I have been honoured to help people in their greatest time of need. Providing support for families facing the suffering of personal loss has been a passion for my entire working career.
Ironically, a tragedy that struck inspired me to pursue the funeral profession. I lost a close friend in a snowmobile accident at the age of 14. Back then, a funeral director who counseled the grief-stricken school children through a time of recovery fostered within me a life-long ambition of helping others recover from this personal crisis.
Following high school graduation in Calgary in 1982, I graduated from the Alberta School of Mortuary Science in 1985. With hard work, I achieved the highest overall all scholastic marks in the province and became a licensed Funeral Director and Embalmer. I began my career with a Calgary firm who excelled at customer service. In 1988, an opportunity came for me to manage a funeral home that was recently purchased by that same firm. It was a time that allowed me to spread my wings and come to love the city of Lethbridge and its diversity.
In 1995, with the crucial backing of a developer keenly skilled in the building of a funeral home, I opened up Cornerstone Funeral Home in Lethbridge. It was the first funeral home in Southern Alberta that had all amenities under one roof: a chapel, a reception room and a crematorium.
For more than 35 years, I have followed these personal and core principles in my commitment to helping families: “Find a need and fill it; find a hurt and heal it; find a hope and reveal it.” Moreover, I have deeply implanted these values into the staff of our organization. Through the years, I have seen the wonderful fruit of these pursuits growing within meaningful relationships among our team members and our precious client families.
To all of us, how we conduct our profession is not just a business, it is our way of life; a way of showing God’s love and compassion for those who come in their times of greatest need. Each of us at Cornerstone have developed a personal outreach to comfort the troubled as we help them turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones.
Most importantly, the entire Cornerstone family has learned to live in the humility which enables us to give limitless grace to all those we encounter in life, both within and beyond our business.
Throughout my career, I have also pursued additional training through completion of courses in Life Appreciation, Mediation, Conflict Resolution and Managerial Excellence. Through these courses, I feel more qualified at planning, organizing, motivating and inspiring.
I truly feel fortunate to enter a field that combines my skills for serving others with my passion for the profession. Through the years, Cornerstone has allowed me to shine a light into the darkness of others and be a constant source of strength and courage during life’s challenges.
On a personal side, I am just as at home in the outdoors as I am in the office. I am proud father to two sons and a young grandfather of five beautiful grandchildren and love to engage in activities that would excite every child: skiing and winter sports, boating and water sports, picnics and barbecues. I love to socialize and engage in a variety of both indoor and outdoor social events for a widely diverse group of friends, clients and family members. I have tried to fill my home, just as my place of business, with beautiful growing flowers and alluring landscapes.
With my son, Travis, sharing the daily business responsibilities, I have been truly blessed to work with my family in a profession that requires dedication and compassion. We have worked tirelessly in supporting the community and the many charities that desperately need help. We believe in giving back to the community in which we live, not only by writing a cheque but sometimes swinging a hammer or picking up garbage in ditches. In November 2015 for our 20th anniversary, we chose a different event every day for 20 days that allowed our staff to go out and volunteer to do random acts of kindness. It was a tremendous experience and included many unique ideas, such as cleaning the cenotaph before Remembrance Day, delivering food to seniors, reading books to school children and many more too numerous to list.
We were all very proud of our accomplishments and in giving back.
I am truly blessed to have a career that I love, a family to work with and a great team that share my beliefs of service over self.
