From Combat to Care: Kenneth Johnson’s Mission
As you may know, the Funeral Service Foundation is accepting applications for over 25 academic scholarships 2,500–5,000 for mortuary school students and military veterans through Nov. 1. In support of spreading the word and encouraging applications, Connecting Directors is profiling some of the past winners. This week, it’s Kenneth Johnson.
You could be forgiven for mistaking Kenneth Johnson for a seasoned funeral director as opposed to a mortuary school student. He’s recently accepted an assistant general manager in training job, and he talks about the retention and recruitment problem from a well understood perspective. In short, he’s precisely the kind of person seemingly born to funeral service.
The thing is, this is his third career, and one he might not have been able to embark upon without the Funeral Service Foundation. Johnson applied for an won the Hunter M. Harbeson Memorial Scholarship which, along with hard work, has enabled him to not only continue his education, but also to begin planning an audacious future for recruitment.
A Tradition of Service: From West Point to Camp Keating
The foundation of Kenneth Johnson’s ambition is rooted in an expansive, non-traditional career path that began at West Point. Graduating in 2006 with a degree in economics, Johnson went on to serve six years as an Army field artillery officer. His first intense, face-to-face encounter with mortality occurred during a grueling 15-month deployment at Camp Keating, a small outpost in Afghanistan where he and roughly 60 soldiers engaged in near-daily combat.
“That was kind of like my first experience with actual death, face-to-face,” he said. “I think it was what first started to help me recognize my own mortality.”
After leaving active duty in 2012, Johnson transitioned into agribusiness, driven by a desire to contribute to food security and community impact. He earned both an MBA and a Master of Science in Environmental Justice from the University of Michigan, subsequently spending a decade deep in the agriculture sector. During this second career, he became a certified crop advisor, managed a major product line, and founded Top Yield Ag, a technology platform designed to improve communication between farmers and agricultural professionals.
Finding a New Calling in Hawaii
Despite his professional success, Johnson felt a persistent calling toward direct, personal service. In 2023, he relocated to Hawaii to re-evaluate his direction. While there, he approached the Veterans Administration seeking opportunities to support fellow veterans.
“I said, ‘Hey, I’m wanting to help and serve. I feel like I’ve gotten a little bit off course here with agriculture, and I’m looking to help veterans. How might I be able to do that? And oh yeah, by the way, I don’t want to take my work home. I just want to be with people,’” he told me. “And they said, there are two opportunities here. The first is working at the hospital and being a greeter. Or you can answer the phone at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, also known as the Punch Bowl. So I chose that and that’s what introduced me to the death care profession and has shaped the future of my life.”
Master’s Degrees, Mortuary School, and Real-World Empathy
In 2025, Johnson returned to the Midwest to be closer to family and enrolled in the online mortuary science program at Worsham College. Now in his second term, he completes practical embalming training through the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office while actively working in the profession.
Before entering his current assistant general manager in training role with Dignity Memorial, Johnson gained well-rounded experience across the entire deathcare ecosystem. He worked as a preplanning advisor specializing in veteran burial benefits, consulted with independent funeral homes, assisted an Israeli urn manufacturer entering the U.S. market. He also volunteered as a veteran-to-veteran hospice companion with VITAS Healthcare.
“I have a lot more empathy for insurance sales people, people that are cold calling,” Johnson said, recalling his early days in preplanning. “My ego got in the way, to be honest. I call someone and they’re like, ‘What are you calling me for?’ I’m just like, ‘Wait a second, I’m a West Point grad. I have two master’s degrees from Michigan!’ But really at the end of the day, it’s not about me. It was really helpful for me to go through the experience to realize that I’m not that important and check my ego a bit.”
Johnson’s multi-industry perspective drives his leadership philosophy. Drawing an analogy to his agricultural credentialing, he notes that becoming a certified crop advisor was essential for building authentic empathy with farmers, even when managing corporate strategy and P&L sheets.
“I went through the process to become a certified crop advisor, not because I had to, but because it would give me the appropriate empathy to lead,” Johnson said. “It’s no different than being in the military … If I’m going to lead a large organization, if I’m going to be a manager, then I need to know what it means to embalm a body. I need to know what it feels like to do a first call. I need to have the license so that I can connect with the employees that I’m supposed to be leading.”
Bridging the Recruitment Gap: The Veteran Pipeline
Beyond operational leadership, Johnson is deeply focused on solving deathcare’s staffing challenges. He said about 200,000 service members transition out of the military annually, many seeking mission-driven work centered on community service. Johnson points out that funeral service requires extreme attention to detail, strong operational discipline, and deep empathy, qualities central to military training.
“Most people in the profession know that you get one opportunity to do a funeral,” Johnson said. “It requires a level of attention to detail that is no different than dropping a 500-pound bomb danger close to yourself. You’ve got to make sure you’ve got the numbers right, that you’re going to show up at the LZ on time just like we need to show up at the cemetery on time.”
To bridge the gap between firms needing staff and transitioning veterans, Johnson advocates for federal programs like DoD SkillBridge, which allows active-duty service members to complete up to six-month internships with civilian funeral homes during their final military stretch while receiving full military pay and housing allowances. Coupled with GI Bill benefits to cover mortuary school tuition, this pathway offers firms a cost-effective, structured way to onboard unlicensed military talent.
“Here’s an opportunity for an employer to allow someone to intern for free. No one’s paying anything. Then it can transition to school. Again, the employer has to pay nothing while this person is learning how to be part of this sacred profession,” Johnson said. “The benefits are there. You just have to know it and have the fortitude to go recruit the talent.”
Honoring Legacies and Looking Ahead
Winning the Hunter M. Harbeson Memorial Scholarship through the Funeral Service Foundation has provided Johnson with crucial financial support to complete his education alongside his GI Bill benefits. Beyond tuition assistance, he views named memorial scholarships as a vital form of remembrance.
“Whether someone wants to have a marker in a cemetery, a name on a school building, or a scholarship, these are all about memorialization,”Johnson said. “Having and being able to receive the Hunter M. Harbeson Memorial Scholarship allows Hunter’s name to live on. Talking about getting the scholarship allows his memory, his legacy, to continue.”
Looking ahead, Johnson aims to complete his licensure and advance into senior executive roles within five to ten years. He plans to use his platform to promote death literacy, dispel negative industry stereotypes, and establish permanent recruitment pipelines for military veterans entering funeral service.
“Right now, I think we are death illiterate. We don’t know how to die,”Johnson said. “In the absence of having religious rites, rituals, and customs, people don’t know how to grieve … If we aren’t actually out talking about these things to the people that trust us already, then how do we expect to change the relationship between society and funeral directors? I think it’s incumbent upon every funeral professional to tell people about what we actually do, why we do it, and why it means something.”
