
He was a partner in a 19-cemetery
chain before going to work in 1978 for

Service Corporation International, where
he held a number of management positions until his retirement in 2005. He has
continued to contribute to the profession
through work with Johnson Consulting
Group since 2011.
Sells, a veteran, was a captain in the

Army Armor Corps. He received a degree
in accounting and business management
from Washington University in St. Louis,
Missouri.
Are you someone who thinks you get the job done
with no help from anyone else? Think again.
Who packs your parachutes?
harles Plumb was a US Navy jet

pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat
missions, his plane was destroyed
by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected
and parachuted into enemy hands.
He was captured and spent six years in a
communist Vietnamese prison. He survived
the ordeal and now lectures on lessons
learned from that experience.
One day, when Plumb and his wife were
sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table
came up and said, Youre Plumb! You flew
jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft
carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!
How in the world did you know that?
asked Plumb.
I packed your parachute, the man
replied.
Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude.
The man pumped his hand and said, I
guess it worked!
Plumb assured him, It sure did. If your
chute hadnt worked, I wouldnt be here
today.
Plumb couldnt sleep that night, thinking
about that man. Plumb says, I kept
wondering what he had looked like in a
Navy uniforma white hat, a bib in the
back and bell-bottom trousers. I wondered
how many times I might have seen him
and not even said, Good morning; how are
you? or anything, because, you see, I was a

fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.
Plumb thought of the many hours the
sailor had spent at a long wooden table in
the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving
the shrouds and folding the silks of each
chute, holding in his hands each time the
fate of somene he didnt know.
Now, Plumb asks his audience, Whos
packing your parachute?
Everyone has someone who provides
what they need to make it through the day.
He also points out that he needed many
kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot
down over enemy territory. He needed his
physical prachute, his mental parachute,
his emotional parachute and his spiritual
parachute.
He called on all these supports before
reaching safety.
Sometimes in the daily challenges
that life gives us, we miss what is really
important.
We may fail to say hello, please
or thank you, congratulate someone on
something wonderful that has happened
to them, give a compliment or just do
something nice for no reason.
As you go through this week, this month,
this year, recognize the people who pack
your parachutes.
r
FINANCES
a group life insurance plan. ERISA
(Employment Retirement Income Security
Act) requires disclosure.
Employers intrude upon an employees
protected interest when the employer
fails to provide the employees personal
information, with the employees original
contractual consent, to an individual, agent
or entity acting on behalf of the employee
or beneficiary.
The rights of a funeral home and/or
cemetery are derived from the beneficiary.
Therefore, an employer has a fiduciary duty
to the funeral home and/or cemetery to
disclose all material facts to you.
48
ICCFA Magazine
An employer cannot legally state that it

cant verify information and that a packet
will be sent to the beneficiary, which can
take four to eight weeks to be received.
Again, ERISA requires disclosure.
An employer or its third-party administrator has an immediate duty to disclose
information to you; if it refuses, that is a
violation of ERISA.
Research your state laws unfair
settlement practice laws. Most states have
laws that require insurance companies to
disclose information once a claim has been
reported. If insurance companies dont
disclose information, they have violated
these unfair settlement practice laws.

A high percentage of unpaid insurance
assignments are due to non-disclosure
of information by insurance companies
or erroneous verification by insurance
companies.
In either case, your cash flow ends up
being hurt, which is something few organizations can afford.
If you dont think that you or someone
on your staff has the time to become fully
knowledgeable about handling insurance
assignments, there are many experts who
do this for a living and could handle it for
r
you.
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49
Update
Send in news about your cemetery, funeral home, crematory or association to sloving@iccfa.com. If you publish a newsletter,
please email a copy to sloving@iccfa.com or mail to: Susan Loving, ICCFA, 107 Carpenter Drive, Suite 100, Sterling, VA 20164.
n CARRIAGE SERVICES, Houston,

Texas, has acquired Bradshaw-Carter
Memorial & Funeral Services and Cypress Fairbanks Funeral Home, both in
Houston. Bradshaw-Carter was founded
in 2003 and opened in March 2004 by Ron
Bradshaw in partnership with Tripp Carter.
Bradshaw was previously a highly respected interior decorator in New York City
renowned for recreating historic European
looks in five-star hotels and the grandest
upper eastside townhomes. BradshawCarter, which primarily serves the inner
loop oldest neighborhoods in Houston, has
been described and is known nationally as
the prettiest funeral home in America.
In 2008, Bradshaw and Carter acquired
Cypress-Fairbanks Funeral Home in the
booming and growing northwest Houston
market. The businesses now serve over 500
families annually.
The acquisition expands Carriages service in the Houston market, which includes
two Schmidt Funeral Home locations in
west Houston. Carriage operates 169 funeral homes in 27 states and 32 cemeteries
in 11 states.
n FLANNER AND BUCHANAN FUNERAL CENTERS, Indianapolis, Indiana,
has acquired Lavenia & Summers Home
for Funerals, also located in Indianapolis.
The late Lavenia B. Jacobs was the founder
of Lavenias Home for Funerals in 1987,
and the late Joseph W. Summers was the
founder of Summers Funeral Chapel
in 1962. The two firms merged in 2002
to form Lavenia & Summers Home for
Funerals. The acquisition returns Lavenia
& Summers to Hoosier ownership. Flanner and Buchanan plans upgrades to the
building, including new service amenities,
said owner Bruce Buchanan. Flanner and
Buchanan, which was founded in 1881, is a
family-owned business with 16 event facilities located in Indianapolis.
n The INTERNATIONAL ORDER OF
THE GOLDEN RULE, Austin, Texas,
recently installed its 2016-2017 Board
of Directors. The board includes President Peter Skip Urban, Anton B. Urban
Funeral Home, Ambler, Pennsylvania;
President-elect Charles A. Castiglia, Lakeside Memorial Funeral Home, Hamburg,
New York; and Secretary-Treasurer Adam
Miles Martin, Martin Funeral, Cremation
& Tribute Services, Mount Morris, Michi50
ICCFA Magazine
Hiers Baxley Funeral Services placed a memorial banner in Highland Memorial

