Wake-Up Calls follows your journey from grieving daughter to funeral home owner, mentor, and advocate as you transform loss and leadership lessons into a call for humane and compassionate deathcare. Why was this an important book for you to write?

Wake-Up Calls is about much more than my own story. It’s about the moments in life that challenge us, change us, and ultimately call us to become better leaders and better people. When I unexpectedly lost my father, I was suddenly faced with leading our family funeral, cremation, and cemetery business before I felt ready. That experience, along with the many personal and professional challenges that followed, taught me lessons that I couldn’t have learned any other way.

After more than 40 years in funeral service, I realized those experiences could help others, particularly women entering a profession that’s evolving rapidly. Today, women make up a growing majority of funeral and deathcare professionals, yet many still face obstacles in acceptance, mentorship, and long-term career growth. I wanted to offer the kind of guidance I wish I’d had early in my career through honest storytelling, practical leadership lessons, and encouragement.

I’m especially proud that every dollar of proceeds from Wake-Up Calls supports non-profit organizations dedicated to advancing leadership education for both men and women in the profession. That’s an extension of the book’s purpose: investing in the future of our profession and the compassionate leaders who will shape it.

What was the most difficult personal memory to revisit while writing Wake-Up Calls?

That’s not a question I answer lightly, because writing it meant living it all over again.

The most difficult memory was the day my dad died. He died suddenly and at a young age of 53, without warning, and I was eight years into my career at Baue’s when the call came.

But the moment that truly undid me was when I stood alone in his office afterward. The room still smelled like him, pipe tobacco, and his cologne. I found the letter in his desk drawer, the one addressed to my brothers and me that said, “Open if your mother and I are gone.”

And I looked at his chair. I thought, do I dare sit in it? I sat down. And I fell apart.

Through my tears, I actually asked out loud, “Dad, what am I supposed to do now? I don’t know how to run a business. Who will help me now that you are gone?”

Writing that scene meant going back to the girl I was in that moment. A young woman, a new mother, a funeral director who could help other families navigate grief, but had no idea how to navigate her own. I had been raised to be tough. Baues didn’t cry; we plowed through, no matter what.

And there I was, crying in my father’s chair, talking to a man who could no longer answer me.

That was the hardest page of the book to write. And it’s the one I’m most grateful I didn’t skip.

What do you hope young women entering the deathcare profession take away from your story?

More than anything, I hope they see that they belong here and that their voices matter. This profession needs leaders who bring empathy, innovation, resilience and authenticity.

I hope they learn to trust their instincts and embrace opportunities even when they feel unprepared. Some of the most important growth in my own career came from difficult experiences.

I also want them to know they don’t have to do it alone. That’s a big reason I founded the Funeral Women Lead Foundation: to help women “unleash their greatness” and create opportunities for mentorship, leadership development and long-term support for them across every stage of their careers. When we invest in each other, everyone benefits.

Looking back, what leadership lesson did grief teach you that success alone never could?

Grief taught me that leadership begins with compassion. Success often focuses on achievements and outcomes, but grief reminds you that every decision ultimately affects people. Experiencing profound personal loss gave me a much deeper understanding of what the families we serve go through, and it changed how I led my team as well.

It also taught me resilience. Leadership isn’t about avoiding hardship; it’s about learning how to move through it with integrity, courage and grace.

I hope readers come away understanding that our greatest challenges often become our greatest teachers and that compassionate leadership can transform not only businesses but also the lives of others.

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