By Thomas A. Parmalee
Robbie Hulme, 36, always knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur, but he never thought about funeral service – until it found him.
That meeting took place at a career fair at Brigham Young University, where a preneed marketing company, Precoa, was on the hunt for top talent.
“The story they had, the growth they had experienced and the values they promoted were all interesting to me, and I thought if I could join a growth stage company and learn from those experiences and then leave at some point to start my own thing, that would be a great outcome,” said Hulme (pictured at top).
He also found the funeral profession compelling.
“I wouldn’t be selling widgets but helping families through a really difficult time,” he said.
So, he moved to Portland, Oregon with his wife, Ashley, who he’d met in college and married prior to his senior year. “A few months after we moved, she interviewed for a job at Precoa and got hired!” he said. “She worked in the account management department and really enjoyed her time there, especially the friends she made at Precoa and at the funeral homes she worked with.”
Learning all the ins and outs of preneed, Hulme went from being a business development analyst to a senior manager before taking some time off to earn his MBA, which reignited his desire to strike out on his own.
“I decided during school that I liked the idea of being an entrepreneur by acquiring an existing business with a customer base and a brand – that was a better fit for my skillset than starting a company from nothing,” he said.
It also dawned on him that the right opportunity was right in front of him.
Launching Impact Funeral Partners
Hulme teamed up Cody Campbell to start Impact Funeral Partners.
“Cody got his MBA from BYU 10 years before I did, and one of the entrepreneurship professors there who we both took a class from introduced us,” Hulme said. “That professor heard I was looking to acquire a business and had a background in the funeral space, and he thought Cody and I should chat. I am very grateful he connected us!”
Campbell also had a connection to end-of-life care, having earned money in high school by digging graves. Later, he became a hospice chaplain, offering comfort and connection to others during their hardest times. In addition to being the co-founder of Impact Funeral Partners, he is also the co-founder of a successful home health and hospice company, appropriately named Impact Healthcare.
In teaming up to launch Impact Funeral Partners, the two men were determined to retain ownership and control of the company, which is why they relied on debt financing to start and grow the business.
Beyond the two of them, a small circle of people who have worked with Campbell over the years have a minority ownership stake in the company, but they stay behind the scenes, Hulme said.
They made their first acquisition in January 2021, buying a small 75-call firm in rural northern Idaho: Trenary Funeral Home in Kooskia.
It was just several months after the COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a screeching halt, which was one of the reasons why the inaugural acquisition was on the smaller side, Hulme said.
“We only did one acquisition that year – we wanted to make sure we had some good systems in place and gave ourselves time to fine tune the model,” Hulme said.
Navigating the dynamics of the pandemic proved to be a graduate course of sorts on the importance of being agile.
“There was more revenue and the multiples were inflated, and the interest rates were high at the time … it was an expensive environment to compete against those who were established,” Hulme said.
The Impact team stayed the course, remaining patient until the right opportunities came along, which “has worked out well for us,” Hulme said.
Continued Growth
Since that time, the company has expanded quickly: It now owns 80 locations in 11 states. They are Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.
Unlike most other acquisition companies, Impact’s calling card has been to buy firms that get little fanfare: namely, smaller firms in rural towns.
“We felt like almost all the other groups out there are focusing on the bigger metropolitan areas, where there is a lot of population and a lot of funeral homes … that is a great model, but we felt there was an opportunity to do something different.” Hulme said.
Focusing on rural firms has proved to be a successful model, although it has not been without challenges, Hulme said.
“We might have a funeral home that is five or even 12 hours away from our next closest firm,” he said. “So, we can’t just cover for other team members or share team members or a centralized preparation facility.”
But Hulme and his teammates saw the potential from early on to do something special even with the obstacles.
“We felt if we could design a model to support those rural town funeral homes and the funeral directors and managers – to support the boots on the ground in those local areas – and to ensure they were supported and encouraged to make good decisions within the bounds of running a good business … we were excited about it and thought it was a good opportunity.”
So, ever since that first acquisition, Hulme and his team have kept their heads down and have focused on building a model with systems in place to support a rural network of funeral homes.
Recruitment is essential, as the owners of rural firms may be the only licensed person on staff, and to retire, someone else must enter the fray.
Ben Farnstrom, 46, who formerly worked at Service Corporation International and Foundation Partners Group, signed on as chief operating officer of Impact Funeral Partners after hearing the company’s story.
“Ben joined about 18 months ago … he knows how to run an organization that is growing quickly,” Hulme said. “With my background and not being a former funeral director … that only goes so far. There are some technical aspects to the job revolving around embalming that I do not know. I felt we needed someone who could teach our people to be better and to hold them to even higher standards.”
As the two began talking, Hulme realized they had so much in common, including a strong love of family, with his wife keeping him on track of putting work aside to enjoy what really matters.
“Ashley helps with a few things at Impact Funeral Partners like our company newsletter and other culture-related things, but her main full-time job is taking care of our three kids and managing the house,” he said. “Her title at home is CFO, which stands for chief fun officer … she makes sure that we get out and have fun as a family and I don’t just work all the time.”
That type of work ethic and strong family focus – as well as Impact’s focus on rural funeral homes – spoke to Farnstrom’s soul. As well it should have, given that he’s a devoted family man himself and grew up in the profession, working at his family’s funeral home in Oregon.
