Cemetery Management

October 14, 2026 at 1:00 PM ET
Sponsored by Pearls Premium and Merendino Cemetery Care

SESSIONS & SPEAKERS

1:00 PM Are Your Grounds Staff Your Greatest Salespeople and Is Your HR Built to Support Them? Hosted by Tim Kolasa & Susan Carr.


Families often form their first, lasting impression of a cemetery through the grounds staff, not the counselor. Your grounds staff may be your greatest — and most overlooked — salespeople. Join Tim Kolasa and Susan Carr for a webinar on how grounds staff shape families' trust and decisions, plus the HR strategies — recruiting, retention, compliance — you need to build a strong team behind them. You'll walk away with practical, real-world ways to strengthen the family experience and the workforce behind it. Whether you're focused on frontline impact or long-term team stability, this session gives you tools you can apply right away.

Tim Kolasa

Director of Operations

Merendino Cemetery Care

A Marine Corps veteran of Desert Storm with more than 35 years of cemetery experience, Tim Kolasa serves as the Director of Operations at Merendino Cemetery Care. As part of his responsibilities, he oversees more than 1,500 acres of cemetery maintenance and supports operations involved in approximately 1 out of every 500 burials in the United States. A graduate of the CCC School of Leadership and Management Excellence and ICCFA University—and previously teaching at ICCFAU—Tim is known for helping cemeteries modernize operations, improve service delivery, and expand cremation-focused inventory.

Speaker Details:

⚐  ADDRESS: 1048 West Blanke St

Linden, New Jersey 07036


✉ EMAIL: tim@cemeterycarepros.com


✆  PHONE: (908) 967-0039


⎚ WEBSITE: merendinocemeterycare



Susan Carr

Owner

High Point HR Consulting

Susan is the owner of High Point HR Consulting, which provides practical HR solutions for small businesses, with a focus on recruiting, employee relations, benefits administration, and compliance. She brings more than 30 years of human resources experience across a variety of industries, and through her work with Merendino Cemetery Care, she has gained firsthand knowledge of the unique workforce and compliance challenges facing the cemetery profession. Susan combines her HR expertise with this experience to offer practical guidance and real-world solutions that help organizations attract, retain, and support their workforce while staying compliant.

Speaker Details:

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2:00 PM The Future of Grass to Save Time, Money, Water and Improve PR/Marketing hosted by Jackson Madnicks


This session includes lawn secrets to better existing grass from latest university research. Covers many unknown Best Management Practices for grass to need far less mowing & water. Mainly have organic grass to lessen weeds without chemicals. Better looking grass during drought, full sun to deep shade & in extreme heat or cold. Tips to also invite song birds and butterflies to create a more peaceful space and suggestions of complimentary non traditional events to bring new people into your cemetery and create new income streams. Briefly discuss Pearl's Premium Ultra Low Maintenance Lawn Seed, a US patented, grass for organic lawns that needs mowing / weed whacking only once a month, 75% less water & never needs chemicals, to leave more time for improving overall look of property & discuss how to positively improve Public Relations and marketing. 



3 Key Takeaways

  •  Mow less, less weeds & grow smarter
  •  Healthier grounds, naturally 
  •  Complimentary creative events & improved PR

Jackson Madnicks

Founder

Pearl's Premium

Jackson Madnick has given his presentation at major conferences across North America. His work has been commended by over 300 experts and organizations including two different White Houses (first Bush & Clinton), the United Nations, National League of Cities, Senator & Astronaut John Glenn Jr., by top NASA scientist, Dr. Christina Milesi & Bob Vila (formerly - this old house), etc. 

 

Because cemetery mowing, weed whacking, watering and dealing with the weeds are the number one expense of cemeteries, this workshop is extremely useful and helps solve your major problems and lessens expenses. All management people, as well as the cemetery maintenance people, both women and men find this short talk extremely interesting, useful and fun for their cemetery and home lawns. Have relatively weed free grass that looks better than any other grass you have had before & that is much darker to compliment homes, monuments & bronze markers. You can have deep root grass that produces 24X more Oxygen to be a much more healthy / refreshing environment. Again, tips for dramatic money, water, time & lessening climate savings and extreme weather. Also touch on Public Relations to help you stand out from other properties in the area and be a better destination for complimentary events and activities. 

Speaker Details:

⚐  ADDRESS: 1048 West Blanke St

Linden, New Jersey 07036


✉ EMAIL: Jackson@pearlspremium.com


✆  PHONE: 508-653-0800


⎚ WEBSITE: pearlspremium