By Thomas A. Parmalee
Lacy Robinson’s family always suspected she’d grow up to be a funeral director.
But they could have never imagined she’d become a senior business development consultant for Johnson Consulting Group, an instructor at Worsham College of Mortuary Science in Wheeling, Illinois; and the owner and facilitator of the Bourbon Legends Tour, which reveals the fascinating details behind hallmark figures of the Kentucky bourbon trade.
For most people, all that would keep them busy — but not Robinson.
She’s also a published author, having written “Engaging the Heart of Hospice: Making Funeral and Memorial Services an Extension of Hospice Care” with Greg Grabowski, president of Serviam Hospice, which equips end-of-life care providers with essential tools and resources to forge partnerships with hospice and health care organizations. Plus, she’s a longtime volunteer at Hosparus Health in Louisville, Kentucky, a nonprofit hospice and palliative care organization.
“My mom would tell you that she knew this would be my chosen profession even when I was four years old,” said Robinson, 47, who grew up in Walton, Kentucky, a small town about 20 miles south of Cincinnati.
That gut feeling arose after she saw her daughter crawling into her great-uncle’s casket during a funeral service.
“From that moment on, my parents were thinking there was some interest there – and there was something going on,” she said.
When she was in middle school and high school, both of her grandfathers died in the span of a few years.
That experience was made a little easier, however, when a female funeral director walked alongside her to the graveside for one of the committal services, she recalled.
“It ignited something in me,” she said. “I started researching funeral service as I went into high school … every assignment where we were able to choose a topic, I would make it about funeral service,” she said.
An Aurora Casket service center near her house also kept the profession top of mind.
“I would see Aurora Casket trucks growing up quite a bit,” she said. “That also may have been the very beginning of planting a seed.”
During her senior year of high school, Robinson went to the local funeral home and asked if she could learn the ins and outs of the profession – and she’s been working in deathcare ever since.
Even though she’s taken on an incredible variety of roles, every chapter of Robinson’s career has been driven by one goal: helping people navigate end-of-life care.
Making the Grade
In 2002, Robinson enrolled in the Mid-America College of Funeral Service in Jeffersonville, Indiana after first earning a bachelor’s degree in communications from Georgetown University.
Only a handful of women were in her class at the time, which demonstrates how much the profession has changed.
While in mortuary school, she met Nancy Kraft Molnar with Generations Funeral Home in New Albany, Indiana, which is now owned by the Newcomer family (Service Corporation International owns the Kraft Funeral Service brand, where Kraft Molnar works).
“We hit it off immediately,” Robinson said. “To this day, she is my friend and mentor and is the L.I.F.T. coordinator (an internal talent development program) for one of the largest L.I.F.T. groups in the SCI network. I go to her L.I.F.T. group meetings and put on programs for her group, which always has about 75 people in attendance.”
She also credits Leili McMurrough, president of Worsham College of Mortuary Science, where she now works as an instructor, as another mentor. “She has helped me see this next chapter of my career, where I develop meaningful curriculum for students and be a mentor to them,” she said. “It has truly been life changing for her to sit down with me as a friend to help me see what this next chapter could be.”
McMurrough noted that what has always stuck out to her about Robinson is her ability to bring “real warmth and polish” to funeral service education. “She has a gift for taking important professional skills, customer service, communication, hospitality, presentation, and confidence, and making them feel meaningful and human for students,” she said. “At Worsham, she contributes far more than course content. She brings energy, creativity, humor and a deep belief in what our students are capable of becoming.”
She added, “Lacy is also one of those people who makes funeral service feel bigger and more connected. Her work reflects some of the best parts of this profession. She understands that funeral service is about how we make people feel in some of the most important and vulnerable moments of their lives.”
On a personal level, McMurrough is grateful to call Robinson both a colleague and a friend. “She is thoughtful, talented, generous, and completely herself, which is part of what makes her so effective,” she said.
Getting Her Start
Robinson graduated with an associate degree of applied science in funeral service in 2003 and is licensed as a funeral director in Kentucky – a credential she prides herself on keeping current.
“It means a lot to me to have that experience and to have achieved that status,” she said. “And you never know, one day, I may decide to go back to work in a funeral home.”
As a funeral apprentice, Robinson enjoyed “the behind-the-scenes details,” she said. “I enjoyed the customer service aspect of funeral service, which set me on a path forward to develop and facilitate customer service programs for funeral service professionals,” she said.
