Caring, passionate, generous, resourceful and assertive are some adjectives I would use to describe myself. My goal is to offer the best quality and broad assortment of funeral products to my funeral home clients so they may exceed the expectations of the families they serve. I treat every order with care and consideration and excellent follow up. I am extremely proud to enjoy a reputation of offering outstanding customer service and strong work ethic.
I have been in the funeral industry since 1997. I am a sales representative for Continental Casket Company. We distribute domestically made caskets from NorthStar and CJ Boots and imports from SICH. I am also a distributor for 14 urn companies and 3 cremation jewelry companies. In addition I sell embalming and prep room supplies from ESCO, the oldest embalming fluid company in the United States.
I began working in funeral service in the preneed arena. I had never heard the word “preneed” and everything I heard made sense. We plan everything in our lives, it only makes sense to plan our final arrangements. I continue to assist funeral homes with their preneed objectives but have expanded my offering to include various types of merchandise.
Sales of caskets, urns, cremation jewelry, body bags, pet urns, burial clothing, urn vaults and custom head panels take up the majority of my time. Many of the urns are personalized with engraving or pictures and those projects are the most rewarding.
For a quick overview of the Companies I represent please visit the Companies tab.
Prior to the Funeral Industry I worked in retailing. My last position was Merchandise Manager for Neiman Marcus at Plaza Frontenac. I graduated Simmons College in Boston in 1979. I did my executive training at Lord & Taylor in New York City. I moved out to Sunny California and worked for J. W, Robinsons under the extraordinary leadership of Michael Gould. Store Manager at Burberry’s and also Brooks Brothers gives a snap shot of my retailing career. Meeting designers like David Yurman, Christos, Donna Karan, Marie Claude Lalique, Patricia Breen and Christopher Radko were definitely highlights!
Dr. Alan D. Wolfelt has outlined six central needs that a meaningful funeral can help meet for a family, friends and the community. They are:
Reality
Gathering together helps us to acknowledge a new reality: a loved one has died. Our first instinct when we lose someone we love is to reach out to others to process our grief and to begin to understand our new reality.
Recall
Sharing memories and recalling the things we love most about the one who has died helps us to honor the person in a special way. It is important to go backward before you go forward.
Support
Inviting other members of the community to a visitation or ceremony helps to activate support for the bereaved family. If no public service is held, friends may keep their distance, thinking that the family wishes to grieve privately. However, a public service invites the warm, loving, and caring support of friends, neighbors, and community members that is so needed at a time of loss.
Expression
A funeral gives outward expression to our inner grief, helping us to mourn a loss and create forward movement in our grief. Mourning is different from grief. Mourning is “the outward expression of grief, grief gone public, or a shared social response to loss.” A meaningful ceremony can actually help us take our internal grief and make it public through mourning.
Meaning
Searching for meaning after loss is one of the basic needs of a mourner. The funeral ceremony helps to bring together meaningful elements such as music, readings, stories, actions, symbols, and the loving support of others to create the sweet spot of a meaningful funeral experience.
Transcend
The funeral experience as a whole is like a rite of passage. We emerge transformed, with a new identity, a new relationship with our lost loved one, and a new relationship with our community as a whole.
Dr. Alan D. Wolfelt is an author, educator, and grief counselor with over 30 years of experience working with bereaved families. He has written many best-selling books on grief and loss, including Healing Your Grieving Heart and The Journey Through Grief. Dr. Wolfelt serves as the Director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition. Visit him online at www.centerforloss.com.
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