By Thomas A. Parmalee
When Lindsay Granson arrived at Heritage Family in the late summer of 2024, she wasn’t walking into a company that needed a tune-up.
It needed a rebuild.
The funeral home operator had grown rapidly through acquisitions, but the pieces hadn’t come together as a whole, as each location had a different website, a different operating system and a different culture.
For Granson, however, it was exactly the kind of challenge she’d built her career around.
“I love coming into organizations that are ready for transformation,” she said. “We basically took the company down to the studs and rebuilt it.”
Today, Heritage Family serves about 12,500 families annually and encompasses 102 deathcare businesses across 11 states, including:
- Seventy-seven funeral homes.
- Nine cremation societies.
- Nine crematories.
- Two categorized as “other.”
- Five pet crematories.
The company has reimagined its brand identity, introduced companywide leadership training, revamped family service standards, modernized its digital marketing strategy and rolled out virtual selection rooms in a bid to bolster service and profits.
But perhaps more interesting than what Heritage Family has changed is why it has chosen to change: The executive team believes funeral professionals cannot continue operating based on what they think families want.
Instead, funeral professionals must become better listeners, which is a philosophy that is quietly reshaping Heritage Family from the inside out.
A Career Built Around Service
Granson never expected to work in funeral service.
She earned a degree in early childhood education before working with children with autism. Later, she transitioned into senior living, where she spent years helping families navigate memory care and assisted living before being recruited into deathcare.
Looking back, she sees a common thread.
“I’ve realized my entire career has been about giving a voice to people who don’t always have one,” she said. “In autism, it was helping children communicate. In memory care, it was helping residents whose voices weren’t always being heard. Here, it’s making sure people are honored after they’ve passed away.”
That sense of purpose — not sales, marketing or operations — is what continues to drive her.
“I’ve always known I wanted to work in service,” she said. “Service is what drives me.”
She finds she gets the most enjoyment when she’s out in the field, visiting frontline staff.
“That’s where I get my energy,” she said. “That’s where I’m happiest. Being in front of the people who are helping families every day — that’s where I want to be.”
When she joined Heritage Family, she made a point of visiting every location and meeting employees.
“I wanted everyone to know who I was,” she said. “I wanted to understand their communities, hear what was working and what wasn’t.”
Returning to Deathcare
Before joining Heritage Family, Granson spent seven years helping lead what is now Everstory Partners, rising from vice president of marketing to senior vice president of sales and marketing from 2017 to 2024.
She witnessed the company, formerly known as StoneMor Partners, evolve through public ownership, private equity investment and operational transformation.
Eventually, she left the profession, accepting a position with a family-owned home renovation company preparing for private equity investment.
But then Lisa Gaudioso, the president and CEO of Heritage Family and a former colleague of Granson’s at Everstory Partners, called her and asked if she’d return to funeral service.
The answer came quickly.
“I realized I missed it,” Granson said.
She joined Heritage Family in August 2024 as chief operating officer.
A Company Entering Its Next Chapter
Heritage Family itself was entering a period of transition.
Founded by the Tetrick family in 1943, the organization experienced extraordinary growth after Richard Tetrick announced it was partnering with Cardinal Memorial Partners, which was described as privately held, family owned and new to the deathcare profession.
While the company has changed hands and been backed by different entities over the past several years, today, it is owned by Audax Group, according to Granson.
Heritage recently sold three standalone cemeteries (Grainger Memorial Park, Covington Memorial Park and Helen Crigger Cemetery) to Broylman Memorial Group, so it could sharpen its focus on funeral homes and cremation services.
“We really wanted to focus on our core business,” Granson explained.
The divestment of the cemeteries did not bother her one bit.
“I love cemeteries, but I always felt like I was running a maintenance company,” she said, noting how much focus goes into lawn care and grounds. “What I really love is helping families and building organizations.”