Park on June 15. The banner, shown here just after it was erected, remained
on display throughout the remainder of the month of June to allow residents to
share their grief following the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting.
n As the community struggled to make sense of the events from the shooting in
Orlando, Florida, on June 12, HIERS-BAXLEY FUNERAL SERVICES, Ocala,
Florida, provided an outlet for residents to remember the victims. On June 15, a
tribute banner was erected in Highland Memorial Park on the citys near east side.
While the candlelight vigil held for the Orlando Pulse nightclub victims on June
15 at the Ocala downtown square was the most visible way our Ocala community
began the healing process, we at Hiers-Baxley wanted to offer an additional means
to remember the victims, said Justin Baxley of Hiers-Baxley.
People throughout Marion County were invited to stop by Highland Memorial
Park from dawn until dusk daily to share their thoughts and memories. The 4-by8-foot banner remained at the cemetery through June 30, at which time it was
presented to Trans Ocala.
We wanted everyone to be able to come, whenever their schedule allowed, to
pay their respects and share their grief at this difficult time, said Hiers-Baxley
Community Outreach Manager Barbara Carbaugh. Our hope is that by creating this
memorial we helped our community begin the healing process.
Hiers-Baxley has served central Florida for 131 years.
r
gan. Returning to the boad for additional
two-year terms are John Vincent Scalia,
John Vincent Scalia Home for Funerals in
Staten Island, New York, and Tom Hemmerle, Barnett-Strother Funeral Home,
Madisonville, Kentucky. Richard OHara,
McAvoy OHara Co.-Evergreen Mortuary,
San Francisco, California, returns to the
board for the second year of a two-year
term. Evan Strong, Evan J. Strong Funeral
Services, Calgary, Alberta, joins the board
for a one-year term.
The ORG also presented its annual
Awards of Excellence Scholarships. Walter
Reghi Jr., Worsham College of Mortuary

Science, received a $3,500 scholarship. Candace Rivera, Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science, received a $2,000 scholarship.
n The SOUTHERN CEMETERY,
CREMATION AND FUNERAL ASSOCIATION has elected new leadership for
2016-2017. The Executive Committee is
comprised of President Kyle Nikola, Savannah
Family of Cemeteries, Savannah, Georgia;
President-elect Bob Case, Holy Hill Memorial
Park, Thomasville, North Carolina; 1st Vice
President Buddy Ewing, Carriage Services,
UPDATE
n FOREST LAWN MUSEUM,
Glendale, California, has named
Ana Pescador as director. She most
recently served as execustive director
of the Latina Museum of History,
Art and Culture in Los Angeles,
where she spent six years overseeing
exhibitions and educational programs, forging community partnerships and managing the institutions
collection of more than 2,000 pieces
of Latino art.
At Forest Lawn, she will be
responsible for building and conserving the institutions vast art
collection and organizating ongoing, temporary exhibitions for the
64-year-old museum. She will also
coodinate exhibitions and education programs at six Forest Lawn
locations across Los Angeles, Orange
and Riverside counties.
Forest Lawn Museum boasts an
extensive and eclectic collection of
American and European artwork, including dozens of finely crafted statAna Pescador, new director of Forest Lawn
ues and one the finest collection of
Western bronzes in North America; Museum.
spectacular medieval stained glass
a Disney Legend, on view through Januwindows dating to the 13th century;
ary 1, 2017.
William Bouguereaus painting Song of
A career retrospective and centenAngels, Fletcher G. Ransoms painting
Lincoln at Gettysburg and much more. nial celebration for the artist who gave
Sleeping Beauty its magical and moody
Pescador joins the museum during the
exhibition Eyvind EarleAn Exhibit of aesthetic, Eyvind Earle features oil paintMetairie, Louisiana; 2nd Vice President John
Gouch Jr., Gethsemane Cemetery, Charlotte,
North Carolina; Treasurer Bill Gregory, Family Legacy, Nashville, Tennessee; and Secretary
Justin Hollingsworth, Saber Management,
Kokomo, Indiana.
Members of the Board of Directors
are Dewey Akers, Saber Management,
Kokomo, Indiana; Lauren Blevins, Polk
Memorial Gardens, Columbia, Tennessee; Spencer Hines, Service Corporation
International, Pensacola, Florida; Tamala
Randolph, StoneMor Partners, Greensboro,
North Carolina; Cheryl Reed, Historic Hollywood Cemetery, Houston, Texas; Linda
Mayle, StoneMor Partners, Mount Clare,
West Virginia; Wini Hemphill, Southview
Cemetery Association, Atlanta, Georgia;
Buddy Noojin Jr., SLG Group Inc., Mobile,
Alabama; Miles Penn, Lexington Cemetery
Co., Lexington, Kentucky; Tony Peter52
ICCFA Magazine
At the Southern Cemetery, Cremation

and Funeral Association convention,
from left, Nancy Lohman, CCFE, a past
president of the SCCFA and the ICCFA;
ICCFA President Mike Uselton, CCFE,
a past SCCFA president; and SCCFA
2015-2016 President Linda Cotton.
ings, watercolors, drawings and

sketches, many of which are being
displayed publicly for the first time.
Ana Pescador brings to Forest
Lawn a depth of fine art experience
and goals in line with our own. She
has spent almost three decades finding ways to enrich, inspire, educate
and connect with communities
across Southern California through
art, said Drabing. Given her successes, I am confident she will lead
the Forest Lawn Museum
to a bright future. Pescador, after
studying Fine Arts at California
State University, Los Angeles, earned
a fellowship award in Museum Studies from the Smithsonian Latino
Center, and later went on to serve
as a community and public affairs
consular officer with the consulate
general of Mexico in Los Angeles.
During her tenure with the consulate, she organized special projects
as part of the Sister Cities of Los
Angeles program.
She spent five years as a museum
management consultant for the U.S.
State Departments U.S. Embassies Diplomacy in Action Program,
serving as an advisor for Chiles National Bureau of Museums, Libraries and
Archives and as a U.S. representative for
the 2014 International Art Biennale in La
Paz, Bolivia.
r
son, Service Corporation International,
Roanoke, Virginia; and Tim Rodgers,
Service Corporation International, Pelham,
Alabama.
Past president representatives are Jack
Frost II, Lincoln Cemetery Group, Atlanta,
Georgia; Larry Chedotal Jr., Natchez Trace
Funeral Home & Cemetery, Madison, Mississippi; and Rob Ysidron Jr., Service Corporation International. Supplier representatives
are David Broel, Flowers for Cemeteries,
Marietta, Georgia; and Paula Kirchhofer,
Coldspring, Cold Spring, Minnesota.
Also the SCCFA office has moved. It
is now located at 69057 Taverny Court,
Madisonville, LA 70447. The new telephone number is 985.206.5606; the new fax
number is 985.206.5607. The associations
email address (sccfa@bellsouth.net) and
website address (www.sccfa.info) remain the
same.
Neeeedd a Loan?
N
SBA, Real Estate and Conventional loans available to funeral

businesses considering refinancing, acquisitions and expansion.
The guys at JCG were
invaluable in getting our our
loan package secured in
latest acquisition! Theirl
knowledge of the funera ul
industry was most helpf .
when talking with lenders
Tom and Jake and their g
staff were key in assistin
us grow our business
through acquisition!
It really does help having
support in presenting to
lenders in this financial G
climate. The team at JC
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Quickest industry turnaround time due to funeral home
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Contact Jake Johnson at 888-250-7747 or email to

