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Jack Mitchell: Exceptional Learning and Networking with the President of NFDA
8 Plays2 years ago
In this episode of The Glam Reaper Podcast, Jennifer has an interesting conversation with the new President-elect of the NFDA (National Funeral Directors Association), Jack Mitchell. Jack is a sixth-generation funeral director with Mitchell-Wiedefeld Funeral Home in Baltimore, Maryland.
Even at a young age and after being exposed to the family business, he already has an appreciation for what funeral directors do for people, and how helpful they are to people. Now as the new president-elect, he is looking to expand on the effort and the work of the association, especially where regulations are concerned.
See for yourself how interesting the conversation turned out to be. Enjoy!
LITTLE NUGGETS OF GOLD:
- Jack Mitchell’s background and his journey to becoming the president-elect of the NFDA
- Did Jack consider not following in his family's funeral service business?
- His experience attending the National Conventions then and now
- How has COVID-19 affected Jack Mitchell’s ascendancy to the presidency of NFDA?
- What makes the theme for the Service Remembrance for the 2022 National Convention in Baltimore extra interesting and special?
- Jack's thoughts on having celebrants, other than the clergy, for the Service of Remembrance
- As the new president of NFDA, what are Jack's goals and objectives for the organization?
- How does Jack feel about his new role?
- Jennifer's side story about how she found out about www.ancestry.com and how it can help someone learn which part in the world their DNA comes from
Connect with Jack Mitchell:
NFDA - https://nfda.org/about-nfda/board-of-directors
Website - https://www.mwfuneralhome.com/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MitchellWiedefeldFH
Connect with Jennifer/The Glam Reaper:
Facebook Page - Muldowney Memorials: https://www.facebook.com/MuldowneyMemorials/
Facebook Page - Rainbow Bridge Memorials: https://www.facebook.com/rainbowbridgememorialsdotcom
Instagram - @muldowneymemorials & @jennifermuldowney
Twitter - @TheGlamReaper
Email us here: glamreaperpodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Introduction to the Glam Reaper Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
00:00:03
Speaker
On today's episode we're interviewing Jack who is the brand new president of the National Funeral Directors Association.
Jack's Journey to NFDA Presidency
00:00:11
Speaker
So we saw him get his honor in Baltimore at the NFDA, their
00:00:18
Speaker
month or so ago and so we are talking to him about his plans for the year ahead and also some tidbits about Baltimore and why it was such a special spot for him and yeah let's get into it
00:00:40
Speaker
Hi everybody and welcome to another episode of the Glam Reaper podcast.
00:00:44
Speaker
I'm your host Jennifer Muldaney aka the Glam Reaper herself.
00:00:49
Speaker
On today's episode I am very privileged, I feel like I should curtsy or something.
00:00:55
Speaker
We have one of my dear friends, the president, the new president of the NFDA, Jack.
00:01:02
Speaker
Jack Mitchell, welcome.
00:01:04
Speaker
Thank you, thank you.
00:01:05
Speaker
No curtsy necessary at all.
00:01:08
Speaker
Well, I don't think virtually it works quite as well.
00:01:10
Speaker
Otherwise it's just me going off camera.
00:01:13
Speaker
Right.
00:01:14
Speaker
Sure.
00:01:16
Speaker
So welcome.
00:01:17
Speaker
So tell everybody who you are, first of all, before you, you are president.
00:01:23
Speaker
And yeah, give us a little bit of backstory and even how you and I met.
00:01:28
Speaker
Right.
00:01:29
Speaker
Well, my family goes back many generations in funeral service, six generations to be exact, back to 1837.
00:01:37
Speaker
all of it in Baltimore.
00:01:40
Speaker
And I decided somewhere probably through my college years that I would, would go on into the family business.
00:01:47
Speaker
And I've been able to work alongside with my father for all these years.
00:01:51
Speaker
He, he still comes into the funeral home at the age of 83.
00:01:55
Speaker
Um, and I got involved with the Maryland Funeral Directors Association and served as president.
00:02:01
Speaker
And then ultimately, uh, with national, with NFDA, um,
00:02:06
Speaker
And when the convention was in Baltimore back in 2000, I just kind of made some connections with people who at the time I didn't even realize they were like board members on their way up to being president.
00:02:18
Speaker
They were just people who were looking around for a place to go, a bar or whatever.
