Thomas Parmalee, Executive Director, Kates-Boylston Publications (a division of UCG), Wall, N.J.

SIPA: First of all, congratulations on the SIPAwards that you and your team have won. Your audience is funeral and cemetery professionals. Did you know much about them when you joined the company?
THOMAS: I wasn’t an expert, although strangely enough, my first real job was on the obituary desk of The Times of Trenton and my boss there—a great journalist by the name of Peter Callas—would always jokingly call me “Dr. Death.” I did learn about funeral directors and death while on the obituary desk and later as a police reporter covering crime and the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. I sometimes think it’s a bit odd that I’m right back where I started—on the death beat, so to speak.

Does the subject bring specific challenges?
The biggest challenge for me personally is that it’s such a defined beat. After seven years, it can be challenging to find new angles, new stories—but that makes the job interesting. Once your work becomes too easy, there’s something wrong, and this position has managed to maintain my interest. I come to work every day looking forward to doing my best, knowing our readers need us to confront business challenges.

What is your role as executive director?
I mainly manage our editorial operations as well as on-site conferences. And of course, I contribute to the other aspects of our business however I can.

Are you presenting information differently now?
We’re doing more webinars, more social networking. We just launched an app for our Funerals of the Famous series; people can subscribe to the app for $2.99 per month and read about the lives and deaths of some of the world’s most important people. Our first issue features Steve Jobs, Whitney Houston and George Washington. We are very excited about the app because in addition to serving our audience of funeral professionals, we’re hoping to generate interest from the general public. This will be a new challenge for us, but we’re excited about the possibilities. We’re also redesigning our website to improve and add to the ways we deliver content. In the end, however, I’m a big believer that if you produce great content that can’t be found anywhere else, then a lot of things end up taking care of themselves.

Do you still use print?
We print both of our magazines, American Funeral Director and American Cemetery. We also have a weekly newsletter, Funeral Service Insider, which is delivered in print as well as by email as a PDF. Our new website, which we’re in the process of working on, will allow us to deliver our award-winning content online in addition to print.

Any particular reason print is still so heavy?
Much of our audience is pretty conservative and traditional. They’re gravitating online, but at a pace slower than a lot of industries. That’s a factor. We also believe print has a lot of benefits, and there’s nothing like holding a magazine in your hands, marking it up and passing it around. That’s also good for our advertisers, too, and our readers are really vested in our printed products. The challenge for us is to add to the ways we deliver our content—not eliminate print, which we believe in.

Did you consider a digital magazine?
We’ve done demos of those in the past, but I’m not sure that the flip-book format that many magazines use is the best option. However, we’re committed to delivering content to our readers in new and innovative ways while also providing our advertisers with real value.

You mentioned social media?
Yes, we have Facebook fan pages for Kates-Boylston Publications and our flagship brands. We focus mainly on those, but we are also on Twitter, LinkedIn and will likely experiment on other sites such as Pinterest. Cemeteries have beautiful landscapes, and that’s where Pinterest would most likely come in.

Just curious—are there many women in the industry?
Yes, more and more. In fact, there are now more women in mortuary college than men, and there are many women who own funeral homes and hold leadership positions in the business. For instance, the CEO of the National Funeral Directors Association is Christine Pepper. The president of Batesville Casket Co. is Kim Ryan. The owner of Kelco Supply Co. is Alicia Carr. I could go on and on…women are a force to be reckoned with in funeral service.

Mortuary college?
Educational requirements to be in funeral service vary from state to state, but virtually all states require some type of mortuary education. In some states, you need to go through training as an embalmer. Other states have a split licensure where you can become a funeral director without knowing how to embalm. There’s a decreasing emphasis on embalming—for better or worse—because of the rising cremation rate.

Why the rise in cremation?
That’s based on a variety of factors. The Catholic Church and other religions have become more accepting of the practice. Some people just do not want to be buried in the ground. And there is also the perception that cremation costs less. That’s true to a certain extent in that it eliminates the need for a casket, but most of our customers would argue that cremating a loved one does not eliminate the need to hold some type of service to deal with the loss and pay tribute to their memory.

Unfortunately, I had to deal with a funeral home not too long ago. But they were very easy and fair to deal with.
Yes, 99% of the time funeral directors are trying to do the right thing and the best that they can to help families. Most consider it a calling and have a strong desire to serve others.

Good stuff. Thanks.