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rvi
Allnutt Funeral Se
888.250.7747 | www.JohnsonConsulting.com
Mergers & Acquisitions Valuations Accounting Management Services Financing Customer Surveys
2014 MKJ Marketing
Visit our website today & sign up for our free newsletter.
UPDATE
Above left, the winning Pro Wannabees team, Chris Trainor, Mike Webb, Mike DiBease, John Parlapiano and Rodney Molitor.
Above right, winners of the Average Joes, Danny Kennedy, Bruce Kutsche, Richard Hartmann, Mike Fischer and Jon Geren.
n The NATIONAL MUSEUM OF

FUNERAL HISTORY, Houston, Texas,
hosted 375 golfers during the Museums
22nd Annual Charity Golf Classic held
recently at the Kingwood Country Club,
Kingwood, Texas.The annual tournament
raised funds to support the museum and
its mission to enlighten visitors of one of
mans oldest professions and cultural rituals
and celebrate the rich history of funeral
service.
The following winning teams were
given awards in flights:
1. Pro Wannabees: Mike DiBease,
Rodney Molitor, John Parlapiano, Chris
Trainor and Mike Webb
2. Average Joes: Mike Fischer, Jon
Geren, Richard Hartmann, Danny
Kennedy and Bruce Kutsche
3. Enjoyin The Day: Spencer Bitton,
Bruce Goddard, Dennis Nato, Robbie Pape
and W. Pixley
Museum President Genevieve Keeney
took a moment during the awards ceremony to acknowledge the members of
the golf committee. The event wrapped up
with the announcement of the date for the
2017 National Museum of Funeral History
Annual Charity Golf Classic on May 22,
2017. Online registration will open January
1, 2017. For more information on the
Museums Charity Golf Classic, visit
www.nmfh.org.
n CONGRESSIONAL CEMETERY,
Washington, D.C., was the site of an
earthquake simulation as part of a course
teaching people to safeguard objects of
cultural importance in times of catastropher The Smithsonian Institution and the
International Centre for the Conservation
54
ICCFA Magazine
and Restoration of Monuments host the annual course, First Aid to Cultural Heritage
in Times of Crisis. It is common to see
first aid crews on the scene helping injured
people, but if a bomb goes off at a historic
site, who makes sure that objects such as
the Elgin Marbles or a mosaic in a 5th
century shrine are secured? This is the first
year the course was offered in the United
States. The course covers both natural and
man-made catastrophies.
During the earthquake simulation at the
cemetery, attendees assessed learned to
assess the damage, prioritize their findings
and seek to stabilize the most at-risk objects affected by this staged disaster. This
type of disaster simulation will help the
attendees to be prepared for events such as
the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti
and the 2015 earthquake that wreaked
havoc in Nepal.
day of the exhibit, held in recognition of

the cemeterys 175th anniversary. The show
was a judged event, open to the public.
Artists were required to focus on the some
aspect of the cemetery, such as its history,
monuments or landscape.
The first place entry, Lowell Garden
Cemetery, an oil painting by Mary Rose
OConnell, now hangs in the cemeterys
administration building. The artist received
a cash award of $1,000. Second prize of
$500 was awarded to Jeremy Minsk, for
his photograph, Mourners at the Grave,
and the third prize of $250 was awarded to
Alice Phalan for an acryllic piece, Lowell
Cemetery Longview.
r
n The Talk of a Lifetime campaign

of the FUNERAL AND MEMORIAL
INFORMATION COUNCIL, Brookfield,
Wisconsin, recently received a gold award
in the Hermes Creative Awards competition. Hermes Creative Awards is administered and judged by the Association of
Marketing and Communication Professionals. The award was given to FAMIC
and Springboard Brand & Creative Strategy
for the national public awareness campaign aimed at motivating families to have
conversations about life and what matters
most to them.
n LOWELL CEMETERY, Lowell, Massachusetts, recently held an art exhibit,
Monuments, Memorials & Memories:
Images of Lowell Cemetery. A walking
tour of the cemetery was provided on the
Lowell Garden Cemetery, a painting

awarded first prize in Lowell Cemeterys
juried art show, now hangs in the cemeterys administration building.
Its true that preneed insurance is a product that we offer. But what we provide to our
customers is something more important. The comfort of knowing that when they need us, well
be there. The appreciation that when we give them our word, we keep it. The respect they
deser e for elping guide families t roug t eir most dif cult ours.
at s w y we re ere.
Of course, ours is a business of providing plans and funding policies. But at its heart, its
a business of people serving people.
Its not just something we say but something we try to live every day.
National Guardian Life Insurance Company 888.239.7047 www.nglic.com

National Guardian Life Insurance Company is not af liated wit
e Guardian Life Insurance Company of merica a. .a.
e Guardian or Guardian Life.
N d 0 3
UPDATE
The Professional Car Society is celebrating its 40th anniversary at this years International Meet, August 15-20, in Gettysburg,
Pennsylvania. Above left, the first ever national meet in 1977 in Cincinnati. Top right, a 1966 Superior Pontiac Consort owned
by Bill and Karen Write of Ormond Beach, Florida. Above right, a 1936 Ford by Siebert. Complete information and a registration form are available at www.TheProfessionalCarSociety.org.
VA cemetery saving water, electricity, energy

T
he 1,000-acre Calverton National
(Veterans) Cemetery, Calverton, New
York, the Department of Veterans Affairs,
National Cemetery Administrations
largest cemetery, has implemented many
sustainability measures over the past several
years and been recognized with a VA Green
Routine Award.
Calverton performs more than 35 burials
per day. It is also the National Cemetery
Administrations largest user of electricity
(1 million kilowatts/year) and irrigation water
(1 billion gallons).
The cemetery began its sustainability
work in 2009 with installation of the National
Cemetery Administrations first large
photovoltaic system. Recent improvements:
seven small photovoltaic systems at
committal service structures
Room occupancy sensors
LED, compact and high efficiency linear
florescent bulbs
password-protected programmable
thermostats
eight 75-horsepower high efficiency
irrigation pumps
off-peak-only timers on golf cart
chargers and diesel engine heaters
weather-based irrigation system
computer controllers
upgraded maintenance for in-house
annual cleaning and tuning of fuel oil
furnaces
56
ICCFA Magazine
monthly inspection and cleaning of

photovoltaic systems.
coordination with the New York State
Energy Research and Development Agency
and the local energy utility to perform energy
audits on their 39 buildings.
keeps the panels operating at peak efficiency.