00:02:22
Speaker
And I said, well, this is my hometown.
00:02:23
Speaker
I can help you out.
00:02:25
Speaker
And we ended up making connections.
00:02:27
Speaker
And, you know, I ended up getting involved with NFDA as well.
00:02:31
Speaker
And, you know,
00:02:32
Speaker
ran for office a couple times, first for the board and then for secretary.
00:02:36
Speaker
And I was
00:02:38
Speaker
fortunate enough to be elected.
00:02:39
Speaker
And now I've reached the busiest seat in the boardroom, that of president.
00:02:45
Speaker
It's only been a month, but it's never a dull moment.
00:02:49
Speaker
Well, thank you very much for squeezing me slash us in.
00:02:52
Speaker
You're very good.
00:02:54
Speaker
So tell me, that's amazing.
00:02:57
Speaker
So it started in the 1800s.
00:02:58
Speaker
I mean, that's wild, especially in America, because, you know, history, obviously being from Ireland, history is huge and it's
00:03:06
Speaker
we've so much of it here it's quite fresh so to when you have that you know even a small bit of history it's super important to sort of hang on to and stuff but out of curiosity you know going into the funeral business even if that was your family business did it ever seem foreign to you or strange or like there was another route road for you to follow or it was just no this is what's gonna happen
00:03:32
Speaker
Right.
Presidency in Baltimore Amidst COVID-19
00:03:33
Speaker
Well, I definitely wasn't influenced.
00:03:36
Speaker
You know, my father didn't lean on me and say, you know, you will go into the family business or anything like that.
00:03:42
Speaker
But there was just never anything that really interested me so much more so than the family business.
00:03:49
Speaker
But I think part of that was because even at a young age, before I worked at the funeral home, I started to have an appreciation for what funeral directors do for people and how helpful they are to people in a way that's really more
00:04:03
Speaker
more intimate, you might say, than most other facets of life, jobs, professions, what have you, where you can really be that helpful to people.
00:04:12
Speaker
So I think it was more of a question of, will I be able to handle it emotionally?
00:04:17
Speaker
And if so, then yeah, this is definitely what I want to do.
00:04:22
Speaker
And it's just worked out that way.
00:04:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:25
Speaker
I mean, that's amazing trajectory as well from, you know, starting in a family business.
00:04:31
Speaker
I'm sure your dad's super proud.
00:04:33
Speaker
I mean, you know, moving all the way up to president of the National Funeral Directors Association, that's a pretty big deal.
00:04:40
Speaker
You know, it's not president of the world or of America.
00:04:43
Speaker
It's president of our little world, you know?
00:04:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:46
Speaker
So it's pretty, pretty impressive.
00:04:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:49
Speaker
When, when,
00:04:50
Speaker
I mean, my father always loved going to the national convention.
00:04:54
Speaker
It's such an incredibly huge event.
00:04:57
Speaker
You know, there are thousands of funeral directors there.
00:04:59
Speaker
So there's networking to be done.
00:05:01
Speaker
There's the educational opportunities where you can keep up on trends and things of that nature.
00:05:07
Speaker
So he always just got a charge out of going to the national convention.
00:05:10
Speaker
And when I started going, after I started working at our funeral home, I can remember during the opening session of the convention,
00:05:20
Speaker
they would introduce the past presidents one by one.
00:05:23
Speaker
And my father, almost every one of them, he could name where they were from.
00:05:27
Speaker
He'd sit there and he'd be like Michigan, Oregon, Connecticut, you know, almost everyone.
00:05:32
Speaker
And to me back then they were all like larger than life.
00:05:36
Speaker
And thinking of it almost from my father's perspective, now that I get up on that stage as president,
00:05:42
Speaker
You know, from Maryland and and the only other president we've ever had from Maryland was Mike Noonan, who was one of my father's best friends.
00:05:50
Speaker
He was president back in the 90s.
00:05:52
Speaker
So now I've kind of followed in his friend's footsteps as a president for Maryland.
00:05:57
Speaker
So.
00:05:58
Speaker
Yeah, just thinking of it from where my father and where my parents sit, I know they're quite proud.
00:06:02
Speaker
And of course, that's just an incredibly wonderful, wonderful feeling.
00:06:06
Speaker
Of course, of course.
00:06:07
Speaker
Now, the convention, so I was at the convention, and it was amazing, as always, and it's always great.
