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Page B13 JUNE 2017 FUNERAL HOME & CEMETERY NEWS S ec t i on B
Homesteaders Board
Approves Succession Plan
as Lang Plans Retirement
Unity Financial Life
Names New Company
Vice President
Adam Goller
CINCINNATI,OH— Unity Financial Life Insurance
Company has announced that Adam M. Goller was
named vice president of Agency and Business Analysts.
The appointment becomes effective immediately.
Goller has been employed by the company since 2006
and previously served as the company’s assistant vice
president of marketing and technical services.
“Adam has been a key
player in our strategic ef-
forts for many years,” said
Jay Hardy, president of
Unity Financial Life. “His
broad-based experience
makes him a wonderful
fit for his new role.” Har-
dy went on to add, “Adam
is a team builder and mo-
tivator who will contin-
ue to inspire our home of-
fice team and advance the
company to new heights.”
Unity Financial Life con-
tinues to be one of the fast-
est growing national pre-
need insurance companies in America. Assets and net worth
have grown every year since 2002. Founded in 1964, Unity
Financial Life is an Ohio-based life insurance company, cur-
rently licensed in 48 jurisdictions, including the District of
Columbia. The company can be reached at 877-523-3231
or vis additional information.
Tom Lasko Supply
acquired by LIVON
Supplies
Briotech Inc Announces
Distribution Agreement
with Dodge to Tackle
Deadly Prions
Funeral Directors Research,Inc.
AMRA INSTRUMENT, LLC
623 N. Tower (P.O. Box 359)
Centralia, WA 98531
“the shorter the supply line the better off you are”
WEB DIRECT GIFT & PRICING
TM
®
WEST DES MOINES,IA—
As part of a long-term
strategically planned lead-
ership transition, Home-
steaders Life Company
chairman, president and
CEO Stephen Lang has
announced that he in-
tends to retire in March
2018. Lang has proposed
to the board of directors
a succession plan that in-
cludes the appointment of
Homesteaders’ chief op-
erating officer, Stephen
Shaffer, as the company’s
tenth president and CEO
at the time of Lang’s re-
tirement.
The board of direc-
tors approved the succes-
sion plan during its May
2017 meeting, which in-
cludes Shaffer’s increasing
assumption of additional
day-to-day management
functions for the compa-
ny. Lang will remain on
the board of directors fol-
lowing his retirement as
CEO, serving as chairman
through February 2019.
“Steve Shaffer has been a
huge asset to Homestead-
ers since he joined the
company in 2014,” said
Lang. “He’s a well-known
and influential executive
in the funeral and ceme-
tery business, whose expe-
rience and track record is
a solid match with Home-
steaders’ longstanding
commitment to customer
success and promoting the
value of funeral service.”
Joining the company in
2008 as an executive vice
president responsible for
sales, marketing and cus-
tomer service, Lang was
later named chief operat-
ing officer and ultimately
president and CEO in Feb-
ruary 2014. He joined the
company as part of a long-
term succession plan un-
der then chairman, presi-
dent and CEO Graham
J. Cook. Lang’s mission
was to guide and grow the
company while building a
team to provide long-term
leadership for Homestead-
ers. “I am pleased to re-
port that Homesteaders is
stronger than ever, and we
have an experienced lead-
ership team ready to take
Homesteaders to the next
level,” said Lang.
Shaffer co-founded and
served as president and
CEO of Foundation
Partners Group, LLC. He
led an organization cre-
ated to combine the best
aspects of conventional
end-of-life care with new
ideas and technology that
enabled families to plan,
prepare, acknowledge and
share the purpose of a life.
He was a co-founder and
CFO of Keystone Group
Holdings, Inc between
1996 and 2010. Shaf-
fer has served as a Funer-
al Service Foundation
trustee since 2010 and was
the 2014-15 board chair.
Stange joins
Homesteaders
Homesteaders Life Com-
pany’s executive vice pres-
ident and CFO Steve
Pick announced that Lisa
Stange has joined the
company as chief invest-
ment officer. Stange will
be taking the place of cur-
rent chief investment offi-
cer Kevin Kubik upon his
upcoming retirement.
“We are excited to have
someone of Lisa’s caliber
join the Homesteaders
team,” stated Pick. “She
comes to Homesteaders
with strong insurance and
investment management
experience, along with
proven leadership skills.”
As chief investment of-
ficer, Stange will be re-
sponsible for managing
Homesteaders’ investment
portfolio and ensuring the
company maintains the fi-
nancial strength to honor
the long-term promises
it makes to its customers
and policy holders.
“My goal is to ensure we
are investing both safely
and wisely, so our portfo-
lio yield remains strong,
allowing Homesteaders to
make good on its promise
to pay claims long into the
future,” said Stange.
Before joining Home-
steaders, Stange spent 18
years at Principal Finan-
cial Group as portfolio
manager and strategist.
Most recently, she worked
for five years as the chief
investment officer at EMC
Insurance Companies.
Homesteaders Life Com-
pany, rated A- (Excellent)
by A.M. Best Company, is
a national leader provid-
ing products and services
to promote and support
the funding of advance fu-
neral planning and end-
of-life expenses. Visit
o
learn more.
Tom Lasko Olivia Pristera
PITTSBURGH,PA— The city of Pittsburgh is known for
a bit more than just the Steelers. In fact, most people in
Western Pennsylvania who work in the funeral service in-
dustry are accustomed to the name Tom Lasko. Making
his initial entrance into the industry as a Superior repre-
sentative, Tom Lasko Supply independently and proud-
ly served the greater Pittsburgh area for over 20 years.