Recent inspection of fuse connection on
the large photovoltaic system showed a 50
percent reduction due to corrosion from the
salt air environment. Cleaning resulted in a 50
percent increase in energy output produced.
Photovoltaic systems
Energy conservation
The cost of running electric power to the

committal shelters was estimated at over
$125,000. Small roof-mounted photovoltaic
systems were designed and installed by
cemetery staff at the committal shelters for
approximately $200 each, or $1,400 for all.
This also prevented disruption to committal
services, damage to tree roots, landscaping
and burial areas during trenching and relandscaping. Payback time was less than one
month.
The 90-kilowatt photovoltaic system
installed in 2009 was the first large
photovoltaic system installed at a national
veterans cemetery. It was used as the model
for future systems, now totaling almost
one megawatt of generation, generating 20
percent of the energy use at national veterans
cemeteries.
Maintaining photovoltaic systems is
important. Dirty panels can reduce energy
generated by up to 25 percet. Electrical
problems can also reduce generation by 50
percent or more.
Calverton inspects its panels monthly and
Off-peak electrical timers schedule golf cart

charging and diesel engine block heating only
during off-peak times, not on weekends and
only as much as needed. Payback time was
four months.
Before replacement, irrigation pumps used
approximately 500,000 kilowatts per year,
almost half of the cemeterys electrical usage.
Afterward, it was reduced to an estimated
375,000 kilowatts, a 25 percent reduction.
Payback time is less than four years.
Password-protected thermostats prevent
personnel from changing heating and cooling
set points, which could increase energy use.
This resulted in a 25 percent decrease in
energy use.
Occupancy sensors, as well as LED and
compact florescent bulbs were installed in
all applicable locations. Additional high
efficiency lighting is being evaluated for work
bays. Lighting energy use was decreased by
25 percent.
Oil heat
Cemetery staff clean and adjust fuel oil

to page 60
EDUCAT
A ED SELECTION PROCESS
AT
empowers families and
improves your
OBC sales mix
ESP
Shows your complete selection of Wilbert

vaults with retail prices
Provides concise education about burial
vaults and personalization options
Families see their loved ones photo on the
personalization chosen for the vault cover
Allows families to create a custom
color combination
Watch the video

on the game-changing
power of ESP
wilbert.com/esp
Supply Line
n AMPLIVOX, Northbrook, Illinois, has
introduced an Americans With Disabilities Act-compliant lecturn. The lecturn
includes an electric lift to change the height
for seated or standing presenters
and has an extra-wide rear entry
to accommodate wheelchairs.
The lecturn moves on four industrial
locking casters and can be customized with a task light, digital
clock, power outlet, cable port
or work surface cutouts.
www.ampli.com
Amplivoxs ADA-compliant
lecturn.
Howard Millers new Chadsford II display cabinet, which has a retro look.
READERS: To find the products and services you need online, go to www.iccfa.com
and select directory to find:
Supply Link Search
Engine, the fastest way
to find the products and
services you need at your
funeral home, cemetery or
crematory.
SUPPLIERS: Send your press releases
about your new products and services,
and about awards, personnel changes and
other news to sloving@iccfa.com
for inclusion in Supply Line. Large files that
will not go through the ICCFA server can be
sent to slovingiccfa@yahoo.com.
58
ICCFA Magazine
n HOWARD MILLER CO.,

Zeeland, Michigan, has added a
new collection of display cabinets.
The Chadsford II offers an aged, retro look
reminiscent of 1900s American architecture. It features hinged front doors with an
iron-finished gun-barrel door latch recalling
turn-of-the-century iron work. Glass shelves
framed in wood allow the incandescent
lighting to filter down through the 82-inchtall cabinet.
The corbels atop fluted pilasters on the
cabinet doors offer elegant details evoking a simpler time. A plinth base and flat
pediment top add character and balance to
the overall motif. Similar models crafted
of different woods (darker and lighter) also
show distressing so to capture the look of
reclaimed wood.
616.772.9131; www.howardmiller.com
n NORWALK VAULT/KRYPROTEK,
Bridgeport, Connecticut, has hired Angelo
Frazetta. Frazetta has been in the funeral
industry for more than 30 years, with his
most recent position being sales representative for Wilbert Funeral Services Pierce
Chemical. He previously worked for Aurora
Casket Co. He began his career as a firstgeneration funeral director, working at
independently-owned funeral homes, and
remains a licensed funeral director in Pennsylvania. Frazetta is a graduate of the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science and
also holds a bachelors degree in psychology
from the University of Pittsburgh.
Norwalk Vault also has partnered
with Pierce Chemical. Pierce products
include embalming and accessory chemicals, cosmetics, tables, aspirator machines,
water control units, instruments, safety
equipment and personal protection products. Chapel supplies are also available
through the Pierce group, including casket
pedestals, church trucks, signs, cards, flag
cases and many other items.

