Oct 1, 2026 · 22 min · 8 segments
In the latest episode of Digging Deep, GFD President and CEO Heather Kiteley speaks with Ryan Crean, Chief Executive Officer of Kearney Funeral Services in Vancouver, British Columbia, about balancing…
Heather KeightleyHostRyan CreanGuestSo I would say I learned everything not to do through our family succession plan.
That's a good way to learn, right? They say that, you know, that's the best learning.
think that the reality is, is that most people don't really have succession plans.
And so, what eventually happens is they get to the end and I think it's very common for funeral directors where
they've given so much and they just can't give any more and then they're not thinking about the three to five years it takes to really do proper succession planning
so at that point they just decide okay I'm done what are we going to do and then that's why you have a lot of private equity, you know, consolidators, large conglomerates come in and buy those businesses.
And I think you are spot on about that being a characteristic of funeral professionals.
So I mentioned to you before that my dad had sold his business to Ray Lowen back in the late 80s, way, way back, which for me allowed me to have a very different career path than I maybe would have had if he hadn't.
But what was interesting in that and where the similarities are is that his Retirement plan was to work until he died.
maybe a little bit longer than that before he died, he was like, I'm done, right? And I'm like, well, your retirement plan was to work until you died.
And so I think it's because we can't, as funeral professionals, we can't imagine doing anything else, right? Like you can't imagine not being needed by someone in that sense.
So I would say I learned everything not to do through our family succession plan.
That's a good way to learn, right? They say that, you know, that's the best learning.
think that the reality is, is that most people don't really have succession plans.
And so, what eventually happens is they get to the end and I think it's very common for funeral directors where
they've given so much and they just can't give any more and then they're not thinking about the three to five years it takes to really do proper succession planning
so at that point they just decide okay I'm done what are we going to do and then that's why you have a lot of private equity, you know, consolidators, large conglomerates come in and buy those businesses.
And I think you are spot on about that being a characteristic of funeral professionals.
So I mentioned to you before that my dad had sold his business to Ray Lowen back in the late 80s, way, way back, which for me allowed me to have a very different career path than I maybe would have had if he hadn't.
But what was interesting in that and where the similarities are is that his Retirement plan was to work until he died.
maybe a little bit longer than that before he died, he was like, I'm done, right? And I'm like, well, your retirement plan was to work until you died.
And so I think it's because we can't, as funeral professionals, we can't imagine doing anything else, right? Like you can't imagine not being needed by someone in that sense.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