After graduating, Robinson landed a customer service job at Aurora Casket Co. — the same company whose trucks helped spark her interest in the profession as an adolescent.
She served the company in a variety of roles, including as director of professional development. Altogether, she was there about 11 years.
Working at Aurora gave her a chance to visit cemeteries throughout the country, which instilled in her a growing passion, laying the groundwork for visiting hundreds of cemeteries over the years and launching a cemetery tourism business.
She shifted gears when she joined the National Funeral Directors Association as its director of member development, where she spent five years.
“It was great to see funeral directors come together with the common goal and mission to help funeral service professionals worldwide,” she said. “To give one example, you don’t know what goes into that large a convention until you are on the inside. It was remarkable to see all the moving parts and see how far in advance they plan.”
Jim LaMar, now a colleague of Robinson’s at Johnson Consulting Group, where he’s a senior business consultant, remembers meeting her fourteen years ago, when she was delivering training on Aurora’s arrangement software. “I found her to be extremely knowledgeable and engaging,” he said. “The impact she had on our staff was felt long after the training occurred. Now that we are reunited at Johnson Consulting Group, I can safely say, she hasn’t missed a beat.”
Following Her Heart to Promote Relationships with Hospice
While at Aurora Casket, Robinson crossed paths with Grabowski, president of Serviam.
Years later, the two would write their book about forging stronger connections with hospice.
“When collaborating with Greg at Aurora, a light bulb went off,” she said. “I saw it would be viable to help funeral homes understand how to be part of the continuum of care and to bring these two worthy fields together for the betterment of caring for families.”
In 2020, the two formalized their alliance.
“Greg and I also created the first health care relationship management system – Funeral HRM – to help funeral and cremation providers track the progress of hospice and health care relationships in their network,” she said. “We also provide Medicare hospice death reports and analysis for funeral and cremation providers.”
Their book, she noted, has been an effective lead generator in terms of putting a resource in the hands of people, so they start thinking about ways to work with hospice, regardless of the size of their budget.
Amid all her work in forging connections between funeral homes and hospice organizations, she has been a hospice volunteer herself for 11 years with Hosparus Health.
“I wanted to learn more and help more,” Robinson said. “Being a volunteer has expanded my heart for hospice even more.” She added, “Whether I am sitting with a hospice patient, volunteering in the basement to organize medical supplies or playing an elf at the Christmas party, there is always the opportunity to learn something new and apply what I have learned to my workshops.”
While most funeral homes understand the importance of hospice and are grateful their caregivers do such a tremendous job, they often lack the time to connect with hospice and build strong relationships, she said.
“It can be challenging for funeral homes … and it comes down to having a system in place,” she said. “You do not want to rely on one person at a hospice – it’s about having a real system, so even if a hospice caregiver moves on, the system is still in place.”
In August, Johnson Consulting Group is sponsoring the Cremation Association of North America’s first-ever Certified Hospice Relations Specialist Workshop in Minneapolis.
Robinson will lead the hands-on certification program, which will help funeral professionals strengthen hospice partnerships, support families, and grow meaningful community relationships. (Register here — and use promo code WITHLACY to save 10% off your registration).
Teaching the Next Generation of Funeral Professionals
At Worsham, Robinson teaches three classes, including Fundaments of Customer Service, Funeral Directing and Marketing and Merchandising.
Mortuary college is much different than when she was in school, she said.
Much of her attention revolves around ensuring online students get as valuable an education as their in-person peers, she said.
Throughout her career, her public speaking skills have been an asset— a skill she doubts she would have mastered if not for her father, who was a banker before retiring.
“My dad told me in high school to get the speaking thing down, and it has been the best career advice he has given me,” she said. “It has been able to carry me into so many different aspects of my career.”
It’s advice she now shares with students.
“I encourage them to join Toastmasters and work on their public speaking skills,” she said. “It comes in handy whether you are at a graveside service or after a funeral when you are inviting people to a farewell reception,” she said.
As far as how AI is affecting her professional career, she noted that while she’s not against it, she’s “still trying to figure it out.”
“I am constantly learning what is available to use, how it can help me and how I can help students understand what it can and cannot do,” she said.
Bourbon Legends
For the last couple of years, Robinson has operated a Kentucky Bourbon Legends Tour that incorporates her love for cemeteries as well as history.
The idea struck her many years ago – and it would not go away even after years of traveling prevented her from seriously pursuing it.