00:06:14
Speaker
COVID was just such a, in the world, but particularly in the funeral industry, because, you know, we were just, we had to deal with the aftermath of everything.
00:06:24
Speaker
And as we keep saying, the final responders, but
00:06:27
Speaker
It was so wonderful and has been to gather together again, which is amazing.
00:06:31
Speaker
But for you, for you to be deigned president in the NFDA annual convention in your hometown of Baltimore, that is stars aligning and that is
Service of Remembrance and Military Tribute
00:06:45
Speaker
pretty awesome.
00:06:45
Speaker
I mean, you and I had a whole conversation about this.
00:06:47
Speaker
I mean, that would be as exciting as if I got it in Dublin, Ireland, which is never going to happen.
00:06:51
Speaker
Unfortunately.
00:06:55
Speaker
I'll see if I can use my influence to take one out overseas for a convention.
00:07:00
Speaker
Come on.
00:07:03
Speaker
That's pretty cool.
00:07:04
Speaker
I mean, because all your friends could have been there and it was amazing.
00:07:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:08
Speaker
And it had a lot to do with COVID because the way it works, like airborne like most, you're elected to kind of the first level position of secretary and you essentially move up the line secretary, treasurer, president, elect president.
00:07:22
Speaker
But there was a year with the pandemic where those of us on the board, we didn't do a lot of what we normally do, go to the other state conventions as a liaison because there were no state conventions and we had no national conferences and things like that.
00:07:37
Speaker
So we basically did a do-over year.
00:07:39
Speaker
We all stayed in office.
00:07:40
Speaker
We didn't move up one year.
00:07:42
Speaker
And it's because of that.
00:07:43
Speaker
that I ended up going in as president in Baltimore rather than a year earlier in Nashville.
00:07:49
Speaker
And my mother doesn't fly.
00:07:50
Speaker
We couldn't figure out how we were gonna get her to Nashville, but they live about 20 minutes from the Baltimore Convention Center.
00:07:56
Speaker
So like you talk about stars aligning, I mean, it really totally was.
00:08:00
Speaker
So, and I had a lot of friends, clergy that I've worked with for years and years, people I went to school with, it was truly special.
00:08:12
Speaker
Good, good.
00:08:13
Speaker
It was great.
00:08:13
Speaker
It was great to witness it.
00:08:15
Speaker
And Baltimore in and of itself was a very interesting city to have the convention in.
00:08:23
Speaker
And obviously that it's got a lot of ties and obviously being the celebrant that I am.
00:08:28
Speaker
The service of remembrance in each NFDA is super important to me.
00:08:32
Speaker
And so I always make sure and attend that to see, you know, what we're doing as a collective and obviously, you know, mourning the passing of people in our community.
00:08:43
Speaker
And I found this year's one...
00:08:46
Speaker
Extra interesting and apologies for the construction noise, if you can possibly hear it.
00:08:51
Speaker
But the we move on regardless.
00:08:54
Speaker
But the service remembrance this year, I thought was really, really interesting because it had a really strong military hold.
00:09:01
Speaker
I mean, they effectively it was how we treat military members when they come back.
00:09:07
Speaker
um you know having passed away in service and it was i mean i got super emotional um and you know with the anthem obviously being from ireland the you know u.s national anthem isn't my national anthem so i don't tend to get emotional i get emotional with my own one um so i don't have that tie to it but i found the service of remembrance at this particular one i even wrote about it
00:09:32
Speaker
in the Funeral Times magazine that I write for.
00:09:34
Speaker
To me, it was, yeah, it was super emotional that service of Remembers.
00:09:38
Speaker
I thought it was done very, very well.
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah, well, we have a theme to the service of remembrance every year, and the president really decides on what that will be.
00:09:46
Speaker
Now, that was my predecessor, Randy Anderson.
00:09:49
Speaker
And Baltimore, it is kind of a natural because we're not 40 minutes from Annapolis, where the U.S. Naval Academy is.
00:09:58
Speaker
We're about an hour from Arlington National Cemetery.
00:10:01
Speaker
And of course, as you mentioned, it's where Francis Scott Key wrote the national anthem during the Battle of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.
00:10:08
Speaker
So those those factors, I think, was what gave Randy the idea that it would only only be appropriate for the theme this year to be a military military type service.
00:10:20
Speaker
And those are always, you know, when you experience them firsthand,
00:10:25
Speaker
They're very moving, you know, because just everything, it's military.
