Tom’s Story

Thomas P.J. Crean’s nearly fifty years in funeral service has made him one of the most knowledgeable and sought-after experts in the industry. Early in his career, he became involved in consumer advocacy and public education, and in the late 1990s he led a civilian movement to save Vancouver’s only public cemetery—Mountain View—from privatization. He then helped organize 4,000 independent funeral firms to defeat Service Corporation’s attempt to trademark the phrase “family funeral care.”

President of both the Family Funeral Home Association and the Surrey (British Columbia) Hospice Society, he’s now focused on his latest project: developing a radically new cemetery concept—a cooperative—while creating the first new cemetery in fifty years in BC’s Lower Mainland.