Elizabeth Westrate wrote, produced and directed A Family Undertaking, a documentary about the home funeral movement.  

David Zinner is executive director of Kavod v’Nichum, a nonprofit resource group in the greater Washington, D.C., area that educates and advocates for Chevra Kadisha groups in North America.

Edward Searl is author of In Memoriam: A Guide to Modern Funeral and Memorial Services (Skinner House Books, 2000). He is a Unitarian Universalist minister in Hinsdale, Ill.  

Maurice Lamm is an Orthodox rabbi and lecturer at Yeshiva University in New York, N.Y. He is author of The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning (Jonathan David Publishers, 2000).

M. Macha NightMare is co-author of The Pagan Book of Living and Dying (HarperSanFrancisco, 1997) and is an expert on neo-pagan death and funerary practices. She lives in San Rafael, Calif. Contact her via her website.

Final Passages is a home-based funeral nonprofit organization in Sebastopol, Calif. They say that personally caring for the body of a loved one – washing it, dressing it and displaying it in the home – can be healing for survivors.

Kimberley Campbell runs Memorial Ecosystems Inc., a company that promotes using memorial parks to restore and protect nature by allowing only biodegradable caskets. It is based in Westminster, S.C.

Bob Boetticher is Vice Chairman/CEO of the National Museum of Funeral History in Houston.

Lisa Carlson is executive director of the Funeral Ethics Organization in Hinesburg, Vt., and author of Caring For the Dead: Your Final Act of Love (Upper Access, 1998), a consumer guide to making funeral arrangements. She can discuss the influence baby boomers have had on the funeral industry.