00:10:31
Speaker
It's, you know, you're not rounding up the pallbearers and trying to explain to them what they need to do and all that.
00:10:37
Speaker
I mean, everything is just absolute detail.
00:10:42
Speaker
And that is just so, that's all about being so respectful to the deceased.
00:10:48
Speaker
And, you know, they're just very impressive services.
00:10:51
Speaker
So I was glad that Randy chose that for the service this
Evolving Roles and Celebrants in Funeral Services
00:10:55
Speaker
year.
00:10:55
Speaker
Yeah, no, I have to say I was surprised myself.
00:11:01
Speaker
It's interesting, a lot of people who either don't know me as well as, you know, or they're not in the community and stuff, they kind of assume that I'm, because I'm working in this, that I have a heart of stone or that I, you know, don't.
00:11:15
Speaker
Like, I'm the opposite.
00:11:18
Speaker
Like, I see a puppy on the street and I'm like, oh my God.
00:11:21
Speaker
And I think that's so important and I always...
00:11:25
Speaker
I always say to my family, the day I don't feel anything is the day I need to hang my hat up because a part of what we all do as a community is we're there for each other.
00:11:35
Speaker
It's a human experience and we're all going through it together.
00:11:38
Speaker
So, yeah, I was particularly moved, I have to say, by this service.
00:11:42
Speaker
Now, I do have a potentially controversial question.
00:11:45
Speaker
I've kind of touched on this with you before, but with the service of remembrance, in my experience, it has predominantly been clergy who have
00:11:54
Speaker
emceed it I guess, officiated the services.
00:12:00
Speaker
I know there's a lot of other elements.
00:12:01
Speaker
Do you think with the rise of celebrants that it'll be something you might try or it'll be further down the line and how does that equally going back to the clergy for people who don't necessarily believe in
00:12:20
Speaker
Catholicism or whatever, you know, how to, how have you any experience with that or thoughts on that?
00:12:25
Speaker
Well, I, I can see that coming probably in the near future, um, because NFDA actually puts on your, and you're aware, I think of celebrant training, you know, at the convention every year, you know, any attendees are invited to come in a day early and become certified as celebrants.
00:12:41
Speaker
So, you know, NFDA is, is very much in line with this, this
00:12:47
Speaker
progression into, you know, kind of a different way of doing things.
00:12:51
Speaker
So, you know, we definitely are good with celebrants.
00:12:58
Speaker
You know, like I said, we're doing our own certified celebrant training.
00:13:02
Speaker
So I can see for one of our own service of remembrance in the future, having a celebrant.
00:13:11
Speaker
Next year, again, I'm thinking, what am I going to do as a theme when it's in Las Vegas?
00:13:17
Speaker
You know, we just talked about how Baltimore lent itself to military.
00:13:21
Speaker
And I'm like, am I going to have a funeral of Elvis's?
00:13:24
Speaker
I was about to say, I have plenty of ideas, Jack.
00:13:27
Speaker
I can see.
00:13:28
Speaker
Maybe not me necessarily, but I think we should get a celebrant and feathers in a frequent dress with Elvis by our side.
00:13:36
Speaker
Right.
00:13:37
Speaker
Cirque du Soleil performers and showgirls.
00:13:41
Speaker
Elvis is the Paul Bears.
00:13:45
Speaker
I mean, you're right.
00:13:47
Speaker
Right.
00:13:47
Speaker
So yeah, potentially I can see.
00:13:53
Speaker
You and I will work on that.
00:13:54
Speaker
I'll give you some ideas.
00:13:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:56
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:57
Speaker
No, that's, it's definitely, cause I know the ICCFA is in Vegas every year.
00:14:02
Speaker
I'm trying to think of the last time the NFDA was in Vegas.
00:14:05
Speaker
We were in Vegas before.
00:14:07
Speaker
But it's been a while.
00:14:09
Speaker
It has been a while.
00:14:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:10
Speaker
So next year will be twice.
00:14:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:12
Speaker
I want to say 2008 or 2009, maybe since we were last in Las Vegas.
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:22
Speaker
Well, anyway, regardless, I'm sure it'll be a wonderful service of remembrance and you know where to come if you need any ideas.
00:14:29
Speaker
Keep that in mind.