www.norwalkvault.com; www.kryprotek.com
n JOHNSON CONSULTING, Scottsdale, Arizona,
has named Bob Ekins vice
president for marketing and
business development. He
has more than 20 years of
experience in funeral service
sales and marketing. He preEkins
viously worked for Batesville
Casket, Forethought (now Global Atlantic)
and Trust 100, working with funeral homes
across the country. 1.888.250.7747;
info@johnsonconsulting.com;
www.johnsonconsulting.com
n GRAYSTONE ASSOCIATES, Houston, Texas, has
hired Kyle West as senior
trainer. West has worked with
funeral home and cemetery
operations in various roles. He
has worked in and managed
large organizations in metWest
ropolitan areas , small-town
funeral homes and several combo operations.
His 20 years of experience includes being a
local manager, general manager, area general
manager and market growth manager, most
recently in the Southern California area. He
graduated from Kansas City Community
College with an associates degree in mortuary science and is a licensed funeral director
in Texas, California, Nevada and Kansas, and
a licensed embalmer in Texas, Nevada and
Kansas. www.graystoneassociates.com
n BAILEY & BAILEY, Gig Harbor, Washington, has hired Alexa Baerga-Nunez for
its engraving team. She has experience with
a number of art media. 1.877.995.8767;
service@baileyandbailey.com;
www.BaileyandBailey.com
n HEAVENADDRESS, Sydney, Australia, has named Graham Boyd to its board.
Boyd is CEO of Southern Metropolitan
Cemeteries Trust, New South Wales, Australia. www.heavenaddress.com
n TIMELESS COLUMBARIA, Pella,
Iowa, has launched a new website and
columbarium planner. The new Timeless
Columbaria website provides information
about the company and leadership team,
and includes product and process details,
along with other information designed to
be helpful to users and customers. The new
website features Timeless Columbarias
If youre a funeral industry supplier but not an IMSA member, you should
know what our members are getting that youre not: the best booth pricing
at the major tradeshows, hours of free one-on-one consultation from top
industry experts, business-boosting webinars, networking with other IMSA
members, and so much more. And the kicker is, our members pay only
$175 a year for the privilege. Is that unfair? It is, unless you join IMSA
too. Dont lose the upper hand. Join now at www.IMSA-Online.
S U P P LY L I N E
niche cover design across a range of various
styles, including indoor or outdoor, free
standing or cabinet, straight, curved and
other shapes and styles using a 3D modeling
and laser-guided fabrication process.
Additionally, the new website offers an
in-depth columbarium planner for users
to provide basic project details and upload
project specifications. The company has
also created a sample columbarium spec
sheet to provide to architects and designers
as an initial guide to get started.
641.621.0011; www.timelesscolumbaria.com
Timeless Columbariums online columbarium planner.
n CHURCH & CHAPEL METAL ARTS,

Chicago, Illinois, has announced a partnership with Howard Miller, which has manufactured casegoods since 1926. The companys
products include grandfather clocks, memorial urns and display cabinets. Howard Millers
line of products complement Church &
Chapels, which include such items as lecterns,
kneelers and signage, said Church & Chapel
Vice President Frank Taddeo. Howard Millers
products are also made in the United States.
1.800.992.1234; info@church-chapel.com;
www.church-chapel.com
n THE FORESIGHT COMPANIES, Phoenix, Arizona, will hold its Funeral Service
Financial Boot Camp Seminar September
20-23, 2016. The three-day working seminar
will cover finance/accounting, pricing and
packages, merchandising, marketing, HR,
surveys and preneed sales. Seminar presenters
will be Dan Isard, MSFS, company president;
HR specialist Stephanie Ramsey; and Jeff Harbeson, director of marketing. 1.800.426.0165;
danisard@f4sight.com; www.f4sight.com
n TWO HEARTS PET LOSS CENTER,
Greenwood, Indiana, is offering a Pet Loss
& Grief Companioning Certification class,
August 23-25, 2016, at the Hilton Chicago/
Oak Brook Hill Resort Center, Oak Brook, Illinois. The course will offer attendees 15 hours
of RACE credits.
www.TwoHeartsPetLossCenter.com
One of the cabinets from Howard Miller

now being offered by Church & Chapel
Metal Arts.
The Abbey Press website.
n ABBEY PRESS GIFTS, St. Meinrad,

Indiana, has been launched by the Saint
Meinrad Archabbey, replacing its gift shop.
The shops focus is now on its in-house line
of Christian products created, designed and
produced by and exclusively for Abbey Press.
1.800.778.1152; www.abbeypressgifts.com r
UPDATE
from page 56
furnaces annually to optimize efficiency.
Calverton generates hundreds of gallons
of waste oil per year from equipment
maintenance. The proposed new waste oil
burner will eliminate the purchase of fuel oil
for heating the main shop area, and serve as
a pilot project for other large VA cemeteries.
Payback will be three years.
60
ICCFA Magazine
Water conservation
Computer irrigation controllers schedule

irrigation only in areas that require water
based on in-ground soil moisture and do
not allow irrigation when it is raining.
It also schedules irrigation pumps
to turn on separately, not all at once, to
reduce peak energy demands. Payback
time is two years.
The National Cemetery Administration

is working to implement the successes
shown in the Calverton Energy Conservation Program at other similar national
veterans cemeteries. These concepts could
be used at many other VA facilities, as well
as any other business of a similar size and
r
operations.
I C C FA N E W S
Competitive advantage, talent management & customer

