By Thomas A. Parmalee
Lisa Baue, the former owner and CEO of Baue Funeral Homes, Crematory & Cemetery in Missouri, wanted to keep on working after selling the business to Park Lawn Corp. in 2019.
“I had plans to do some consulting,” she said. “My good buddy, Alan Wolfelt (director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition in Fort Collins, Colorado), who I’ve known since my 20s, told me I should take a year off. I’ve never been one to leave and hit the golf course, but Alan got his wish, because the pandemic hit about six months after we sold Baue.”
That gave her time to take some deep breaths, however, and she thought hard about what she wanted to do.
“My mission and my heart have always been in funeral service, and I wanted to give back,” she said. “I know young people are coming into ownership or management and struggling. Some are looking to buy funeral homes or looking to grow themselves as leaders, but they just aren’t sure how to get there.”
With that in mind, she opened her doors as “Your Funeral Coach” in 2021, focusing on helping deathcare professionals with virtually every aspect of their professional development.
While she’s still a funeral coach, her attention has shifted to a new venture that she thinks will have an even greater impact: Funeral Women Lead, which is an organization dedicated to empowering and supporting women in the funeral profession.
Baue and her Funeral Women Lead teammates know women are crucial to the future of the deathcare profession. The organization offers mentorship, coaching and leadership training to help women thrive.
“There is a huge need out there in our profession for really helping people personally on a personal level – guiding them and meeting with them every few weeks or every month to help them with challenges in both life and business,” Baue said. “It’s almost like being a counselor.”
In her coaching business, she found herself increasingly providing guidance to women, and she saw that they needed more support than she could provide on her own, which is why she started Funeral Women Lead, she said.
“My generation – baby boomers – there are not a lot of female funeral home owners,” said Baue, who is 68. “Not many in their sixties. There are more in their 50s and 40s and certainly more in their 30s. But I am only one person and cannot do it all – the need to provide counsel to these women is huge. They have big dreams and big goals – and they want to become leaders in the profession.”
In launching Funeral Women Lead, Baue, its founder and CEO, enlisted the help of her daughter-in-law, Taylor Crabbs, who serves as her executive assistant and strategic content and operations manager.
Rounding out the team is Ruth Bedell, Ph.D., executive research and development director; and Kristen Ernst, MA, LPC, dean of its Women Leadership Academy, which will kick off in November and be online the rest of the year until the graduation meeting the subsequent fall.
The organization also has a board consisting of Alicia Carr, owner and CEO of Kelco Supply Company; Melissa Posey Loose, senior vice president of communications at Security National Financial Corp.; and Brenda Suit, who retired as chief financial officer at Baue Funeral Homes. Numerous women have expressed interest in getting more involved, so the board will likely expand, Baue said.
She also sought counsel from John Schmitz, who retired from the Schmitz CPA and Consulting Firm and was formerly the chief financial officer of Horan & McConaty.
Filling a Void
Before starting the organization, Baue began by talking and listening, as well as attending and supporting various women’s conferences as a sponsor, speaker and participant.
“There are connections to help women support each other, but what more can be done?” she asked. “There are some gaps.”
Filling those gaps will be one of the main priorities of Funeral Women Lead, she said, noting that she’s listening to the concerns of funeral directors, cremationists, burial experts, suppliers – “you name it.”
She observed, “As women in this profession, we are mothers and wives. We are busy ladies talking in our community. We are multitaskers, and the last thing we take care of is us ourselves – physically and spiritually.”
Given all that, one of the larger gaps she sees is simply the notion of providing continuous support, which is why Funeral Women Lead has introduced two new initiatives: its Leadership Academy, which will be held in November at The Scottsdale Resort & Spa, followed by a Wellness Summit.
Registration is open for the Leadership Academy and the Wellness Summit will open soon.
She observed that ever since the Supreme Court struck down the notion of traditional male-only clubs, many male and female organizations have simply merged. One exception, she said, is Athena International, which aims to accelerate and deliver on its mission of developing, empowering and celebrating female leaders and their allies.
The lumping together hasn’t always resulted in women getting the support they need, she said.
Female funeral professionals need help to not only survive but to thrive and become leaders, Baue said. “They don’t teach leadership at mortuary school and hardly at all in college,” she said. “So, we wanted to provide something from women in the business that helps them with leadership. And what helps them long term is being with them all along their journey and walking with them, which is why we have started the Women’s Leadership Academy.”