The core business of Heritage now stretches across much of the Midwest and Southeast. It does, however, have one location in California: Chapel of Memories Funeral Home in Norwalk.
States where it has a particularly strong presence include Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio and Tennessee. You can see a full list of locations here.
Some locations serve only a handful of families each month, while others conduct 500 to 600 services annually, Granson said.
The company continues to consider potential acquisition candidates.
“We are looking for strategic opportunities that make sense within our footprint. We also have a strong interest in crematories,” Gaudioso said.
The company is also creative in how it views potential acquisitions, Granson said.
“There are a lot of folks looking to sell their business and not necessarily their real estate,” Granson said. “That is attractive to us. We are in markets where we are able to absorb market share. We don’t necessarily need the real estate.”
She added, “We are of the mindset if we don’t start to change and think differently, our industry will turn into a bunch of crematories with event centers attached to them.”
Bringing Order to Rapid Growth
Growth by acquisition often creates hidden challenges.
“When we came in, all of these companies had kind of been left operating as they always had,” Granson said. “Nothing was really connected.”
One of the executive team’s first priorities became standardization — not to erase local identity, but to eliminate unnecessary complexity.
The company rebuilt its websites, unified data systems, established consistent operating processes, created stronger vendor partnerships and rolled out common technology platforms.
Perhaps most importantly, it developed shared expectations for how families should experience every Heritage Family location.
Today, whether a family visits a rural funeral home in Virginia or a larger location in metropolitan Atlanta, Granson wants them to experience the same level of care, professionalism and responsiveness.
Among the organization’s largest recent initiatives has been the rollout of an entirely new family service training program.
Known internally as the Heritage Hallmark of Service, the program represents a complete rethink of how funeral directors engage families.
At the same time, Heritage Family also launched a new leadership development curriculum for managers throughout the organization, which has been a formidable challenge, Granson said.
“It is really hard to get the staff who have been here a long time to see where the profession is going,” she said. “And then there are staff members coming in who have new ideas … and not much in the middle. These groups have a completely different set of thoughts and ideas. Matching them up does not always work because their thoughts are not the same.”
All these investments reflect something Granson believes many companies overlook: Technology can improve efficiency and processes can improve consistency — but it’s the funeral professionals at each location that define a family’s experience.
Challenging Long-Held Assumptions
One area Granson thinks funeral professionals should focus on is keeping up with change. Often, they react to it instead of anticipating it.
“The first people who truly figure out what families need are going to be incredibly successful,” she said.
That doesn’t mean abandoning tradition, she said.
“We need to hold true to what’s important about funeral service, but we have to do what’s right for the family first,” she said.
To understand what families want, Heritage Family increasingly relies on market data, digital behavior and customer feedback instead of assumptions rooted in decades-old practices.
“We look at the data, we understand what’s happening in our markets and then we bring our staff along,” she said.
It is an approach that blends operational discipline with empathy — a combination that is increasingly necessary as funeral service adapts to shifting demographics, changing family structures and rapidly evolving consumer expectations.
“We have to get out of our own way,” she said. “If we would simply hear what families are telling us, we’d have a much easier time giving them the experience they’re actually looking for.”
For Granson, that isn’t a marketing slogan.
It has become one of the guiding principles behind nearly every operational decision Heritage Family has made over the past two years.
Today’s Family Doesn’t Look Like Yesterday’s Family
One of the biggest shifts Heritage Family has made is making sure it focuses on family members who may not be at the arrangement table.
“The person sitting at the arrangement table isn’t always the person who did the research,” Granson explained.
Increasingly, adult children and grandchildren — often living hundreds of miles away — begin researching funeral homes long before anyone ever makes a phone call. They compare Google reviews, visit websites, read testimonials and evaluate services online before the funeral director is ever involved.
“The person doing all the research may not even live in your market,” she said.
That realization forced Heritage Family to rethink how it presents itself digitally.
“The service experience starts long before someone walks through our doors,” she said.