engagement: 2016 ICCFA Fall Management Conference
wners, executives and managers have many things they must pay attention
to during their daily business. But what about things like managing their
employees? Evolving to engage with ever-changing customers?
These topics and others will be discussed at length during the ICCFA Fall
Management Conference, October 5-7, 2016, at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort in
The conference starts off with a workshop by competitive advantage expert
and author Jaynie L. Smith called, Think You Know Your #1
Competitive Advantage? Think Again! Smith is the CEO of Smart
Advantage Inc. and has spent 24 years of her career as a corporate
consultant specializing in helping businesses define and communicate
their competitive advantages to differentiate themselves from their
competition.
Based on her best-selling business book, Creating Competitive
Advantage, Smiths presentation enthusiastically conveys what a
Smith
competitive advantage is (and more importantly, is not) and what
prevents businesses from identifying their own, along with the profits
that are forfeited when they fail to do so. She provides the framework for uncovering
and touting your own competitive advantages to measurably increase your companys
customer retention and sales close rates.
The workshop is followed by Close the Skills Gap: Innovative
Talent Management Solutions for a Changing Workforce, with
David DeLong. DeLong is a workforce expert and author who has helped
leaders build a smarter workforce for almost two decades.
Top executives know that recruiting, developing and retaining highperforming millennials and future leaders is now their top priority and their
biggest challenge. This talk will offer practical solutions for evaluating
talent-related risks, identifying the seven talent problems that kill profits
DeLong
and accelerating knowledge transfer in the multigenerational workplace.
As is traditional, Friday morning will be kicked off by the
Government & Legal Breakfast. Irwin Shipper, CCE, ICCFA Government & Legal
Affairs Committee chairman, and Robert Fells Esq., ICCFA executive director and
general counsel, will be joined by specialists in various fields of law and regulation. This
event serves to deliver you important news you can use on taxes, labor
law and litigation that can affect your business.
On Friday, Chip Bell will present his talk, Wired and Dangerous:
How Your Customers Have Changed and What to Do About It.
This powerful, high-energy talk draws on Dr. Bells deep experience
consulting with many the elite service-providing companies, plus his
cutting-edge customer research.
He will explain how your customers have been forever changed by a
perfect storm: the convergence of anxiety created by a resilient and tough Bell
recession, frustration fostered by too much high-tech service without
high touch and the power of being able to voice displeasure instantly to
thousands via social media.
According to Bell, organizations that recognize the emerging customer revolution
and adjust to this new normal customer will thrive; those that continue to use the tired
and true methods of the past will fail. Todays customers are picky (demanding value),
fickle (quicker to leave), vocal (assertively telling all), and vain (expecting personalized
service). Customer expectations are 33 percent higher this year over last year. And, since
word of mouse (social media) today has five times the impact of word of mouth, it takes
rethinking strategies and tactics to select ones that change todays customer as king
into tomorrows customer as partner. It requires insuring frontline employees have the
authority and capacity to effectively serve in a multi-channel environment.
to page 62
THANK YOU,
FALL MANAGEMENT
CONFERENCE
CORPORATE PARTNERS
Buchanan Group Services
LLC
Cave Hill Cemetery
ClearPoint Federal
Cypress Lawn
Forest Lawn Memorial - Park
& Mortuaries
Gibraltar Remembrance
Service
Global Atlantic Financial
Group
Guerra & Gutierrez
Mortuaries
Homesteaders Life
Inglewood Park Cemetery
Johnson Consulting
Los Parques
Matthews International Corp.
NOMIS Publications
Regions Bank
Service Corporation
International
Spring Grove Cemeteries &
Arboretum
StoneMor Partners LP
The Signature Group
The Tribute Companies Inc.
Great sponsorship opportunities
still available! Contact Kelly
Spann at kspann@iccfa.com or
1.800.645.7700.
q
61
I C C FA N E W S
from page 61
Gary Freytag, CCFE, will finish off the
conference with his presentation, Leadership
Through Crisis Management. Often lifes
most important lessons are learned during our
darkest of days. This workshop will immerse you
into a leadership crisis taken from real life events
at Spring Grove Cemetery in 2013 and 2014. As
Freytag
Spring Groves surrogate CEO, participants will
try to navigate a minefield of human resource, legal, media, PR
and operational challenges. Can you resolve the issues without
lasting damage to your reputation, your customers and your
organization as a whole?
Apart from sessions aimed at improving your business acumen
and your business success, there are several events offering
numerous opportunities to catch up with business contacts and
friends, or make new ones. Receptions will be held on Wednesday
and Thursday evenings featuring food, drink, entertainment and
plenty of time to interact with fellow attendees.
The Fall Management Golf Tournament is a perennial favorite
among attendees. Kiawah Island Golf Resort offers 90 holes of
championship golf on five different courses. Its challenging courses
are in a beautiful natural setting near historic Charleston, South
Carolina. The tournament again offers a hole-in-one contest.
Kiawah Island Golf Resort is a resort unlike any other.
Guests enjoy world-class recreational facilities and stay in villas
held to the highest standards of quality. Guests of the resort also
enjoy amenities such as:
complimentary access to the resort pools as well as
neighborhood pools
discount rates for nature and recreation programs
complimentary door-to-door on-island transportation and bell
service
advanced reservation privileges at all resort-owned
restaurants
complimentary access to the Resort Fitness Center at The
Straw Market in West Beach
The resort is offering ICCFA attendees an incredible rate
of $209 per night at the Scenic Villa. Make your reservation
by calling 1.800.576.1570 and reference the ICCFA Fall
Management Conference or group booking number 13216.
More information about the conference may be found at
www.iccfa.com/fall.
q
62
ICCFA Magazine
Above, the Osprey Point Clubhouse at the Kiawah Island Golf

Resort in Kiawah Island, South Carolina, location of the ICCFA Fall Management Conference.
Below, several courses offer conference attendees a variety
of locations to play golf and network.
I C C FA N E W S
2016 PLPA College: School is in session in Chicago

PET DEATH CARE PROVIDERS:
CAREGIVERS WITH HEART (BUT YOU
STILL HAVE TO BALANCE THE BOOKS)
Jeff Harbeson
Jeff Harbeson just exudes confidence and positivity and wants to
share that with you. How are you leaving this same impression
with the families you serve and with your team? Be the one
people love to see and let Harbeson share a bit of sunshine and
his positivity with you on how to internally motivate and keep
yourself going every day.
GUERRILLA MARKETING:
AUGUST 25-28, 2016 CHICAGO, IL TELLING YOUR STORY & STANDING OUT
he 6th annual PLPA College will take place August

25-28, 2016, at the Hilton Chicago/Oak Brook Hills
Resort & Conference Center in Chicago, Illinois. It is the
premiere event that focuses on expanding the pet loss profession
and finding innovative ways to care for customers. Speakers will
cover a range of topics, from marketing to the decorating of your
facilities. Here is a sample of the program:
FINANCIALLY SOUND, SECURE, AND SAFE!

UNDERSTANDING THE FINANCIAL ASPECT
OF A PET LOSS BUSINESS, FROM COGS
TO METRICS YOU NEED TO KNOW!
Nick Padlo
Youre running an incredible business. The number of people
you are helping is increasing, yet your numbers arent reflecting
the same successes. Now you are asking yourself: Am I priced
right? Do I understand how to price my services? Where are
my biggest areas that will affect my numbers? Do I really
understand how much it costs to cremate, to operate the rolling
stock, my marketing costs?
Youll not only learn how to calculate this information for
your business but also get an interesting look at costs of goods
sold as youve never seen them presented before.
THE POWER OF COLOR & DESIGN

IN YOUR PET FUNERAL HOME
Leslie Reid
You want your families to feel comforted when they come
into your establishment, from the colors on your walls to the
placement of the merchandise and accoutrements.
Reid gave a brief teaser to making your funeral home feel
great during her presentation at the ICCFA Annual Convention
in New Orleans. Youll get even more tips and treasures in this
session so you can give your facility a modern feel, a feel you
and your families deserve and will appreciate.
IN YOUR MARKET
Linda Wasche
Standing out in todays world is tough with all the marketing
messages people are being bombarded with. Find out todays
secret to standing out in the face of social and print media as
well as the crafting of a strong branded message to support all of
the marketing efforts you are doing.
CONNECTING WITH PAST,

