09/24/2026
Some news from Johnson Consulting Group, and a thank you that is a long time coming.
Effective October 1, Kristen Szymborski, CPA, becomes our Chief Financial & Operations Officer. Kristen joined us in April 2023 as our first full-time CFO, a hire we made with this exact day in mind. She brings 18+ years as a financial executive and five years at CliftonLarsonAllen, and in three and a half years she has learned this profession, not just our numbers.
On the same date, Jeff Casey steps away from the COO role. Jeff retires at the end of 2026 after nearly 50 years in funeral service, nearly 12 of them with JCG. He'll work alongside Kristen full time through December 31, and will stay on with us as a consultant after that, including his work with Menke Funeral & Cremation Center.
This plan has been four years in the making. We spend our days telling funeral home and cemetery owners that succession takes years, that you have to name and develop your successor, and that the hardest asset to replace is what's in the outgoing leader's head. We were not going to ask our clients to do something we wouldn't do ourselves.
Now the part that isn't business.
Jeff was sixteen when he took a part-time job at a funeral home in Lima, Ohio. Nearly 50 years later he's held nearly every seat in this profession: funeral director, embalmer, managing director, general manager, regional vice president over 28 funeral homes and 10 cemeteries, and finally our COO.
Here is the part I still find remarkable. In 1989, at Pierce Brothers, my father handed Jeff the Ralph H. Head Manager of the Year award, an award Dad created and presented himself every year. 11 years later he founded Johnson Consulting Group. 26 years after that award, Jeff came to work for us.
I first knew him when I was 14, working at the cemetery near where I grew up (the same cemetery where I learned to drive). My dad was at Jeff's wedding. His was one of those names I never forgot. Years later he came to work at our funeral home, and then he came to work with me at JCG.
Jeff has always said he wants to leave anything he's part of in a better spot than when he arrived.
He did. Thank you, Jeff.
Congratulations, Kristen.