00:14:33
Speaker
No, but just on because exactly that, as you said, like the NFDA does its own certified training of celebrants.
00:14:41
Speaker
And I just think the concept is.
00:14:43
Speaker
is has really taken off and you know obviously I know I'm a little bit biased but I was raised Catholic myself so it's not like I'm allergic to clergy or anything but it's just it's really to me it's all about more diversification and inclusion and like that's what we're all supposed to be about and should be about um now and so I really yeah I just really want to see our kind of community keep going in that direction so um which I know they will with you at the helm I know that they will during good times
00:15:13
Speaker
Well, people are becoming less and less churched, so to speak.
NFDA Initiatives and Military Veteran Recruitment
00:15:17
Speaker
You know, not specific, having anything specific to do with funerals or memorial services, but people are just generally speaking less religious.
00:15:25
Speaker
But when it comes time to memorialize a loved one, they do kind of look at each other and say, okay, is someone in the family just going to lead this whole service?
00:15:35
Speaker
You know, what are we going to do?
00:15:36
Speaker
So if you can offer them a celebrate, you know, somebody who can
00:15:41
Speaker
You know, it is almost like an emcee.
00:15:44
Speaker
And they can, you know, a celebrant who who is a good celebrant can incorporate religious aspects into it, you know, whatever whatever family wants.
00:15:53
Speaker
But it can cater more to what more and more of today's families are comfortable with.
00:16:00
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:16:00
Speaker
And I actually just got off the phone, which is why I was late to our chat with a family who like that they wanted a minister to do the service and the minister wasn't available.
00:16:11
Speaker
And so I even joked with them on the phone.
00:16:13
Speaker
I said, so you got landed with me.
00:16:14
Speaker
I apologize.
00:16:16
Speaker
But even, you know, making that little joke, you know, it's lightened it up and the conversation and like that I can include prayers.
00:16:25
Speaker
And so once they kind of realized that it softened them and it made them way more open to the opportunity.
00:16:31
Speaker
And I even know myself, I mean, when I got into this business 15 more years ago, half of it was because I was sitting in my friend's funeral.
00:16:41
Speaker
And he was only 28 and he was atheist.
00:16:44
Speaker
I mean, he was absolutely atheist.
00:16:45
Speaker
And here we were sitting in a church.
00:16:47
Speaker
I mean, and that's classic Ireland or, you know, I know since my book came out and since more press has more spotlight has been on on the industry as a whole, that has changed.
00:16:58
Speaker
But, you know, to me, that just felt so wrong back then.
00:17:01
Speaker
And as I said, I grew up Catholic.
00:17:04
Speaker
It doesn't take away from.
00:17:06
Speaker
any part of that by having somebody as you said emcee the service it's just about including all facets of jennifer as opposed to this one tiny part that she never went to church but she happens to be catholic and was gorgeous in her communion dress and you know um so yeah it's just really about it including all facets of people i think um is what celibate they're great at but
00:17:31
Speaker
But anyway, so tell me, do you have any sort of goals or objectives as to what you plan to bring to the community of the National Funeral Interactors Association in the coming year?
00:17:45
Speaker
Well, I can't say that there's any new reinventing the wheel kind of things, but there are some initiatives that we've had underway for some time that we're looking to expand upon.
00:17:57
Speaker
The number one thing above all others that our members are telling us is their challenge right now is simply getting good funeral directors.
00:18:07
Speaker
That's risen to the top because we do send out member surveys every year.
00:18:15
Speaker
And we have, I'm sure you're familiar with the Journey to Serve initiative to try to recruit almost military servicemen and women who have retired into a career in funeral service
00:18:27
Speaker
we're really looking to expand upon that effort in general, just to simply market ourselves because we really don't do that.
00:18:37
Speaker
We don't market ourselves or brag on ourselves.
00:18:40
Speaker
We take care of families and that's what we do.
00:18:44
Speaker
And people are very appreciative of what we do and we just say thank you and that's it.
00:18:50
Speaker
But we're really looking to try to just market our business
00:18:55
Speaker
profession or, you know, just market funeral service is a great way to spend a career, you know, helping people.
Diversity and Modernization in Funeral Services
00:19:02
Speaker
And I think there are a lot of people that don't really like where they might turn their nose up at that prospect is the thought of the embalming.
