RUTH PEGERON is Founder And Owner of Lay To Rest Services, LLC. Ruth is a multi-talented business professional with over 20 years of experience in sales, human resources, marketing and organizational training, growth and development among other areas. In her corporate career, she has worked on a number of initiatives and campaigns with major retailers in major markets.
Ruth’s professional path changed when she decided to leave her 17-year corporate career with Macy’s Inc. to become a full-time caregiver for her now late mother. Her Mother’s end of life process, and ultimately death, introduced Ruth to her second career.
When re-entering the workforce, Ruth joined Service Corporation International (SCI), brand name Dignity Memorial, the largest death care provider in North America. Ruth started with the company as a Family Service Counselor and after 5 promotions and 5 locations, she became a General Manager. During her 5 year career she was responsible for thousands of funerals, even conducting more than 500 funerals herself while serving families by honoring all religious and cultural rituals that included Jewish, Muslims, Buddhists, Chinese, Koreans, Africans, Latinos and people of all Christian faiths. Her second career came by calling and quickly became a new passion because it sparked her drive in business achievement and allowed her to be openly compassionate.
Ruth earned a number of honors and recognitions for her outstanding work on behalf of many families and working in cemeteries, funeral services, end of life assistance, and grief support further developed her leadership strengths and she has become highly effective in details as there are absolutely “no do overs” for any families loved ones funeral; you only have one time to make it right and first impressions are never recovered.
Ruth is exceptional at the customer experience, overall interpersonal, and emotional intelligence skills. Ruth is also an Insight Certified Funeral Celebrant. A Celebrant serves by providing a written or performs a celebration of life, traditional funeral service, memorial service or a life tribute service that is personalized and individualized to reflect the deceased life story after consultation with the family, and other loved ones.
Ruth’s professional and personal experiences with caregiving and death propelled her to become a death expert and start Lay to Rest Services, LLC. The mission of Lay to Rest is to encourage more planning and conversation around the most uncommon topic to discuss but a topic we ALL have in common – death. There are various platforms and topical events such as hosting Death Cates, Five Wishes Seminars, Green Burial Education, and Estate Planning Events that give the opportunity to engage in healthy dialogue around the end of life journey we must all take. Ruth genuinely believes that everyone’s legacy matters and should desire to end life as well as they have lived it. She provides a safe place for people to comfortably discuss and walk through how they want to be remembered ending their story well.