BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
STARKE— On May 6 Gov, Ron DeSantis appointed V. Todd Ferreira to the State Board of Funeral, Cemetery and Consumer Services.
Ferreira is a Kingsley Lake resident, serves as treasurer of the Kingsley Lake Property Owners Association and chaired the association’s second annual block party earlier this year.
Ferreira’s company owns funeral homes in Starke, Lake Butler, Macclenny, Jacksonville, Callahan, Atlantic Beach and Lake City. Ferreira is also an advisor for the Florida State College at Jacksonville’s funeral services education program.
Started out weed eating
Ferreira said he got his start in the profession by mowing the grass at Oak Lawn Cemetery in Jacksonville.
“I started at 14 years old,” he recalled. “Basically, had a weed eater with my name on it. That’s all I did: weed eat graves and markers and under bushes.”
In 1989, Ferreira graduated from high school. That same year his grandfather died, and he said that while watching his family prepare for their loved one’s funeral, he realized he was called to serve families during their times of bereavement.
A mentor recommended he work in the profession for one year before leaving for college. Ferreira heeded the advice and worked at Arlington Funeral Home while attending classes at what is now Florida State College at Jacksonville.
From there he continued his training in Miami while living and working at Fred Hunter’s Funeral Home in Hollywood.
Upon returning to Jacksonville he reconnected with Arlington, until the business was purchased by another company.
In 2002, after working for a family-owned funeral home in Macclenny, Ferreira purchased a Live Oak mortuary and renamed it Suwannee Funeral Home.
One year later, he expanded into Baker County and the following year purchased the 36-year-old Fraser Funeral Home in Macclenny.
In 2008 the company expanded to Starke with the purchase of Archie Tanner Funeral Home. Eight years later the company acquired Beaches Memorial Park and Funeral Home in Atlantic Beach.
Ferreira said the Beaches acquisition was an emotional one for him for two reasons. First, because of the facility’s proximity to Naval Station Mayport, it gave him the opportunity to serve the nation’s veterans. Second, his grandfather, whose passing inspired him to join the profession, was the principal at nearby Fletcher High School for 15 years. Sidney G. Friend was awarded “Beaches Man of the Year,” prior to his retirement from the school.
In 2020 the company added three more locations, buying the property of Nassau Funeral Home in Callahan and opening locations in Lake Butler and on Jacksonville’s westside.
This year, Ferreira added a seventh community when it purchased the Sherrill Guerry and Dees Parrish Family Funeral Home in Lake City.
In addition to growing his own business, Ferreira has emerged as a leader in Florida’s funeral home profession. He was elected as the 2022 President of the Independent Funeral Directors of Florida but resigned that position to avoid potential conflicts of interest while serving on the state board.
Changing consumer tastes
Ferreira said that when he first started in the profession, the only choice families made when planning a funeral was which casket and vault to select. Now, consumers have a wide range of options including burial, cremation and different types of memorial services.
Combining the wide range of choices families may select with the fact that now, those options are decided upon by several family members who may not always agree, planning a funeral can get complex.
“That’s the challenge,” Ferreira said, “because we want to do everything with excellence. We do not half-way anything. We don’t cut corners. My standard is: Is this the way we would treat my mom or dad? And if it doesn’t fit that standard, we don’t do it.”
Ferreira said another challenge is customizing consumer expectations between different markets, noting that the expectations of families in Lake Butler are vastly different from those in Atlantic Beach.
Kingsley Lake
Ferreira said that his move to Kingsley Lake was much like his ascent in the funeral profession: starting off small and slowly working his way up.
He said that around 13 years ago, he rented a two-bedroom cabin on Kingsley Lake’s Townsend Street.
“Years went by, then my mom and dad moved into another little cabin next to us,” he recalled. “Then we had an opportunity to rent the house, so we rented a house on the water there for five or six years.”
In 2020, Ferreira purchased the home of longtime Starke optometrist Dr. Len Schlofman.
Since then, he has served as treasurer for the Kingsley Lake Property Owners Association and organizes the group’s annual block party.
“It’s like a summer kickoff,” Ferreira said of the April event. “We’ll have 400, 500 folks and we’ll have food trucks, we’ll have a good time.”
Enforcing the law
The State Board of Funeral, Cemetery and Consumer Services approves licenses for funeral directors, funeral homes, cemeteries, monument sales agents, preneed sales agents, cremation cinerators and other facilities. The board also approves continuing education courses and providers, internships and changes in ownership.
The board also makes the final decisions on disciplinary matters that may result in the revocation of a license.
Some complaints that have been recently filed with the board include a claim that a Riviera Beach funeral home failed to preserve the remains of an 11-year-old girl, complaints that an online cremation service failed to deliver on promised services, including applying for death certificates, and the refusal of a cemetery to let the buyer of a plot transfer ownership to a family member.
