The Foundation Partners Group is reported to be packing up shop and moving to Orlando today. It is also reported that they are going to be a much smaller company upon their arrival in Orlando.
We received the following in an email late last night:
When you announced the resignation of Bob Horn from the board of Foundation Partners Group, you ended by wondering who would be next. The answer: almost everyone!
This Friday (Jan 18) is a notable day for Foundation: moving day. But only the furniture gets to move, not the employees. Foundation’s new CEO, Brad Rex, laid off almost all employees before Christmas, and kept them on just long enough to force them into physical labor to pack up the office. Tomorrow the movers come, to cart the furniture off to Orlando. Orlando, where Rex resides.
I am happy to say that I am no longer working at or affiliated in any way with Foundation or Sterling Partners.
It will be interesting to see what, if anything, they can do in Orlando.
Early last year, Foundation’s financial backers (Sterling Partners) decided to remote the founders (Steve Shaffer and Jim Price) and replace them with non-industry people. Sterling eventually hired a new CEO, CFO and HR Director, none of whom had any experience in the funeral industry.
In a separate email we received this:
One of their first decisions (by the new CEO) was to move the headquarters to Orlando, purportedly because they will be able to hire better people over there, due to Orlando’s focus on the hospitality industry. We were expected to believe that the fact that both the CEO and HR Director lived in Orlando had nothing to do with the decision.
Right now this is all that has been reported to us. We will be updating as we learn more.
It’s a shock it took this long – the folks at Sterling Partners are arrogant and think they know more than everyone. Sounds like this Brad Rex guy is a perfect fit with them – why not turn funeral homes into Disney World? Pretty soon people will be eager for people to die so that they can attend a funeral! Sterling and Brad make a perfect couple of arrogant dreamers that have no problem squashing people along the way. You’ve been doing honest, solid work for a decade and have your family in Tampa? Well tough luck, new CEO’s in Orlando and inexplicably rather than he move, the company moves.
These folks should at least have the decency to cut through the double-speak and be honest. You’re firing everyone and moving to Orlando because that’s where you live. Plain and simple. Disgraceful. Good luck finding funeral homes that want to join a network of unethical backstabbers.