MFDA’s Focus on Leadership Benefits All of Us

The past six months as your MFDA executive director have been full of leadership and learning. I’ve had the opportunity to visit with funeral directors during our annual convention in May and during my travels around the state visiting potential MFDA members. I enjoy these opportunities to hear about what your day-to-day work life is like, and I believe it gives me the perspective to serve our members on a daily basis. To hear what concerns and challenges you are working with helps me fine tune what areas to focus on.

I’ve also been able to participate in a couple of National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) events for the first time – the NFDA Advocacy Summit in April and the NFDA Leadership Conference in June. The Advocacy Summit provided the opportunity to meet with our Minnesota elected representatives in Washington, DC and engage them in discussions about how their decisions have a direct impact on your ability to serve families and be successful. Any NFDA member can join your MFDA leadership who attend the Summit to visit with our members of Congress. Next year’s dates are March 19-21, 2024.

At the end of June, I attended the NFDA Leadership Conference in Phoenix with our MFDA executive committee: President Joe Mahn, Treasurer Sara Thompson, Secretary Jordan Seitz, and Past President Brian Dingmann. During this conference there are opportunities to network with your leadership counterparts from other state associations. This sharing of knowledge is beyond beneficial, and also where new ideas are developed to serve association members. During the Leadership Conference I had an opportunity to attend my first Counsel of Funeral Association Executive (CFAE) meeting. This group is made up of executive directors from other states around the country and provides an open discussion on shared ideas and resources. Many execs had questions about our MFDA Leadership Academy to learn about how they can implement it in their state. They see the Leadership Academy as a tremendous benefit for association members. We currently have three MFDA Leadership Academy graduates on our MFDA Board of Directors.