About

Otrib, the concept, began in 2000. That was the year my maternal grandmother died. Francis Livingston Bumgardner was a beautiful, kind-hearted person. When she lost her battle with ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) I felt tremendous sorrow. I mourned. But, I also decided to pay tribute to her life by producing a film. A collection of photos and home movie footage, set to era-specific music, the tribute film told the story of her life and paid homage to a woman loved by her family and friends. It was my eulogy for grandmother. And it marked the beginning of something new.

I’m Sam Tharp, the founder of Otrib. I’ve never worked in the funeral business. With a background in product and marketing management at world-class companies like Time Life, AOL, Dell and Monster.com, Otrib may seem an unlikely business for me to start. Unlikely or not, Otrib is something that I believe in deeply. Some may see a site about death and funerals. But to me, Otrib is about life - celebrating life. And yes, mourning the loss of it. It’s about helping people who are feeling emotionally distraught and yet must manage a major event in their time of grief.

Otrib provides tools, at no cost, to plan a funeral and notify family and friends. This makes the site useful. Otrib’s users inform you of which “end of life” companies are good and those that are less than reputable. In addition to user reviews, Otrib’s community forums help you deal with the feelings of grief and loss when someone passes away. This makes the site invaluable.

The mission of Otrib is to help people. That’s what we do.

If you have any suggestions on how we can better serve, please email me: samt@otrib.com