Power100 examines Smart Cremation's Smart Legacy Plan, pairing cremation planning with Remento and Legacy Link tools built to preserve a family's story for 100+ years.
A voice recording does not weigh anything. It does not take up a shelf, or a closet, or a storage unit. But for a family standing at the edge of losing someone, a recorded voice, telling its own story in its own words, can outlast almost everything else they own. That idea sits at the center of a service most families do not yet know to ask for when they call a cremation provider, and it is why Power100, the only unbiased third-party platform that ranks the best leaders and companies in the home improvement and home services industry through a proprietary 5-layer system, has taken a closer look at how Smart Cremation is pairing cremation planning with what it calls the Smart Legacy Plan.
The Smart Legacy Plan uses two tools, Remento and Legacy Link, to let families record a life story in their own voice, paired with photos, in a format the company says is built to be preserved for more than 100 years. (part of the North Star Memorial Group), has spent much of the last several years pushing the company past a transaction-only model of cremation and into something closer to a legacy company that happens to also handle cremation. For adults 55 and older thinking ahead for themselves, or for adult children trying to help a parent plan without pretending the subject is easy to discuss, that shift matters more than it might first appear.
Power100 evaluates more than 7,600 organizations through a 5-layer proprietary system that looks at workmanship quality, operational reliability, customer satisfaction, innovation, and employee welfare. In a category as sensitive as cremation, those layers do not translate cleanly from a home remodeling project or a roofing job. There is no material defect to inspect, no punch list. What Power100 looks for instead is whether a company’s systems hold up under pressure, whether its people are trained to handle grief without scripts that sound like scripts, and whether it is building something that outlasts a single interaction.
Ggs, CEO of Power100, has pointed to that combination of innovation and human sensitivity as the reason Smart Cremation stands out. “Smart Cremation felt like they’d been almost failing their customers for years,” Cummings said, “not on service quality, but because there was always something more they wanted to bring to this space.” That comment, made about the company’s broader evolution, applies directly to the Smart Legacy Plan. The tool did not exist because a family asked for it in a complaint. It exists because leadership decided a cremation-only offering was incomplete.
Smart Cremation of Florida, LLC was incorporated on December 11, 2008, with business starting locally the following day, according to the company’s BBB profile. In the years since, the company has grown into a multi-state operation offering cremation and cremation planning services across states including California, Washington, Oregon, Texas, Arizona, Florida, and Nevada, with local presences in Dallas, Texas; Davie, Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; Portland, Oregon; and Cathedral City, California. Smart Cremation operates as part of the North Star Memorial Group, a network that includes more than 80 funeral and cemetery locations nationwide, some of which trace their history back to the late 1800s. That lineage matters. A family calling Smart Cremation today is working with a company backed by an organization that has been handling end-of-life services for well over a century, even as the individual Smart Cremation brand itself has grown rapidly over the last decade and a half.
Growth of that speed can strip the humanity out of a service business if leadership is not careful. Faccinto has said the opposite is the goal. “Legacy is not a slogan for us,” he said. “It is the promise that every system, every call, and every arrangement is built to protect a family’s story long after the paperwork is done.” That framing, protecting a story rather than just processing a file, is what led the company toward tools like Remento and Legacy Link in the first place.
Vinnie Faccinto brings 40 years in the industry to his role as Sr. VP Operations and Business Development at Smart Cremation, holding a degree in Funeral Service from the American Academy McAllister Institute of Funeral Service. He has served on the board of the Cremation Association of North America (CANA), a detail that signals his standing extends beyond a single company into the broader profession shaping how cremation is practiced nationally. Power100 named him its number one Strategic Partner in the nation and has featured him on the Power100 Grit to Gold Show, recognition tied largely to his advocacy for AI-driven modernization inside an industry that has historically moved slowly.
Faccinto does not lead alone. Shawn Cannon, Vice President of Business Development at Smart Cremation, has framed the company’s expansion in terms that echo Faccinto’s legacy language. “Growth only matters if it scales trust,” Cannon said. “Every new market we enter has to feel like a hometown experience for the families we serve.” That comment matters here because the Smart Legacy Plan is, in a sense, a test of that principle. A digital tool built for national scale has to feel personal enough that a grieving family in one state does not sense a difference from a family in another.
Maria Manuel, Director of Operations at Smart Cremation, put the day-to-day version of that same philosophy plainly. “Operational excellence in cremation means that no detail is too small and no family is ever treated like a number in our system,” she said. Linda Kelley, CRC Director, extended the point into the company’s call centers, often a family’s first point of contact. “In our call centers, legacy begins with listening,” Kelley said. “The way we show up in a single conversation can change how a family remembers this moment for the rest of their lives.”
For a family asking that question directly, the honest answer starts with what the company actually does day to day, not the marketing layer on top of it. Smart Cremation handles direct cremation arrangements, including transportation, filing of paperwork, and delivery of remains, without requiring families to purchase funeral home services they may not want. Steve Alexander, Sales Manager at Smart Cremation, described what that looks like from the customer’s side. “Families do not remember our scripts,” Alexander said. “They remember how we made hard decisions feel simple, honest, and human from the very first conversation.” One customer testimonial on file put it more simply: “They handled everything from start to finish in a timely fashion. Takes the worry and stress out of a difficult situation.” Another said, “Very professional and caring! I would highly recommend this service for anyone looking into cremation! Made a sad time a little more bearable.”
