For Immediate Release: September 23, 2019
Brookfield, Wis. – The National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) has launched A Brush With Death, a podcast to help funeral professionals be more responsive to the evolving needs of families and better respond to the issues shaping their businesses.
“Many people enjoy podcasts because they allow them to learn about the world around them while on-the-go, said NFDA Senior Vice President of Communications Troy Blewett. “With A Brush With Death, we’re excited to offer a new way to for funeral directors to get fresh ideas for how they can build their businesses and meet the needs of today’s funeral consumers.”
The podcast is hosted by Gabriel M. “Gabe” Schauf, a licensed funeral director who worked in funeral homes in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Shauf currently serves as the program coordinator and instructor for the funeral service education program at Milwaukee Area Technical College in Milwaukee, Wis.
The first episode, titled “Hospice is Where the Heart Is,” features NFDA Education Manager Sara Moss. Schauf and Moss, who also is a licensed funeral director and hospice volunteer, discuss the remarkable end-of-life care hospice professionals provide to patients and their families and how funeral directors can better work with hospice professionals to support patients and families at the end of life.
New podcast episodes will be released on the second Tuesday of each month. Episodes can be found on iTunes, Google Play Music, Spotify, Stitcher and other apps (e.g., Pocket Casts, Overcast) through which podcasts can be downloaded. Funeral directors can also visit the NFDA website, www.nfda.org/abrushwithdeath, to listen to episodes.
In October’s episode, “Staying Out of the Courtroom,” Schauf will talk with funeral director and attorney Michael Sharkey, CFSP, CCO, about how funeral directors can to reduce the potential for lawsuits and discover best practices that can help keep them out of court.
Lacy Robinson, CFSP, NFDA director of member development, will be the guest for the November episode. She will talk with Schauf about how funeral homes can communicate the added value they bring to the cremation discussion. Robinson believes any meaningful cremation discussion should be a conversation about honoring the life of a loved one.
NFDA is the world's leading and largest funeral service association, serving more than 20,000 individual members who represent nearly 11,000 funeral homes in the United States and 49 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.
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Contact: Jessica Koth, 262-814-1536, jkoth@nfda.org