“Growing up, I learned a lot about the ins and outs of a mom-and-pop shop,” said Farnstrom, who took family business – Farnstrom Family Mortuaries and Care Cremation – and turned it into a force with three locations. Eventually, the business was sold to StoneMor Partners. Today, it’s operated by Clearstone Memorial Partners, he said.
“I love the meaning that small town funeral homes bring to the community,” Farnstrom said. “I watched my dad as a kid going to the grocery store and people hugging him. He was a servant to the community and put on a pedestal almost. So, when I heard about Impact Funeral Partners and about its culture, vision, footprint, growth and what it wants to achieve, I saw that it aligned with my values. Robbie’s vision really aligns with my vision.”
Impact Funeral Partners, however, isn’t afraid to buy larger firms, Hulme said.
“There is not really a size that we say is too small or big,” he said, when reflecting on which firms are the most attractive acquisition candidates. “We’ve done acquisitions of funeral homes that may have 50 cases if it is close to another of our funeral homes. And we have also made large acquisitions and everything in between.”
Just recently, in fact, it closed one of those big acquisitions, buying a majority interest in the Knapp-Johnson-Harris Group, which has about 30 rooftops in the central Illinois area and serves about 1,700 families per year, expanding the footprint Impact already has in the state.
“The acquisition fits our rural footprint,” Hulme said. “And it has good alignment with us in terms of geography and culture. Almost all of the previous owners are staying on, and we really like the ownership group. And several of them are retaining a slice of ownership as well as it’s not a 100% buyout but a majority buyout.”
The business includes a popular pet cremation unit that cremates for many of the vet clinics, pet hospitals and families in the area, Hulme said.
Jake Johnson, president and CEO of Johnson Consulting Group, said his company enjoyed playing a role in making the transaction happen. “It was a real honor for Johnson Consulting Group to have represented the owners of Knapp Funeral Homes with the next chapter of their business,” he said. “We strive to find the right buyers for our clients … Impact Funeral Partners closely aligned with the Knapp Funeral Home’s longstanding reputation for exceptional service to the families they serve.”
It’s clear that Impact’s strategy is working.
“Last year, we served about 5,000 families, and with our growth this year, we are on track to serve about 7,500 families,” Hulme said. “We have about 200 employees now, and roughly half of them are full time.”
Companywide, the cremation rate at its funeral homes is about 65%, Hulme said.
Why Owners Should Consider Impact Funeral Partners
For rural firms especially, Hulme thinks Impact should be at the top of the list when owners think about who will carry on their legacy.
“I feel we are building something special and continually adding great people to our team as we grow,” Hulme said. “We really do prioritize culture, and we offer great compensation packages and good benefits – and we also have a unique profit-sharing program for our managers. In fact, we give them a path to equity ownership if they stay with us for a few years and operate on budget.”
In fact, Impact Funeral Partners is obsessed with creating a great culture and attracting top talent, Hulme said.
“Even though we are so spread out, once a year we bring all our managers together for a retreat,” Hulme said. “And it’s not a ‘Let’s come together and do business meeting.’ The annual retreat lets us have some fun and build relationships and maybe do some personal development, but it’s not focused on coming together to learn how to sell more stuff. The focus is on fun and getting together to decompress.”
There is a smaller regional retreat as well, with a smaller group of managers, Hulme said.
“If the team, culture and values are important to an owner, I do feel like we walk the walk and invest into those things, which in turn allows us to attract great people who care about their communities, families and continuing the legacy of the former owner,” Hulme said.
Many owners also like the fact that it’s not private equity calling the shots.
“There is no pressure from external sources to grow at a certain rate of return,” Hulme said. “It is independently owned by me, Cody and a couple of other family-focused guys who have a long-term perspective.”
Asked about where he’d like to expand, Hulme said he’s always interested expanding where the company already operates “to fill in those gaps.”
Texas is probably the state at the top of the company’s wish list.
“We have put in several offers on funeral homes in Texas and continue to focus on relationship building there,” Hulme said. “It is a huge state and a lot of it is rural, so it fits in well with our model. We just haven’t gotten anything finalized there yet.”
As to the pipeline of acquisition candidates, it remains a “constant flow” with solid opportunities, Hulme said. “We are always developing relationships with people who may not be ready now but who see us as a potential option down the road,” he said.
He added, “If you are a smaller company – a 150 to 200 call firm – that is where we see ourselves continuing to focus.”
The deciding factor as to why an owner goes with Impact often boils down to culture, Farnstrom said.
“We take pride in taking care of our people, who are our boots on the ground every day,” he said. “And that is because of Robbie’s vision: Creating a company with a culture that wins.”
That culture is a result of the company’s mission statement, which is “bring together the best people, practices, and ideas to set the standard of care in the funeral profession.”
The focus, Hulme pointed out, is on the employees. “We italicize people to put emphasis on what matters most, because without great people on our team the rest of it can’t happen,” he said.
“We are always looking for great funeral directors and managers,” he said. “If anyone wants to try their hand at kind of running their own funeral home but the idea of buying one themselves is scary, we are a great fit for that type of person.”
To learn more about Impact Funeral Partners, including career opportunities, visit the company website.
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