January 25, 2008

Mercury Emissions And The Cremation Process 2008 By Paul Rahill, Matthews Cremation Division

Concern for the well being of the environment is evident from all the discussion taking place in almost every facet of our daily life. It is almost impossible to pick up a newspaper or turn on a television or talk radio without the topic of the environment being discussed.

Human impact on our environment is being studied in every area of life. But the concern is not stopping there. We also continue to research what impact we are having after life and for the purposes of this article, specifically from the cremation process.

Great advances have been made in the reduction of particulate matter (PM), visible emissions (VE) and carbon monoxide (CO) from the cremation process. Particulate matter and carbon dioxide are the two most commonly regulated pollutants from cremation equipment.  read more...

Tending to the Dead By Thomas A. Parmalee

WESTBOROUGH, MASS. - Philip G. Haddad Jr. plans to take the remembrance industry by storm. He says his company, Westland Services Corp., has every intention of having an office in 80 metropolitan areas within the next 18 months. Within the next three years, he wants there to be an international headquarters in Amsterdam, Holland. And he proudly notes that the company he founded in 1987 already has 22 offices open throughout the United States, two offices in Canada and dozens more in various stages of development.

All those things make him a man to keep on your radar screen. But there are some people who believe that Haddad is a man to be avoided. Indeed, the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Funeral Directors and Embalmers decided on March 22, 2007, to prevent Haddad from applying for any funeral registration certificate or establishment certificate for five years. At the end of that period, Haddad must submit a new application and take a new funeral board examination to obtain a funeral license. According to the board’s web site, officials concluded, “that Haddad violated numerous provisions of Massachusetts Board regulations. The violations included sending a misleading and deceptive letter to customers, allowing an unlicensed person to transfer preneed accounts from trust to insurance, and failing to maintain his preneed contracts in compliance with Board regulations.  click here to download the full story...

Authorities: Funeral Service Executive Stole $27 Million By Thomas A. Parmalee

Robert Nelms, the president and chief executive of Memory Gardens Management Corp., and his wife, Debora Johnson-Nels, have been accused of taking as much as $27 million from perpetual care and preneed funds.

Both face multiple counts of theft, fraud and other charges. The company operates a number of funeral homes and cemeteries throughout the Midwest, and Michigan is also looking at Nelms' activities but has not filed criminal charges, according to Todd Rokita, Indiana's secretary of state.

Nelms and his wife, who live in New Jersey, bought Memory Gardens in December 2004 for $27 million from Fred Meyer of Indianapolis. According to a probable cause affidavit, the couple arranged a $13.5 million bridge loan as a down payment and repaid it from the company's trust fund, even though the fund was supposed to be used solely to care for cemeteries. According to prosecutors, all the money in that trust fund was transferred to a new bank and withdrawn in April 2005.  read more...