New Foundation Partners Group CEO John Smith didn’t waste any time in forming a group of former owners to learn more about the Death Care business.  Smith, with lots of management experience but none in the Death Care realm was hired by Foundation Partners Group (FPG) earlier in 2025.  Here’s a Funeral Director Daily article on that news.

The advisory group which this press release from Foundation Partners Group says will “enhance strategic growth and community impact” will also be used to “guide the company’s leadership team during a pivotal time of growth and transformation”.

The following three individuals have been asked to join the advisory group according to the press release:

• Mark Krause, a fourth-generation funeral director and former president of Krause Funeral Homes & Cremation Services in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Krause is a nationally recognized leader and educator, who built an innovative portfolio of businesses designed to provide services to families across a wide spectrum of needs from high-touch, traditional services to simple direct cremation.
• Kevin Waterston, a recognized cremation pioneer who, along with his brother, founded the Cremation Society of Minnesota in 1980 to complement the services of his family’s Minneapolis funeral home. Over the next 30-plus years, the Waterston’s grew the business to five locations, becoming the leading provider of cremation services in Minnesota.
• Rick Tuss, a licensed funeral director and former co-owner of Charlotte Memorial Funeral Home, Cemetery & Crematory in Punta Gorda, Florida. From 2012 to 2019 Tuss and his partner modernized and grew the business based on a culture of caring with a strong emphasis on community involvement.

Again, according to the FPG press release:

“Winter Park, Florida-based Foundation Partners Group is one of the industry’s most innovative providers of funeral services and the second-largest funeral home group in the country based on the number of families served. Foundation Partners owns and operates a network of over 250 funeral homes, cremation centers and cemeteries across 21 states. . . . Visit www.foundationpartners.com to learn more.”

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  I think this is a really smart move by CEO Smith and FPG management.  As a company that grows by acquisition Foundation Partners Group acquires many entities that have grown greatly because of their home-ownership knowledge and expertise in their individual market.

I’m also under the impression that acquisition built companies tend to lose some market share shortly after they acquire a family-owned Death Care operator.  In my opinion, some of that loss is justified by the larger acquisition company’s long-term focus and the adjustments that culture might have on the local acquired entity that will win market share in the future.

However, there is also a great deal of “local knowledge” and local operational expertise lost when the founding family members of a firm leave following the sale of their business.  Many of these owner/sellers are ready to retire and want to leave the business.  In a case such as that there can be difficulty with “local business culture” and there is little that can be done by the acquisition company in learning local expertise from the owner/seller while the new operations of the business are set to the acquisition company’s modus operandi.

On the other hand, their are many owner/sellers who, even if they want to leave the business, are greatly concerned with the on-going performance of the business that bears their name.  Nobody has more local knowledge about their former business and, at least it appears to me, that many acquisition companies simply don’t grasp the fact that it was these owner/sellers that built the business that the acquisition company coveted.  Many of these acquisition companies don’t seem to engage the former owner to learn local expertise that could stem some of the post-acquisition problems that they will face.

In any case you probably already understand that I think Smith’s idea of an advisory group is a great idea.  He’s not the first to do it. . . but it is a solid idea.  In my opinion, building on the local knowledge and expertise of how a certain Death Care business was built is certainly an acquisition business best practice that is many times ignored in favor of regional or national upper management perceived know-all.

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