In January 2017, in lieu of Tom’s retirement, Tom Lasko
Supply was acquired by LIVON Supplies which is local-
ly owned and operated by Tom’s niece, Olivia Pristera.
Olivia graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and
has a diverse business background having worked for
both national and international companies and is also a
bilingual Spanish speaker. Over the years she has worked
closely with her uncle and attended the Western Pennsyl-
vania Funeral Directors Association Convention as a child.
Pristera is excited to continue his legacy in the industry
and is committed to providing exceptional service, qual-
ity and affordable products to fit your needs.
Tom Lasko Supply was known most notably for product
availability, and exceptional service as he locally warehoused
products and hand-delivered each order. LIVON Supplies
is keeping with the service tradition, hoping to both meet
and exceed the expectations set by her predecessor. To suit
the needs of technology driven firms, LIVON Supplies has
also developed a website, , to al-
low for online viewing and ordering of products.
It is with great pleasure that we welcome Olivia to the
industry and wish Tom a happy and enjoyable retire-
ment. Both Olivia and Tom will be attending the June
2017 Western Pennsylvania Funeral Directors Associa-
tion Convention in Erie and would love the opportunity
to meet you. In the interim to learn more about LIVON
Supplies, contact Olivia directly at 412-607-1500 or via
email at .
WOODINVILLE,WA—Bri-
otech Inc is proud to an-
nounce that it has entered
into an exclusive distri-
bution agreement for the
mortuary market with The
Dodge Company, Billeri-
ca, MA to distribute their
Briotech HOCL, disinfec-
tion product BrioHOCL™
PrP.
Briotech’s founder and
CEO, Dan Terry noted,
“Partnering with a com-
pany of Dodge’s reputa-
tion builds on Briotech’s
strategy to scale our inno-
vative products through
strategic distribution part-
nerships worldwide that
provide immediate access
to large addressable mar-
kets. We are proud to add
our BrioHOCL™ PrP For-
mula (Hypochlorous Acid
for Prions) to Dodge’s
highly-recognized family
of brands that have been at
the forefront of technolog-
ical innovation.” Timothy
Collison, vice president
of sales and marketing for
Dodge added, “Prion dis-
eases such as CJD have
long been an issue of con-
cern for funeral service and
embalmers. BrioHOCL™
PrP Formula is a welcome
addition to the line of
products Dodge offers to
keep embalmers safe.”
Briotech announced in
September, 2016 a study
published in PLOS Patho-
gens that proves Brio-
tech’s unique formulation
of pure hypochlorous acid
(HOCl) inactivates infec-
tious proteins, known as
prions that cause chronic
brain diseases in humans
and animals.
Investigators at the Unit-
ed States National Insti-
tute of Allergy and Infec-
tious Diseases (NIAID/
NIH-RML) Rocky Moun-
tain Laboratories, made
the discovery in collabora-
tion with researchers at the
University of Washington
(UW) Bothell, UW Seat-
tle, the University of Ve-
rona in Italy, and Briotech
Inc. Their findings dem-
onstrate that Briotech’s
patent-pending solution
(BrioHOCLTM) quick-
ly and safely destroys pri-
ons, the most resistant in-
fectious agents known to
medical science.
“We’ve been able to syn-
thesize the identical sub-
stance in pure form that the
body creates to defend it-
self as a new weapon in the
fight against infectious dis-
ease, and it’s a game chang-
er for human health,” said
Terry. “With broad adop-
tion of BrioHOCLTM, we
can help stop the spread
of many infectious diseas-
es, even those caused by
the most highly resistant
agents ever discovered pri-
ons and use the product to
save lives and improve the
health of entire commu-
nities around the world.
We’re excited to have
this research published
in PLOS Pathogens, and
look forward to our con-
tinued collaboration with
the NIH on the effects of
BrioHOCL™ on emerging
infectious pathogens that
threaten global health and
safety.”
Prions are abnormal,
misfolded body proteins
that go out of control and
begin to multiply them-
selves, spreading through-
out the body and invading
the brain. Prions are most
commonly transmitted
orally, but can also contam-
inate medical and surgical
instruments, transplant-
ed tissues, and equipment
used in food processing. A
new, fast, convenient and
safe method that could
have an important place
for medical instruments,
surfaces, and tissues—by
simple immersion in an
aqueous solution of Brio-
HOCL™ PrP Formula can
now overcome a critically
important deficiency in in-
fection control.
Prion diseases are most
widely known as the cause
of Mad Cow Disease
(BSE). Prions also cause
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
(CJD) in humans, a fatal
dementia with a long in-
cubation period. Recent-
ly, research has shown that
most other chronic degen-
erative diseases that lead to
dementia, including Al-
zheimer’s, result from pri-
ons. Currently untreatable,
and inevitably fatal, con-
troversy swirls around their
possible transmissibility
as referenced in Nature:
Prions are uniquely resis-
tant to the disinfection and
sterilization procedures in
common use in healthcare
practice today. Extreme
measures are needed. Cur-
rent prion decontamina-
tion protocols are hazard-
ous to people, damaging to
instruments and surfaces,
and therefore impractical
for transmission control.
“Briotech has developed
an enabling technolo-
gy, one that offers for the
first time a practical and
safe way of destroying in-
fectious prions, the dis-
ease agents at the very top
of the food chain when it
comes to resistance to dis-
infection measures,” said
Jeff Williams, Ph.D.,
., Chief Science Of-
ficer at Briotech Inc. “We
believe we’ve just exposed
the tip of the iceberg when
it comes to revealing the
full potential of Briotech’s
pure HOCL in control-