00:19:09
Speaker
And, you know, that's what people have asked me my whole life, especially when I was younger, when I told them I was a funeral director, dude, you touch dead bodies, you know, but, you know, more and more states now are, are having, you
00:19:24
Speaker
where you can be licensed just as a funeral director and not do the mortician part, so to speak.
00:19:30
Speaker
So that might be, and there are cases for and against that whole split license arrangement.
00:19:38
Speaker
I know a lot of funeral directors don't like it, but in terms of getting people to come into funeral service, to be funeral directors,
00:19:46
Speaker
that might open some more doors because of the people who would really rather, they really want to take care of families.
00:19:51
Speaker
They want to sit down and take care of families and do the funerals, but really don't want to do the embalming portion of it.
00:19:57
Speaker
That can help to facilitate those people into funeral service.
00:20:04
Speaker
Well, it's interesting that you brought that up because I 150% completely and utterly agree with that.
00:20:11
Speaker
And I completely know what you're saying.
00:20:13
Speaker
It is very received very differently.
00:20:18
Speaker
I to me, it makes total sense.
00:20:20
Speaker
It doesn't make total sense to anybody else.
00:20:22
Speaker
But I look at it like during Covid, for example, I absolutely wanted to help my colleagues and friends, but I'm not a licensed funeral director here in New York, so I couldn't.
00:20:32
Speaker
You know, and I feel like there are so many people out there who would make amazing counsellors.
00:20:37
Speaker
and work really, really well with families and are so patient and so empathetic.
00:20:42
Speaker
And then there are so many people who aren't good with people, but are amazing in solitude and
00:20:48
Speaker
you know, working with bodies and are more methodical and more sort of into the medical side of it, dealing with the body and stuff like that.
00:20:57
Speaker
So I personally absolutely think that if it could be divided by, you know, I think divide and conquer, as they say, I really, really do believe, especially after COVID, that really proved it to me because like I just felt useless.
00:21:11
Speaker
I mean, my two jobs that I do as a memorial planner and event planner,
00:21:16
Speaker
and then Celebrant.
00:21:17
Speaker
And of course, Celebrant I could still do because we could do virtual services, but the memorial planning, we weren't allowed, you know, any more than what, 10 people in a room.
00:21:25
Speaker
So I was left with, you know, not being able to help my colleagues who were just inundated and flat out.
00:21:32
Speaker
And yeah, it was just kind of heartbreaking because of, I don't want to say silly laws.
00:21:37
Speaker
There are a lot of silly laws out there.
00:21:38
Speaker
Don't tell Chris Farmer I said that.
00:21:43
Speaker
But, you know, it is, it's, it's,
00:21:46
Speaker
I think it needs to change.
00:21:48
Speaker
And I know there's a lot of talk at the moment with the new funeral rule.
00:21:52
Speaker
You know, we won't necessarily get into that.
00:21:53
Speaker
There doesn't need to be, you know, it's just price transparency and stuff like that, unless you want to talk about it.
00:21:59
Speaker
But yeah, it's, I just think as a, as an industry, as a whole, as a business, I think we need to evolve a little bit more and we are, we're getting
Increasing Diversity in Funeral Education
00:22:10
Speaker
there.
00:22:10
Speaker
It's slow, but we're getting there.
00:22:12
Speaker
And I think,
00:22:13
Speaker
I think nominating people like you as president, I think helps.
00:22:17
Speaker
Thank you.
00:22:19
Speaker
Well, yeah, it's it's you're open to conversations.
00:22:21
Speaker
And I've you know, I'm only over here seven years now really doing this.
00:22:26
Speaker
And I've had a lot of conversations with people who are not open.
00:22:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's fascinating.
00:22:31
Speaker
I'm like, that's fine that that's the way you always did it.
00:22:34
Speaker
But at least be open to ideas.
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:37
Speaker
So, yeah, it's and it's changing.
00:22:40
Speaker
As you probably know, 70 percent of the students in the mortuary science schools are female now.
00:22:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:47
Speaker
And I can remember at a convention many years ago, probably over 20 years ago, a gentleman just randomly came up to me and said, so I heard in Maryland, your president right now is a woman.
00:22:59
Speaker
I said, I said, yeah.
00:23:00
Speaker
And the one after her, we're going to have another woman like two in a row.
00:23:03
Speaker
And he's just shaking his head like, I mean, you got a female president of your of your state funeral directors.
