Aurora Casket Releases Statement

Funeral Industry News July 31, 2012
CDFuneralNews

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Aurora Casket Releases Statement

Aurora Casket Company has been making the headlines on ConnectingDirectors.com quite a bit the last few weeks. In case you have missed what has been going on, Aurora was sold to private investment firm Kolhberg and Company on July 2nd, we did an interview with new CEO Michael Quinn and asked a number of reader submitted questions about what to expect from Aurora Casket moving forward. Last Friday we did a piece addressing personnel cuts made by Aurora last Wednesday.
Thursday we did reach out to Aurora for comments on the personnel cuts. We did not receive a reply back until we had already ran the story on Friday.
Friday afternoon we received the following Press Release:


Aurora Makes Strategic Additions

Aurora, IN—July 27, 2012—Aurora Casket announced today several organizational changes designed to accelerate the development of key solutions.

Bob Tracey was named Plant Manager for the Aurora Essentials line of memorial stationery. In 2011, Aurora acquired Rob-Win Press, based in Allentown, Penn. This new position will oversee the Aurora Essentials operations in Allentown, including manufacture and printing of quality register books, acknowledgement cards, memorial folders and other memorial products.

Bob Nobles was appointed as Director of Specialty Sales. In this role, Nobles will lead the development and sales of Aurora Cremation Solutions, the Aurora Essentials memorial stationery, and other strategic product initiatives.

Tim Southard was named Manager of Sales and Marketing Technologies. Southard will lead the development of technology solutions for funeral homes, most notably Aurora’s Advisor customer service system.

“Through the years, acquisitions have expanded Aurora’s product offerings and have enhanced the value that Aurora provides to funeral professionals and the families they serve,” said Michael Quinn, President and CEO of Aurora. “We have confidence that these changes will better enable everyone at Team Aurora to seize the market opportunities before us, and improve the value we provide our funeral home clients.”

About Aurora

Aurora Casket is the largest privately-owned funeral service supplier in America. Founded in 1890, the company operates five manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and Canada, and provides a full range of burial, cremation, and technology products to funeral home clients. For more information, visit www.auroracasket.com. 

What this release failed to address were the layoffs. But we did receive the following info from someone who was effected by the cuts:
There were a total of 17 employees cut from the staff on Wednesday July 25th. 2 regional sales managers and the director of product management are the main staff others include consolidating service centers and relocating the sales supply team out of Aurora. The consolidating and relocating have good business behind them, but the key personnel is extremely short sided in nature.

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