Families expect to understand a funeral home’s culture, professionalism and capabilities before making first contact.
“They want to see your service before they experience your service,” she said.
That realization has led Heritage Family to make significant investments in website improvements, digital marketing and search visibility, ensuring families can easily find the information they’re seeking regardless of where they’re located.
The company is also closely monitoring how artificial intelligence is changing online search behavior.
“People are searching with ChatGPT and Claude now, not just Google,” Granson said. “The way consumers find information is changing, and we have to stay ahead of that.”
While many funeral homes continue focusing exclusively on traditional search engine optimization, Heritage Family is already adapting its websites and digital content for AI-driven search platforms.
“We’re constantly looking at how our marketing is structured, so families can still find us,” she said.
Technology Should Support People — Not Replace Them
Despite Heritage Family’s investment in technology, Granson is careful not to portray it as a substitute for human interaction.
Instead, she sees it as a way to remove friction.
A good example is Willow Cremation Services, Heritage Family’s recently launched direct cremation brand.
“It really came from understanding that some people simply don’t want to walk into a funeral home to begin the process,” Granson said. “They want to take care of things on their own, at least initially.”
Rather than forcing every family through the same experience, Heritage created an option that allows families to begin arrangements online, at their own pace.
“It’s really an e-commerce play,” Granson explained. “Most of the profession hasn’t invested heavily there yet.”
That philosophy extends beyond cremation.
The company also replaced traditional casket showrooms with digital selection rooms — a move that initially generated skepticism among some funeral directors.
“We knew it would be a big change,” Granson admitted.
The rollout took some time.
Heritage surveyed employees by region to determine which casket models families most frequently selected, developed new training materials, conducted extensive face-to-face education and carefully explained the reasoning behind every change.
“If you’re going to make a decision like that, you have to explain the why,” she said.
The result wasn’t simply fewer display caskets — it was a better buying experience.
“The reality is, the surveys showed many families don’t necessarily want to walk around touching caskets anymore,” she said.
Instead, digital presentations via Matthews Solutions Center (Matthews Aurora is the exclusive supplier for Heritage firms) allow families to personalize selections and give funeral directors an easy way to show additional options.
“It actually gives families more flexibility,” Granson said.
AI Behind the Scenes
Artificial intelligence is another area where Heritage Family is moving deliberately.
While some technology companies are touting incorporating AI directly into the family experience, Heritage is taking a more measured approach, with its AI investments remaining behind the scenes.
For instance, Heritage uses AI to analyze recorded phone conversations, identify coaching opportunities, summarize customer interactions and quickly detect situations where families may have become frustrated.
“If there’s an issue with a family, we can identify it much faster,” Granson explained.
The technology also supports staff development by highlighting communication trends and helping managers provide more effective coaching.
Family-facing AI, however, will likely come later – if it comes at all.
“I think we need a little more time,” she said. “The technology is moving incredibly fast, but I also think we need to better understand the implications before we fully embrace everything that’s available.”
It is a perspective that reflects cautious optimism — a willingness to innovate without sacrificing trust.
Building a Brand Without Hiding Behind It
Heritage Family also made a move that runs counter to much of the profession’s conventional thinking.
“For years, ‘corporate’ has almost been treated like a bad word in funeral service,” Granson observed.
Independent ownership is frequently promoted as a competitive advantage, while larger organizations often keep their parent company’s identity largely invisible.
Granson wanted a different approach.
“I said, instead of hiding the fact that we’re corporate-owned, why don’t we just be really good at it?”
So, instead of downplaying corporate ownership, the company embraced it, launching a rebrand in July 2025.
The initiative unified Heritage Family’s visual identity while allowing each funeral home’s local name and community heritage to remain intact. In the process, the company adopted warmer colors rather than the traditional blues and greens that Granson said dominates funeral service branding.
Those choices weren’t accidental.