PRESENT & FUTURE FAMILIES
Bob Jenkins
Forty-five to 65 percent of families today have more than one
pet. How are you connecting with these families daily so that
when your services are needed again, you are called?
Jenkins shared some ideas in New Orleans at the ICCFA
Annual Convention; hear more as he dives in deeper, discussing
how to connect and create a strong mind share so that yours is
the first organization pet parents and veterinarians think of when
the topic of pet loss comes up.
ROUNDTABLE TOPICS:
BEST PRACTICES AND MERCHANDISING
Take a seat with others and discuss both best practices and
merchandising for your business. There are amazing programs
and ideas being used by pet loss professionals across the country.
By sharing these ideas, all pet loss professionals can grow and
make their businesses the best they can be.
Well also be discussing the topic of merchandising. Adding
to your organizations revenue is imperative if youre going to
have a sustainable business. Effectively offering memorialization
products is one way you can grow your business. Do you have
more ideas? Share them with your peers during this session.
Enjoy networking and vendor presentations as well as handson sessions with other pet loss professionals at PLPA College.
For hotel information or to register, visit
www.iccfa.com/groups/pet-loss-professionals-alliance/Events. q
63
Providing exceptional education, networking and legislative guidance and

support to progressive cemetery, funeral and cremation professionals worldwide
FOR INFORMATION ABOUT
THE ICCFA AND MEMBERSHIP:
Go to www.iccfa.com/membership to download a benefits brochure and an application form.

Call 1.800.645.7700 to have membership information faxed or mailed to you.
Regular
Andrews Hampstead Chapel

Wilmington, North Carolina
Baird Funeral Home
Troy, Ohio
Ballard Funeral Home & Crematory
Roswell, New Mexico
Barranco & Sons PA
Severna Park, Maryland
Beaty Funeral Home
Mineola, Texas
Beechwood Funeral Cemetery & Cremation
Services
Ottawa, Ontario
Belle Vernon Cemetery
Belle Vernon, Pennsylvania
Bennie Smith Funeral Home Inc.
Dover, Delaware
Coston Funeral Home
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Calvary Catholic Cemetery
Clearwater, Florida
Camposantos del Ecuador
Duran, Ecuador
Chambers-James Funeral Home
Wellsburg, West Virgina
City of Springfield/ Hazelwood Cemetery
Springfield, Missouri
Cremation Service of East Tennessee
Mohawk, Tennessee
Eden Cemetery
Schiller Park, Illinois
Edwards Funeral Service
Columbus, Ohio
Fouches Hudson Funeral Home
Oakland, California
Funeral Homes of Texas
Waco, Texas
Highland Memory Gardens
Apopka, Florida
Holmes-Glover-Solomon Funeral Directors
Jacksonville, Florida
International Funeral Service NY
Brooklyn, New York
Jardin de la Paz
Asuncion, Paraguay
Jones & West Funeral Home
Phelps, Kentucky
L Harold Poole Funeral Service & Crematory
Knightdale, North Carolina
MEMBERSHIP APPLICATIONS
New Members
Admission to ICCFA membership normally requires a majority vote of those present and voting at any
meeting of the executive committee. The names of all applicants must be published in this magazine.
ICCFA members objecting to an application must do so in writing to the ICCFA executive director within
45 days of publication. In the event of an objection, the executive committee will conduct an inquiry. If an
applicant is rejected, they will be granted an appeal upon written request. The decision of the Board of
Directors shall be final.
LaGrone Funeral Chapel and Roswell

Crematory
Roswell, New Mexico
Lakeland Place Garden Park Cemetery
Brandon, Mississippi
Magnolia Cemetery
Beaumont, Texas
Magoun-Biggins Funeral Home
Rockland, Massachusetts
Marshall Funeral Home
Biloxi, Mississippi
Martinez Smith Funeral Home and
Crematory
Odessa, Texas
McKoon Funeral Home & Crematory
Newnan, Georgia
Mount Hope Cemetery
Chicago, Illinois
Mulhearn Memorial Park Cemetery LLC
Monroe, Louisiana
OBrien Funeral Home
Wall, New Jersey
Oliver Funeral Apartments Inc.
Norfolk, Virginia
Orlando Memorial Gardens
Apopka, Florida
Phoenix Memorial Chapel & Crematory
Sta.
Rosa City, Laguna, Philippines
Preston Funeral Home
Phoenix, Arizona
Reflection Pointe Funeral & Cremation
Services
Wichita, Kansas
Riverside Gardens Cemetery
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Shackelford FDs of Bolivar
Bolivar, Tennessee
South Spring Development Inc./
Centennial Garden Memorial Park
Muntinlupa, Metro Manila, Philippines
Sturtevant Funeral Home Inc.
Portsmouth, Virginia
The Journey Group LLC
The Woodlands, Texas
Tillman Cremation Services
Jacksonville, Florida
Trinity Southern Funeral Holdings
Pascagoula, Mississippi
Unity Funeral Services Inc.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Wages & Sons Gwinnett Chapel
Lawrenceville, Georgia
Webb & Rodrick Chapel and Crematory
Independence, Kansas
Wright Funeral Home
Moorhead, Minnesota
Professional: Pet Loss Services
Paws At Peace Pet Hospice LLC

Bedford, Texas
Forget-Me-Not Pet Crematory Inc.
Northborough, Massachusetts
Key-Lore/Pet Rest Gardens
Flushing, Michigan
Icon Urns
Jesus Maria, Aguascalientes, Mexico
River Valley Pet Cremation
Clarksville, Arkansas
Professional/Supplier
Commonwealth Institute of Funeral Service