00:23:09
Speaker
And so, you know,
00:23:11
Speaker
like that was such a bad thing well fast forward a few years about 70 percent of them are going to be female you know yes that's it is yeah it is wild um there's there's stripes i mean even in little ireland i'm always massively proud of there's there's sometimes things i'm not proud of but even in ireland you know we had our first female president really early on and then our second and then
00:23:36
Speaker
Our Prime Minister, we call it a Taoiseach.
00:23:39
Speaker
He was an Indian gay gentleman.
00:23:42
Speaker
For a little island like Ireland, and the legalising gay marriage, it's incredible to see that.
00:23:51
Speaker
It makes me so proud.
00:23:52
Speaker
I cried so hard the day the gay marriage happened because it was just such a progressive move forward for us.
00:23:59
Speaker
And for just a little Catholic country that was so...
00:24:05
Speaker
we were in a little box and we weren't, you know, we were under somebody's boot and we weren't moving out.
00:24:11
Speaker
So to see that and to be from a country like that, it sometimes does, it's disheartening and sometimes does make me question, you know, the United States, it's supposed to be freedom.
00:24:23
Speaker
It's supposed to be all of these progressive things.
00:24:26
Speaker
And yet, you know,
00:24:29
Speaker
Yeah, you expect America to be kind of in the forefront, the leader for all those kinds of issues.
00:24:35
Speaker
So, yeah.
Unexpected Family Connections and Humor
00:24:37
Speaker
Yeah, it'll get there.
00:24:39
Speaker
It'll get there.
00:24:39
Speaker
And we won't talk about the midterm election yesterday.
00:24:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:44
Speaker
It actually annoys me, but it frustrates me because people ask me about it and I'm like, I can't vote.
00:24:50
Speaker
I can't vote yet.
00:24:51
Speaker
Stop, because the power is not within me.
00:24:54
Speaker
No.
00:24:55
Speaker
But hopefully everybody listening did vote.
00:24:58
Speaker
Police made their voice heard.
00:25:00
Speaker
Well, thank you so much for coming on the Glam Reaper podcast.
00:25:05
Speaker
I don't know if there's anything else you want to tell listeners before we bid you adieu.
00:25:11
Speaker
Well, I'll just say that, you know, I've been in the president's seat for about a month now, and it really is a different level of,
00:25:21
Speaker
of obligation from a time standpoint and just focus on the work of the association.
00:25:27
Speaker
And having been on the board for six years now, we always respect the president, just knowing that we have a lot of, again, time obligation, but we know the president really has so much more.
00:25:40
Speaker
And it is now pretty much daily communications with Christine or the staff or whomever.
00:25:47
Speaker
And it, it's hard to describe, but it's really just such a great feeling, um, that, that, that kind of trust has been bestowed upon me by our members and by the board.
00:26:00
Speaker
Um, it, it's a lot, it's, it's never boring, but, um, but it's really not like anything I've ever experienced.
00:26:10
Speaker
And I just, uh,
00:26:11
Speaker
It just makes me that much more committed to just absolutely doing as much as I can for every funeral director in the country and all of our families.
00:26:20
Speaker
It's just a great privilege.
00:26:23
Speaker
Well, we wish you the best of luck.
00:26:24
Speaker
We congratulate you again.
00:26:26
Speaker
We wish you the best of luck for the next 11 months, I guess.
00:26:30
Speaker
Right.
00:26:31
Speaker
If we're one month in.
00:26:32
Speaker
And yeah, you'll be fine.
00:26:34
Speaker
You'll rock it.
00:26:34
Speaker
You've got the look of the Irish with you now.
00:26:37
Speaker
That's right.
00:26:38
Speaker
I've got you behind me.
00:26:39
Speaker
There you go.
00:26:40
Speaker
I did the Ancestry.com DNA spitting the thing and found out that I'm 5% Irish.
00:26:47
Speaker
I never knew that.
00:26:50
Speaker
5% only?
00:26:50
Speaker
I would have actually guessed higher.
00:26:52
Speaker
That's interesting.
00:26:53
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:54
Speaker
Oh, I don't, I shouldn't mention that my father's English.
00:26:58
Speaker
Oh, I did not know that.
00:27:00
Speaker
Oh, dear.
00:27:03
Speaker
We don't.
00:27:03
Speaker
There's no there's no hate on this show.
00:27:05
Speaker
So we will embrace them.