The Wellness Summit will follow the Leadership Academy and help attendees:
- Reignite energy with expert-led sessions on mental, emotional, and physical well-being.
- Discover leadership strategies that harness the strengths of feminine leadership.
- Connect with bold-minded professionals who understand the bold challenges and triumphs of this profession.
Baue also aims to team up with and support other organizations and associations that focus on supporting women in funeral service.
“We believe in collaboration with all the associations,” she said, fresh from returning from the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association’s “The Experience” in Las Vegas, where droves of attendees flooded the Funeral Women Lead booth. “We are reaching out to everyone that has a women’s program to find out how we can better support them … how can we let the women of our profession know what is going on in our profession and that we are here to support you as women?”
More initiatives to support women through Funeral Women Lead are on the way, including a resource section on its website, which will include YouTube videos, webinars and more. “We will form a resource committee in the near future,” she said.
She also hopes to make a difference in promoting workplaces that offer flexibility, work-life balance, and maternity leave and paternity leave. “Women are struggling to find employers that believe in their supportive development,” she said.
Times are changing, and some attitudes need to change, she said.
“My generation of owners really believes the customer is the first priority instead of the staff … but we have to put our focus on developing these leaders of tomorrow,” she said.
Baue cited research that suggests many women leave the funeral profession within five years of entering it. Funeral Women Lead hopes to conduct an updated study to measure job satisfaction and engagement in funeral service as it pertains to women.
The goal, she said, will be to develop some knowledge that will allow firms to boost the retainment of women.
“We believe employers have to change,” she said. “We can’t keep working seven days a week and these 10-day shifts and think we will retain these young people for the price we are paying them.”
She’s disappointed that many men in the profession continue to be paid more than their female counterparts for doing the exact same job.
“We know it exists,” she said, adding that if it continues, “We will see these women leave in larger numbers than we have ever seen.”
She continues to hear shocking stories from women, including potential employers asking whether they intend to one day become a mother. “First, that is illegal and secondly, why can’t they?” she asked incredulously.
Now that Funeral Women Lead exists, however, she hopes to educate the profession and resolve some of that disconnect.
“I feel very strongly that women are the key to the survival of this profession,” she said.
Looking Ahead
Funeral Women Lead will soon be a 501(c)(3) organization by the end of the year, Baue said.
“We are seeking donations and support,” she said. “We have sponsorships available as well as the opportunity to support our overall mission.”
She’s also working with state associations that are providing scholarships to allow female funeral professionals to attend Funeral Women Lead’s Leadership Academy and its Wellness Summit.
Once Funeral Women Lead achieves its 501(c)(3) status, it will offer grants to help more women benefit from its programs, Baue said. It also plans to hire someone to focus on raising money.
“We believe there is a great deal of grant money outside the profession as well for women programs that help women in underdeveloped, underserved professions,” Baue said.
Also looking into the future, Baue hopes to have a stable of paid coaches as well as volunteer mentors who can counsel women in various areas. For instance, if you want to be a death doula or start an aquamation service, there would be a female mentor to help you accomplish your goals.
“We believe there are a lot of great women coaches, and we want to provide a variety of expertise,” she said. “As the founder and CEO of Funeral Women Lead, I want to see a broader group of women helping women.”
Asked whether the organization will ultimately be membership driven, supporter driven or a hybrid between the two, Baue said that’s something she intends to figure out.
“We hope women will support us either way, but I don’t see it being expensive to join if there is a membership fee in the future,” she said, noting that for now, anyone can become a charter member for free. Already, the organization has 160 charter supporters, and that number is growing daily.
As to how big Funeral Women Lead can get and how many women it can support, Baue’s expectations are high.
“I’m a big dreamer. I have big visions … Could we become the next Lean In for funeral service?” she said.
To succeed, however, she knows Funeral Women Lead will need support from men as well.
“I respect men a great deal,” she said. “But fewer than 10% of our profession right now are really out there supporting and developing women. I know them, and they are my good friends. Some have asked how they can get involved. They know that women are the future of this profession.”
One day, Baue dreams of seeing a funeral profession that is gender neutral. But right now, there is so much work to be done to elevate women, empower them and care for them. “The majority of women I talk to today are not feeling those things,” she said.
Baue said she’s not receiving any compensation from Funeral Women Lead and is striving only to give back.
In August, she’ll be publishing a book, Wake-Up Calls: A Journey of Learning to Lead and Succeed in the Funeral and Deathcare Profession. All proceeds will be donated to Funeral Women Lead and other organizations that support women.
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