COLD SPRING, Minn. – Trendsetters in life, baby boomers can be expected to take a unique approach to death and memorials as well, according to a leading generational marketing analyst.

"Boomers are more likely to do their own thing when it comes to death-related issues like burial and memorialization," says Phil Goodman, of Generation Transitional Marketing in San Diego. "As a group, they haven’t been forced to deal with death like prior generations. Now that their parents are dying and they are faced with those decisions, they are doing it their own way."

This boomer influence accounts in part for the rise in non-traditional funeral ceremonies, highly personalized memorials and grave markers, and cremations, Goodman says.

Mel Lommel, general manager of the Royal Melrose division of Cold Spring Granite, Cold Spring, Minn., which fabricates memorials, monuments and grave markers, says he has seen a noticeable increase in the number of personalized memorials.

"The trend is certainly toward highly personalized, custom memorials," Lommel says. "We’re getting more requests to recreate the symbols of a person’s interests and life."

According to Goodman, baby boomers, the 76.5 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964, tend to do things with more flair than their parents did. As a result, they are choosing to memorialize their parents and family in ways that fit the their style and individuality, he says.

Accelerating this trend are advances in technology that have increased the memorialization options available to consumers. Where inscribing a name or simple etching was once the extent of most memorials and monuments, Lommel says they recently have had requests for a full-scale grand piano, a snowmobile and a deer – all sculpted in granite. New ways of working with bronze also will increase the personalization options for flat granite markers and other bronze memorials.

The rise in popularity of cremations doesn’t mean people are foregoing traditional memorialization. Although boomer celebrities might choose final destinations that are unconventional to say the least (like having their ashes launched into space or scattered on a favorite beach), memorial gardens, urns and traditional memorials are more likely choices, Lommel says, when choosing how and where people will be remembered.

"We only expect memorialization to become more specialized and more unique," Lommel says. "I guess that’s why we call our designers and fabricators ‘granite artists’ because that is what they are increasingly called upon to create."

Note to Editors: Lommel is available for interview. Contact Sharon Jensen at Cold Spring Granite: 320-685-5055