But after earning a master’s degree in bourbon tourism and event management from Midway University and reinventing herself, she was as equipped as she was ever going to be to make her dream a reality.
When she pitched her idea to an instructor, they said she should absolutely do it.
“I thought, ‘OK … well, maybe,’” she said.
It wasn’t until her boyfriend spotted a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van at a neighborhood concert, however, that she became convinced she could implement her vision.
The vehicle was exactly what she wanted.
“It was a luxury van with two monitors and couch seating, and I thought, ‘This is what I want,’” she said. “I needed something to comfortably fit people and a way to show artifacts and documents that would focus on bourbon legends,” she said.
Before launching the tour, she conducted pilot tours with friends, once going on an eight-hour excursion.
“I decided to make this the real deal and provide this to people looking for a luxury cemetery tour experience, she said. “A lot of research went into learning about the legacy of bourbon legends and researching artifacts and documents to share the stories that go along with final resting places.”
As for the vehicle, she rents the same Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van she saw when she has a group of 10 people, and for smaller tours, she’ll use her Mercedes sedan or serve as a hop-on tour guide on a bus, van or SUV.
Since launching the Bourbon Legends tour, she has also teamed up with the Oxmoor Estate (also known as the Oxmoor Farm) in Louisville Kentucky, which consists of a beautiful plantation, gardens and is the home to two primary historic cemeteries: the Bullitt/Christian family plot and a dedicated pet cemetery.
“We have since created the Mourning and Memory Tour at Oxmoor, where attendees can go to the pet cemetery and the family cemetery, and I show them different death and funeral artifacts dating back to the early 1800s related to the family,” Robinson said.
The family fits right in with Robinson’s passion for the history surrounding bourbon: William Marshall Bullitt authored the Taft Decision, a landmark ruling signed by President William Howard Taft on Dec. 27, 1909. Issued to clarify a dispute under the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, the decision established the legal standard for what could be marketed as whiskey.
“The overall mission of both tours – the eight-hour Bourbon Legends tur and the excursion at Oxmoor – is to help people feel more comfortable with end-of-life care planning,” Robinson said.
She’s quick to share a variety of stories related to bourbon she finds fascinating. For instance, Margie Samuels, the wife of Bill Samuels Sr., was the creative force behind Maker’s Mark, a premium Kentucky bourbon whiskey brand known for its hand-dipped red wax seal.
“She designed the name, bottle shape and the hand-dipped red wax seal, drawing inspiration from fine pewter,” Robinson said. “She used their family’s deep fryer, filled with wax and dipped the first bottles at home. Her final resting place is in Bardstown Cemetery in Bardstown, Kentucky.”
Altogether, Robinson has been leading about 20 tours each year, with each tour including about a dozen people. She has some flexibility to do “hop-on tours” for larger groups, she said.
“It mainly depends on the cemetery,” she said, noting that some do not allow buses.
She has also spoken at various bourbon-themed events, including the James B. Beam Institute Industry Conference on dark tourism in Kentucky’s bourbon industry.
“I share about historic cemeteries and artifacts and also about my overall mission of helping people feel more comfortable in talking about end-of-life care,” she said.
With every cemetery tour, donations are made to each cemetery, to Operation Honor Guard (Rich Darby’s nonprofit organization) and the Archeological Fund for Enslaved Burials (at Oxmoor).
Her Dream Life
Having worked at Johnson Consulting Group for more than five years, Robinson thrives on helping JCG clients grow their business.
She counts herself lucky to be touched daily by the “incredible energy” of the firm’s president and CEO, Jake Johnson.
“His passion guides us all,” she said.
Johnson feels lucky to have Robinson on his team.
“Lacy’s energy and motivating presentations are truly inspiring!” he said. “I am humbled by her experience and her desire to help others in this profession. We are truly blessed to have her represent Johnson Consulting Group.”
Robinson is keenly aware that she has surpassed even her lofty expectations to make a difference in the profession.
“I am living my dream,” she said. “I am able to pursue my passion for cemetery tourism and fulfill that part of my heart, and I am also able to serve clients effectively in giving them the tools they need to not simply survive but to thrive.”
Looking back, Robinson realizes the little girl fascinated by funeral service never really changed: She simply kept finding new ways to serve families, educate professionals and preserve the stories that connect life, death and history.
Follow FuneralVision.com on LinkedIn.
Follow FuneralVision.com on X.
Follow FuneralVision.com on Facebook.