00:27:06
Speaker
Before we sign off, I actually will tell my listeners and you this interesting story about Ancestry.com that I found out from a family I'm working with just now.
Challenges and Responsibilities as NFDA President
00:27:18
Speaker
And I think this is fascinating.
00:27:19
Speaker
So Ancestry.com, for anybody who doesn't know, is an
00:27:23
Speaker
mostly utilized in America because I've never done it I think I will now um try it but you basically as you said spit in something I didn't even know you did that okay so you spit in something send it off DNA gets housed in this warehouse and um you get to follow your lineage and sort of see um who who who you belong to who does what but you could um
00:27:47
Speaker
sort of send it off 20 years ago and you could get notification 10, 20 years of somebody else who happens to put in their DNA and how it's connected, right?
00:27:56
Speaker
So this family I'm working with, this gentleman passed away and he found out that he had a daughter he didn't know about through Ancestry.com.
00:28:10
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:28:12
Speaker
So Jack, you better be careful.
00:28:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:16
Speaker
Oh, that's right.
00:28:17
Speaker
Wow.
00:28:18
Speaker
How wild is that?
00:28:19
Speaker
Well, as I was saying to his gorgeous wife that I was talking to, I was like, well, that's a rarity for us women to, but we think we kind of might have known a little bit.
00:28:30
Speaker
So, but for men, so this, you know, I think it happened in the 70s.
00:28:36
Speaker
He had a fling, didn't think anything of it.
00:28:39
Speaker
She moved away.
00:28:41
Speaker
Nothing, you know, she just disappeared.
00:28:44
Speaker
Oh, you know that she was with child, whatever.
00:28:47
Speaker
She obviously clearly went on, had the child.
00:28:49
Speaker
What's interesting is the child then was adopted by folks that lived in the same vicinity as him here in New York.
00:28:58
Speaker
So he grew up or he grew up, he was already grown up, but he sort of got older with his daughter that he didn't know about.
00:29:05
Speaker
Now they didn't know each other, but just in the block from him also growing up.
00:29:10
Speaker
How wild is that?
00:29:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:29:13
Speaker
The only reason they found out is because she had put in her, she'd gone into Ancestry.com, I think, as a last sort of resort.
00:29:23
Speaker
You know, she tried to find her birth father.
00:29:26
Speaker
She put it in and then his actual daughter put in her.
00:29:32
Speaker
she was into ancestry and she put in her DNA and it traced that they were related.
00:29:37
Speaker
And so then, you know, she was like, what's this?
00:29:39
Speaker
This is wild.
00:29:40
Speaker
Like, because it tells you how close the DNA is as in this could be your sibling type thing.
00:29:45
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:29:46
Speaker
I thought that was... Well, I just...
00:29:51
Speaker
I would advise every man I know who's had any sort of flings to go on Ancestry.com, just in case.
00:30:00
Speaker
I was just hoping to find that I had some Irish in me.
00:30:03
Speaker
I didn't know what the risks were.
00:30:04
Speaker
Well, there you go, so be careful.
00:30:08
Speaker
Be careful, Jack.
00:30:09
Speaker
In 20 years' time, you might get a boop.
00:30:11
Speaker
You have a connection.
00:30:13
Speaker
Jeez.
00:30:14
Speaker
Well, I think that's a good way to sign off from today's episode.
00:30:18
Speaker
Thank you so much, Jack.
00:30:20
Speaker
We're going to curtsy as we leave you.
00:30:23
Speaker
Thank you so much for joining us here today.
00:30:25
Speaker
And we'll hopefully talk to you again soon when your tenure maybe is up and you can tell us how it all went.
00:30:31
Speaker
Okay, great.
00:30:32
Speaker
Thank you, Jennifer.
00:30:33
Speaker
It was a pleasure.
00:30:44
Speaker
So that was our episode with Jack, the lovely Jack.
00:30:49
Speaker
So looking forward to maybe having a chat with him a year from now and seeing if he accomplished everything that he wanted to do.
00:30:55
Speaker
And if he's not exhausted by the end of the year, by the sounds of it's going to be a very, very busy 12 months ahead.
00:31:04
Speaker
So,
00:31:05
Speaker
Give us some ideas.
00:31:06
Speaker
If you have a guest that you'd like us to speak with or you would like to share your story, get in touch at glamreaperpodcast at gmail.com and we'll talk to you soon.