Houston, Texas
Heavens Maid
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Walsh Engineering Associates Inc.
Westbrook, Maine
Nunn Products
Paragould, Arkansas
Chesapeake Burial Vault Co. Inc.
Barclay, Maryland
CRaKN LLC
Cincinnati, Ohio
Groupe ELABOR
Messigny-et-Vantoux, Cote dOr, France
Parting.com
Playa Vista, California
ProtaPay
Boca Raton, Florida
TMI Trust Co.
Atlanta, Georgia
Memorial Park Services
Blue Springs, Missouri
Thacker Caskets Inc.
Clinton, Maryland
Trench Shoring Services
Atlanta, Georgia
Timeless Columbaria LLC
r
Pella, Iowa
65
AD INDEX
25 Abbott & Hast
33 American Cemetery/Mortuary
Consultants
41 American Funeral & Cemetery
Trust Services
49 ASDAnswering Service for
Directors
33 Cherokee Casket
3 Continental Computer Corp.
17 Eickhof Columbaria Inc.
37 Ensure-A-Seal
37 Flowers for Cemeteries
43 Franklin Wrap
29 Funeral Call Answering Service
27 Funeral Services Inc.
5 Global Atlantic Financial Group
2 Global Bronze
45 Grever & Ward
Calendar
47
29
59
25
9
53
19
23
33
49
67
11
55
29
25
Holland Supply
Holy Land Stone
IMSA
J. Stuart Todd Inc.
Johnson Consulting
Johnson Consulting
Kryprotek
Live Oak Bank
Madelyn Co.
Mausoleum Supply
Merendino Cemetery Care
Miles Supply Inc.
National Guardian Life Insurance Co.
Nomis Publications
Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell &
Hippel
7 Paradise Pictures
13 Perfect Memorials
19 Pontem Software
31 RBC Wealth Management
47 Regions Bank Funeral & Cemetery
Trust Services
11 SEP Technologies
34 Sich Caskets
35 Sich Caskets
68 SRS Computing
37 Stovall Insight & Solutions
45 Supply Link
15 The Foresight Companies LLC
21 THE SYSTEM
51 U.S. Metalcraft
57 Wilbert Funeral Services
49 WithumSmith + Brown
39 Worsham College
25 Xiamen Ever-Rising Stone Co.
21 Zontec Ozone
r
E-mail calendar listings and additions or corrections to bclough@iccfa.com and sloving@iccfa.com.
For continually updated meeting listings and direct links to websites

for professional associations, go to www.iccfa.com; select Find a
Member, then Industry Associations.
August 10-13: Cremation Assn. of North
America 98th Annual Convention, Chicago.
www.cremationassociation.org
August 11-13: West Virginia Cemetery &
Funeral Assn. Annual Convention, Canaan
Resort, Davis. www.wvcfa.org
August 14-15: Illinois Cemetery & Funeral
Home Assn. 88th Annual Fall Convention,
Joliet. www.icfha.org
August 14-17: New York State Funeral
Directors Assn. Annual Convention,
Rochester. www.nysfda.org
August 18-21: New York State Assn. of
Cemeteries 88th Annual Fall Conf., The
Hotel Hershey, Hersey, Pennsylvania.
Classifieds
To see all industry conventions and meetings for a particular month,

go to www.iccfa.com; select Find a Member, then Industry Calendar.
www.nysac.org
August 23: Illinois Cemetery & Funeral
Home Assn. continuing education class,
Orland Park. 1.866.758.7731; icfha.org
August 23-25: Two Hearts Pet Loss
Centers Pet Loss & Grief Companioning
Certification clas. Hilton Chicago/Oak Brook
Hill Resort Center, Oak Brook, Illinois.
thepetlosscenter.com
September 8-19: Monument Builders of
the Carolinas Annual Convention, Kingston
Plantation, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
www.mbcarolinas.org
September 19-21: Ontario Funeral Service
Assn. Annual General Mtg. & Expo, Alliston,
Ontario. www.ofsa.org
September 20-22: New Jersey State
Funeral Directors Assn. Annual Convention,
Atlantic City. www.njsfda.org
September 20-23: The Foresight Companies Funeral Service Financial Boot Camp
Seminar. www.f3sight.com; 1.800-426.0165
September 21-23: Minnesota Assn. of
Cemeteries Annual Convention, Grand
Casino Hotel, Hinkley.
www.mncemeteries.org
October 5-7: ICCFA Fall Management
Conference, Kiawah Island Golf Resort,
www.iccfa.com
r
Check the classified announcements at www.iccfa.com/employment.htm

To place a classified, contact Rick Platter, rplatter@iccfa.com
CAST ALUMINUM LOT MARKERS

3, 4, 5 X 5
SPIKE OR SPLINE MARKERS
CALL TODAY FOR A FREE BROCHURE!
Andover Markert Company
634 Berkley Street
Berkley, MA 02779
TEL: (508) 822-3127
FAX: (508) 824-5895
VISIT OUR WEB SITE/WWW.ADOVERMARKER.COM
Highest Quality Memorials,

Lowest Delivered Price.
GUARANTEED!

ICCFA Magazine August/September 2016

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August-September 2016

The ICCFA made its annual trip to

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Trends in state and federal death-care regulation

16 LEGAL & LEGISL ATIVE UPDATE

Protectionist laws on the rise; Funeral Rule review coming up

Big changes in overtime rules are on the way

Cemetery Impossible: What can you do when your cemeterys

Cemeteries Crematories Funeral homes suppliers pet loss proFessionals

Submit your news to ICCFA Magazine

Questions? need some guidance?

2016 Global Atlantic

FORETHOUGHT IS NOW GLOBAL ATLANTIC PRENEED

Competitive advantage, talent

August 24-25 (arranger &

October 5-7 Kiawah

January 11-14 Hyatt Regency,

July 20-26 Fogelman Conference Center, Memphis, Tennessee Chancellor:Jeff Kidwiler,

Protecting yourself against professional liability lawsuits

The keys to service: The sensitive balancing act

Funeral and cemetery insurance assignments 101

Web Expo directory of suppliers and

Subscribe to ICCFA Magazine

r One-year subscription (10 issues) for just $39.95*

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security iD (3-digit # on back of card or 4-digit # on front of amex)

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THE WORLDS FINEST MEMORIAL PORTRAITS

650 Thunderbolt Street Chico, CA 95973

to support useltons goal

Whos your resource?

s I am writing this Presidents Letter,

Susan Loving, managing editor

The ICCFA is your resource

No association can compare to the core member

Lung Force donations

Once again, on a personal note, a special thank-you

Michael Uselton, CCFE, president

Scott R. Sells, CCFE, president-electt

profession, to whom does your community turn?

Rick Platter, supplier relations manager

Daniel Osorio, subscription coordinator

Cremation and Funeral Association. Subscription

Like the ICCFA on Facebook & friend ICCFA Staff

888.250.7747 | www.JohnsonConsulting.com | 8095 N. 85th Way, Scottsdale, AZ 85258

tive director and general

MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

Why you should vote

or this issue, which is our annual

Dont let anybody tell you that

LED Lighting Solutions

LED light bulb for Crypt

by Poul Lemasters, Esq.

he is an attorney and funeral director,

Go to www.iccfa.com to the Cremation support section, where you can post a

More about this topic

see iCCFa magazines interview

staying on top of regulatory and legislative trends

is increasingly important as the death-care profession faces

more and more challenges. a regulation or law that seems like

Trends in state and federal

taying in business is no easy task.

In some states, new laws and rules are

legislation has existed seemingly forever.