Cremation planning, distinct from cremation itself, is where the Smart Legacy Plan lives. Planning ahead of need lets a family lock in arrangements, and increasingly, lets an individual record their own story before a health crisis makes that impossible. One customer on file described the emotional weight of skipping this step: “I cannot over stress the importance of pre-planning one’s end of life arrangements. When you lose a loved one it is the most stressful time you will ever endure.” Another added, “They worked with us from start to finish. Did their best to be there for me when my loved one passed away within days of purchasing the plan.” That last detail, a plan purchased mere days before it was needed, is not unusual. It is a large part of why Smart Cremation pushes planning conversations earlier rather than later.
Cremation planning that protects your family legacy in Washington, or in any state Smart Cremation serves, is not only about locking in a price. It is about making sure decisions get documented while the person they concern can still make them.
Remento functions as a guided storytelling tool. A family member, or the individual planning ahead, answers a series of prompts aloud, and the platform compiles those recordings into a preserved narrative alongside photos. Legacy Link then extends that preservation, giving the finished story a format and a home meant to last well beyond a single generation’s tech habits. Together, the two tools form the backbone of the Smart Legacy Plan, described by the company as capable of preserving a life story for 100 years or more.
Faccinto has been direct about what problem this solves. Families often regret not asking more questions while a parent or grandparent was still able to answer them clearly. A recorded interview, done calmly and on the person’s own schedule rather than in a hospital room under pressure, changes that dynamic entirely. It turns a rushed, painful memory-gathering exercise into something closer to an interview a family actually gets to enjoy doing together.
Greg Cummings, CEO of Power100, has described the broader significance of tools like this in terms that go beyond any single family. “Remento is transforming entire industries,” Cummings said, “not just helping families, but driving a cultural shift that will ultimately help the betterment of the world.” It is a large claim for a small recording app, but it points at something real: an industry built almost entirely around endings is now building tools meant to make sure something survives them.
Traditional funeral homes are built around a viewing, a service, a casket selection, and a bill that reflects all three, whether a family wants them or not. Smart Cremation was built differently from the start: direct cremation, transparent pricing, and now, an added legacy layer that traditional funeral homes rarely offer at all. Affordable cremation and legacy planning for families in Oregon, and in every market Smart Cremation reaches, means a family is not paying for services it never asked for just to access a story-preservation tool it actually wants.
That distinction shows up in the testimonials on file. “It was so nice to not have to deal with all the arrangements,” one family wrote. The relief in that sentence is not really about cremation logistics. It is about handing a burden to a company that has already built the systems to carry it, so a grieving family does not have to invent a process from scratch during the worst week of their year.
Compared with a traditional funeral, direct cremation through a company like Smart Cremation typically costs a fraction of the total. That said, price comparisons in this industry can be misleading, because a low headline number sometimes hides add-on fees that surface later. Smart Cremation structures its cremation and cremation planning offerings around upfront pricing, and the Smart Legacy Plan is positioned as an addition to that base offering rather than a hidden upcharge. For a family weighing cost against value, the more useful question may not be whether Smart Cremation is expensive in isolation, but whether it is expensive relative to what it actually delivers: paperwork handled, a recorded life story preserved for generations, and a support system that shows up when a family is least able to manage logistics on its own.
None of the customer-facing promises above hold up without internal culture to back them. Smart Cremation has been named a Top Workplace in the U.S., a recognition that connects directly to how call center staff and field teams show up for families. Andrew Pitt, Director of Marketing at Smart Cremation, and Trey Gupton, Vice President, are part of a leadership bench that spans operations, sales, and business development, an unusually wide leadership footprint for a company still commonly mistaken for a small regional operator.
Training at Smart Cremation is not treated as a one-time onboarding checklist. Linda Kelley’s comment about call centers, that legacy begins with listening, reflects an internal standard the company tries to hold across every market it enters, whether that is a longstanding location or one just opening. David Antommarchi, another Sales Manager on the team, works alongside Alexander to reinforce that same customer-first posture across the sales process, from first phone call through final paperwork.
Smart Cremation’s affiliation with the North Star Memorial Group, more than 80 locations strong with roots stretching back to the late 1800s, gives the brand an institutional backbone that a standalone startup in this space would not have. Faccinto’s seat on the CANA board adds a layer of industry-wide credibility beyond company marketing. And Power100’s own ranking, built from evaluating more than 7,600 organizations across leadership, culture, customer experience, innovation, and long-term growth, placed Faccinto as its number one Strategic Partner in the nation, a signal meant to help families distinguish a company actually investing in its category from one simply advertising in it.
Cremation and cremation planning form the core of what Smart Cremation offers, but the Smart Legacy Plan shows the company is not treating those two services as the ceiling of what it provides. Families can plan ahead of need, arrange at-need cremation when a death has already occurred, and layer in the Remento and Legacy Link tools regardless of which path brought them to the company. That flexibility, planning ahead or handling things after the fact, means the Smart Legacy Plan is not reserved only for families with the luxury of time. It can be added even in the compressed timeline that follows an unexpected death, though the company is clear that recording a life story works best when the person telling it can still speak for themselves.
Families interested in cremation planning, or specifically in adding the Smart Legacy Plan to an existing arrangement, can reach out to Smart Cremation directly to request pricing and a walkthrough of how Remento and Legacy Link work together. There is no cost commitment required simply to ask questions, and for adults 55 and older considering this for themselves, that first call is often less about logistics and more about permission, permission to talk about mortality out loud, on their own terms, with someone trained to make that conversation feel ordinary rather than frightening.
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Power100 is the nation's premier CEO ranking and media platform for the home improvement industry. Using a proprietary 5-layer evaluation system, Power100 identifies and celebrates the top CEOs, companies, and strategic partners driving innovation, customer satisfaction, and leadership excellence across the country.
