Looking for an eco-friendly casket? You might choose one made of seagrass. Or bamboo.

If your loved one will be cremated, there are options as well. You could turn their cremated remains into a diamond for a necklace. Or a ring. You could place them into a turtle-shaped urn and watch it descend and disintegrate into water.

Those options — and more — were on display Monday afternoon at the Baltimore Convention Center’s 85,000 square-foot Expo Hall for a gathering of about 5,500 people who work in the funeral service profession.

This is only the second time that the National Funeral Directors Association International Convention & Expo has been held in Baltimore since 1882, according to the NFDA. Many attendees are funeral directors from across the U.S. and around 20 countries.

Kurt Eschbach, funeral director at Hopler & Eschbach Funeral Home in Binghamton, New York, said it’s helpful to discuss how others are approaching changes within the profession, or solving important issues.

Some aspects are rapidly changing, Eschbach said. People are getting less religious and more secular, he noted, which means a growing number of funerals are being presided over by a celebrant. That role is defined as a person who “works with a funeral director to provide a personalized service that reflects the personality and life of the deceased,” according to the NFDA’s convention website.

As a nod to that trend, convention attendees had the option of participating in a three-day seminar to get certified as a celebrant.

Eschbach also said more people are starting to prefer more personalized funeral services — with aspects tailored specifically to their loved ones, including music choices.

NFDA spokesperson and a licensed funeral director Jimmy Olson said the COVID-19 pandemic also had an impact on some families’ desire for more personalized services. He said many families have wanted a more hands-on role in the process as COVID-19-related restrictions have eased.

For the past few years, he said, the ability to have any service at all was largely taken away from grieving families because of the pandemic. And because of the high death toll from the disease and lack of services, funerals were “quantity not quality,” said Olson, the owner of Olson Funeral Home & Cremation Service.

“We’re used to saying yes to everything. To take that away from us is heartbreaking,” he said. “It goes against everything in my nature.”

COVID-19 affected other aspects of the profession, as well. Ernie Hagel, who traveled to the conference from Canada, where he owns McInnis & Holloway Funeral Homes, said over the past couple years he’s been concerned about protecting his staff.

During the pandemic, he said the funeral home split the staff in half, and they would come in on a rotating basis. Hagel said he also began to offer online services. Sometimes, that meant a family member who couldn’t make it would send in a video that would be part of the service, he said.

Amid the pandemic, many opted not to have services. And some of those people are having services now, “a year, or a year and a half later,” he said.

Hagel attended his first conference 26 years ago, and said he’s attended most since then, with the exception of a few years. He said the information sessions are always worth coming for.

The sessions in past years have helped him update parts of his funeral home. He’s improved graphics and started setting up families with grief counseling.

This year, one workshop is titled “What the Heck Should I Do with All This Tech?!”

Some came specifically to learn about livestreaming services. Anthony Vaia — funeral director of Vaia Funeral Home, Inc. in Pennsylvania — when asked why he came, said simply: “Technology.”

On Monday morning, about 60 people attended a session about customer service. In another room, about 40 people learned aspects of hospitality.

During the removal of a body, the speaker advised, leave a rose or a card where a loved one died, to make the experience of re-entering the room more pleasant for families. Also, when leaving a removal, drive off slowly until you are out of a family’s eyesight.

Danielle Hengge — a mortuary science student in Brooklyn, New York, who attended the workshop titled “The Transformative Power of Hospitality” — said she appreciated the talk.

Hengge said it “drives her crazy” how undervalued service work is in the industry. She started mortuary science school after years working as a bartender, and said she considers her service skills some of the most valuable skills she has.

She said she’s always known she wanted to take care of people at their most vulnerable and difficult moments. She hopes to one day become “a voice in the death care space,” she said.

“It’s hard being a lady,” she said, in a profession of mostly men. Although, she said many younger people coming into the industry are women.

And another attendee, Melissa Meadow, is starting a nonprofit funeral home called The End.Green Funeral Care. She’s an advocate for water cremation, she said, because traditional cremation hurts the environment.

In a water cremation, the body goes into a tank instead of a furnace, she said. Water is added, and the machine can be run in part by solar power and monitored digitally. From that process, a family can receive gallons of liquid that make up who you are — including fats, amino acids and salts.

Meadow said families can water their plants with the liquid, or can disperse it into the ocean.

Sitting across from Meadow was Sandra Baker, one of the funeral directors at Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care Inc. in Rockville, who is also a member of the nonprofit called the Collective for Radical Death Studies.

“You’ve found the most alternative table at this conference,” Baker said. “If you want the regular stuff you should probably talk to the white guys.”

One of the nonprofit’s primary goals, she said, is to reform the textbooks used to train people in mortuary science. They’re extremely outdated, she said. She met a woman who said she studied from the same books in the 1970s that are still used now. Baker said that has to change.

At the funeral home where she works, Baker doesn’t require embalming. “You do not need to be embalmed,” she said. “You can still have an open casket.” It’s invasive, she said, and the chemicals are strong. It’s also harmful to the environment.

Within the Expo Hall, many new ideas were also presented. One company, Parting Stone, solidifies loved ones’ remains into stones. Families will get around 40 to 60 stones in total, and can distribute them.

Another company, called Eterneva, isolates the carbon from people’s remains and makes them into unique diamonds.

“This is my grandma,” co-founder Adelle Archer said, pointing to a diamond in her necklace.

The diamond in her ring is made from the remains of a business mentor, she said.

Another company, called Passages International, makes biodegradable urns that can be geolocated. Families can pin the location they scattered or buried the cremated remains on an online map, where they can also share photos or memories of the person buried.

They make urns in various shapes including turtles, some of which sink and disintegrate when they are put in water.

“I had a family who wanted an urn shaped like a whale,” Olson said, pulling out his phone to show a picture.

At another booth, a company called Legacytouch, shows off jewelry with loved ones’ fingerprints engraved onto them. In other areas, hearses, removal vehicles and sprinter vans are parked. Another business advertises a formaldehyde-free embalming fluid, and airbrushing products.

Yet another, called Gather, boasts a new product that includes a small medallion with a QR code that family members can scan to see where their loved one is in the process of cremation or burial, said Chase Downs, who handles marketing for the company.

Grief therapy dogs played in another area, socializing with funeral directors and attendees.

The convention began Sunday and wraps up Wednesday.

cadence.quaranta@thebaltimorebanner.com