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Meet Your Board Member
A Q&A with ICFA Board Member
B. David Daly, CCFE
President
Evergreen-Washelli Memorial Park Co., Seattle, Washington
www.evergreen-washelli.com
See our new online crematory tour and value comparison pages and tell me what you think.
What is the best experience you get in your job?
The best experience I get in my job is "Thank You." Thank-yous validate all the efforts, both visible and behind the scenes, we put into serving our families. On a personal basis, a thank-you acknowledges efforts we as managers put into making our companies a service to the community and a worthwhile place for our employees to work.
There is a secret to thank-yous: They breed in groups. If you sprinkle a bunch of thank-yous out among your employees, the thank-yous breed and you find them coming back to you from your customers. Funny how that works.
What was the most difficult, and what did you learn from it?
Can't remember the most difficult; I try not to give negative experiences too much thought. I don't have enough time to enjoy all the positive stuff in my life as it is. Well, now that you mention it, maybe that is the lesson I learned.
What advice would you give to young
people just starting out in this industry?
Start out with an open mind and guard it jealously. Our great-grandfathers, who ran the Victorian cemeteries at the end of the 1800s, probably could not have conceived of today's cemeteries, with their emphasis on cremation, scattering, etc. Just remember, "Our job is to assist families to cope with the problems that they face when a death occurs." That assistance can take a multitude of forms; only an open mind will find them.
Secondly, take yourself seriously -- you make a difference! Oh, I know Mom said, "Don't take yourself so seriously." But your smile, your frown, your enthusiasm affect those around you. If you are fearful and unenthusiastic, the people you work with will, most probably, follow suit. And vice versa.
What do you see as the biggest benefits
of ICFA membership?
See the above answer. When you are trading ideas, sharing enthusiasm, motivating each other, it is hard to maintain a closed mind.
What is the biggest challenge facing the industry, and how can the ICFA address it?
Education, education and education. Our communities are being bombarded with information about us. Often it is negative information distributed by our detractors. Negative news sells.
Only a well-educated industry will be able to withstand this onslaught, counter it and properly educate our communities. We have immense value to our communities, but we must educate ourselves to keep up with their needs and serve them as they want to be served. And let them know that we are serving them, whether they know it or not.
What are your outside interests?
Recently I have learned how to get a radio-controlled model airplane into the air. My most urgent interest is learning how to get it back to the ground in one piece, on a regular basis. Gravity is a fearsome opponent.
And my wife, Robyn, and I continue to enjoy helping create workshops in the United States, England and Australia that assist people to recognize their full potential as human beings.
If you could "do lunch" today with anyone in the world, living or dead, whom would you choose and why?
I will go a bit further than the living or the dead (thinking outside the box) and choose to lunch with my great-grandsons and great-granddaughters. They will be able to tell me how well my generation did in trying to improve the world we lived in, and that they now inhabit. Scary thought isn't it?
Copyright ICFA 2002
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