Each day, Kim Powers Bridges demonstrates the power of one entrepreneur.

The funeral home and mortuary owner stands at the heart of a company in full bloom. Her business enterprise enriches her own life with the rewards of honest enterprise even as it improves the lives of countless individuals— be they the company’s employees or the families for whom it provides vital services during times of sorrow.

Bridges Funeral Services owns funeral homes, cemeteries and crematories, spread across nine states that reach from the Gulf Coast up to their flagship business in Knoxville, Tenn., and out to Texas, Colorado and New Mexico. Twice a month, Kim signs paychecks for more than 100 employees, and each year Bridges Funeral Services is responsible for the creation of more than $2 million in payroll in the states in which it operates.

It is an exciting time for Kim and her husband Dennis, but the journey to this moment has been anything but easy. To reach it required every ounce of Kim’s ingenuity, professionalism and determination. It required weathering the most costly natural storm in our nation’s history and a constitutional storm whose ultimate outcome barred this Oklahoma native from competing to serve customers in her own home state. And through it all, Kim maintained an unwavering commitment to the highest level of compassion-directed service for thousands of families.

Kim Powers Bridges demonstrates the power of one entrepreneur to transform the world around her and make it a better place for us all….