Funeral Home News

Brookfield, Wis. – After hosting its first Meet the Mentors program in fall 2011, the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) is giving young funeral professionals another chance to learn from three of the profession’s top experts and to network with like-minded peers. The next Meet the Mentors event, which is being held in cooperation with the Funeral Service Foundation, will take place March 26-27 at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga.

During Meet the Mentors, 50 licensed funeral directors and embalmers under the age of 40 will have an opportunity to meet, learn from and talk with some of the country’s leading funeral directors: Glenn P. Taylor of the Glenn Funeral Home in Owensboro, Ky., and Valerie J. Wages of Tom M. Wages Funeral Services Inc. in Snellville, Ga. A third mentor will be announced in the coming weeks.

During the program, each mentor will give a presentation in which they share lessons they have learned about how to build a successful and fulfilling career in funeral service. After the presentations, participants will break into groups and personally interact with each mentor.

There is no cost to participate in the program itself; the 50 individuals selected to attend only need pay for their transportation to the program. The cost of the registration fee, access to the four mentors, one night of lodging, a reception and dinner the night before the program, and continental breakfast and lunch the day of the program – a $599 value – has been generously covered through a grant from the Funeral Service Foundation.

The names of the 50 participants will be drawn, at random, from among all who enter via the NFDA website, www.nfda.org/mentors. Entries will be accepted through midnight February 12, 2012. In order to be eligible to attend, entrants must be an NFDA member in good standing, a licensed funeral director and/or embalmer and under 40 years of age.

The names of the 50 participants will be drawn the week of February 13 from among all entries received. Each day, Monday through Friday, a young professional from NFDA’s staff will draw 10 names. The drawings will be available for viewing on NFDA’s website, social media sites (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn) and YouTube channel at 2 p.m. CST each day.

Complete details about the NFDA Meet the Mentors program can be obtained by visiting www.nfda.org/mentors or calling 800-228-6332.

NFDA is the world’s leading and largest funeral service association, serving 18,500 individual members who represent nearly 10,000 funeral homes in the United States and 43 countries around the world. NFDA is the trusted leader, beacon for ethics and the strongest advocate for the profession. NFDA is the association of choice because it offers funeral professionals comprehensive educational resources, tools to manage successful businesses, guidance to become pillars in their communities and the expertise to foster future generations of funeral professionals. NFDA is headquartered in Brookfield, Wis., and has an office in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.nfda.org.