Joshua Slocum

Executive Director,
Funeral Consumers Alliance
Author, Final Rights

Joshua Slocum has been the executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance since 2003. He has appeared as an expert commentator on funeral issues in national media such as the New York Times, CNN, AARP Magazine, and CBS News. Slocum has written numerous articles in mainstream and funeral trade publications, including a feature article on funeral fraud for Consumer's Digest Magazine.

In 2009, he testified before a Congressional committee on the need to bring cemeteries, crematories, and all death industry vendors under the Federal Trade Commission's Funeral Rule, the only national protections funeral consumers enjoy. Slocum offered commentary to Congressional staff that helped shape the Bereaved Consumer's Protection Act of 2009, a bill to expand funeral consumer safeguards.

In 2011 he published Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death with co-author Lisa Carlson. Final Rights combines a journalistic investigation of the funeral industry and how consumers navigate it with practical information on how to avoid funeral fraud. The book contains a chapter for each US state that details the funeral and burial laws and protections available for consumers, all laid out in plain English for the lay reader. Library Journal called the book "an essential purchase for consumer-protection collections."

A graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, Slocum worked as a newspaper reporter in Virginia before joining FCA. He earned several awards for business and financial writing and for coverage of law and justice issues.

For more information or to contact Joshua Slocum, visit the Funeral Consumers Alliance website or email him.