“We know the adult daughter is often the one doing the research,” Granson said. “We wanted colors that would stand out and feel different.”
Families still encounter the local funeral home’s identity first.
But once they begin interacting with the organization, Heritage Family becomes much more visible, reinforcing the resources and support available behind every location.
Focusing on Preneed
Heritage Family has also taken significant steps to modernize its preneed program (it partners with Global Atlantic), transforming what had been a largely decentralized operation into a more structured, growth-focused business.
When Granson joined Heritage Family, most of the company’s preneed counselors worked as independent contractors, with little formal structure and no dedicated sales or marketing leadership. With Granson’s input, the company hired Michelle Chasteen, a former Everstory colleague with a brilliant mind, to lead Heritage Family’s preneed sales efforts and oversee outreach initiatives as its national director of client engagement and training.
Today, preneed counselors are company employees rather than 1099 contractors and participate in a formal onboarding and training program. Heritage Family has also implemented the Elevia platform to improve sales management and is beginning to integrate preneed conversations into the at-need arrangement process.
Beyond improving sales operations, the company has placed a renewed emphasis on maintaining relationships with families after the funeral, engaging in regular follow-up.
At the same time, the company is actively recruiting additional preneed professionals to support continued growth.
“I see that getting better,” Granson said. “One of the best things that has come on this year is our outreach program.”
Leadership Starts with Employees
While technology and branding have received considerable attention, Granson repeatedly returns to what she considers Heritage Family’s greatest investment.
Its people.
The funeral profession is entering one of the most significant workforce transitions in its history as longtime funeral directors retire, owners sell their businesses and women enter the profession in large numbers.
Younger employees are bringing different expectations about work-life balance, mental health and career development.
“I think that’s the biggest challenge facing funeral service over the next decade,” Granson said. “The old model of being available to work 24 hours a day, 365 days a year simply isn’t sustainable.”
That doesn’t mean younger professionals are less committed.
“They just want to have families, children and lives outside of work,” she said.
Employers must adapt if they hope to recruit and retain the next generation of funeral directors, which may be an easier lift for Heritage Family than most given that its executive leadership team consists entirely of women.
In addition to Gaudioso serving as CEO and Granson as COO, the executive team includes Adrienne Crutch, chief financial officer; and Tammy Apple, senior vice president of human resources.
There are women in other roles in important roles throughout the organization as well, including the company’s marketing director (who is a former longtime funeral director), Erin Salie.
“It’s interesting because when I came into StoneMor, I think I was the only female executive they had there at the time,” Granson said.
Whenever someone mentions how prominent women are at Heritage Family, however, Granson chuckles.
“We are doing the same thing everyone else is doing,” she said. “It gives us a little different lens maybe … but it’s not so much about us being all female. It’s more about being a mix of folks from inside and outside the industry that gives us an advantage. We see things from all sides and are able to challenge each other.”
Heritage Family recently began working with One Village to offer a comprehensive employee wellness program available to every full-time employee.
The initiative provides access to therapy, stress management resources, nutrition counseling and career coaching.
“We’re constantly encouraging our teams to take care of themselves,” Granson said.
The company has also introduced daily morning huddles to check in with employees — not simply to discuss schedules, but to gauge how people are doing personally.
“It’s important that people know it’s okay to need support,” she said. “We have to take care of the people who spend their careers taking care of everyone else.”
Looking Beyond Tradition
The consumer is changing whether funeral homes choose to acknowledge it or not, Granson said.
They want greater personalization, more digital options, new music, livestreaming, simpler purchasing experiences and more personalization, she said.
And they expect funeral homes to meet them where they are.
“We’re very rooted in thinking there’s only one way people are supposed to grieve, but every family is different,” she said.
Her advice to funeral professionals is surprisingly uncomplicated.
“Listen,” she said. “If we actually listen to what families want instead of giving them the experience we think they should have, they’ll tell everyone about it.”
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