Hye Kyung (HK) Lee, Founder.
HK was certain that she would spend her adult life saving the world by reversing climate change. During college, she interned at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Air Policy and shaped the rest of her academic experience around this mission. She successfully advocated for her university to create an Environmental Engineering curriculum (despite only one other student joining her in the inaugural 101 class) and studied Japanese in preparation to work at the United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Kyoto after gradation.
HK’s plans were unexpectedly derailed during an election year when the U.S. chose to opt out of the IPCC-led Kyoto Protocol, which aimed to establish voluntary greenhouse gas emission limits. After exploring other environmental career paths and taking stock of her efforts, she realized they weren’t the right fit. Shifting her priorities, she focused on finding a first full-time job that would provide travel opportunities and allow her to afford an apartment in Manhattan. With a Chemical Engineering degree from The Cooper Union in hand, she joined the work force as a business consultant, first within the Resources field (chemicals, energy, utilities) but quickly specialized in what was then a niche industry, Private Equity (PE). She was energized by collaborating with some of the brightest, results-driven minds in business, working together to solve highly complex and opaque problems. As the PE industry grew (20x during her participation), she focused on opportunities where others did not: helping firms streamline operations in order to scale, mitigate risk, and for many, prepare for their IPOs.
She started, grew, and sold a PE Operations and Technology Consulting firm—the first of its kind. After selling the business, she moved in-house, leading transformation efforts from within. This included running the Project Management Office at Oaktree Capital Management, and revamping the Investor Services department at Apollo Global Management. She has always loved walking into a complex problem, figuring out short and long term plans to address it, and seeing the transformation through before looking for the next problem to tackle.
While on a business trip several years ago, HK came across an article about Ellen MacDonald, a Stanford-trained neuroscientist with no prior ties to the funeral industry, who founded Eloise Woods Natural Burial Park. This story sparked immediate admiration and a deep sense of connection. After years of the idea simmering in her mind, she decided to pursue it earnestly. What began as a part-time endeavor soon grew to consume nearly all her waking (and some sleeping) hours.
Aeon Woods emerged as a response to both her personal passions and the challenges she observed. It integrates cultural and heritage dialogues at a time when many feel increasingly isolated and aims to disrupt the impersonal, profit-driven norms around death care. Moreover, this complex, multi-faceted endeavor has allowed HK to reconnect with her early dedication to addressing climate change, adding another layer of purpose to her work.
HK currently lives between Manhattan and Queens in NYC with her husband and their two children. She is currently working towards her first pull-up, after which she will commemorate the occasion with her first tattoo (of herself doing a pull-up).
Jason Hall, Marketing.
Jason’s career has been a fun and rewarding ride. After serving in the Army infantry, he decided to test his mettle in financial services as an equity derivatives trader—a pursuit of self-discovery as much of markets. From there, he ventured into the adventures of a frontier markets-focused hedge fund, immersing himself in the arcane world of Southeast Asian markets (and sleep deprivation.)
In keeping with his mantra of doing everything the hard way, Jason then joined Bridgewater Associates, the iconic global macro hedge fund with a famously unique culture. There, he built investment teams before taking on the challenge of helping to manage the firm’s multi-asset beta and benchmark exposure.
Since it’s only fun if the odds are monumentally stacked against you, he is now a serial entrepreneur in the emergent and somewhat perilous world of decentralized finance. After reflecting on his chosen path, Jason has prudently joined Aeon Woods in hopes of crafting a tranquil resting place.
Jason holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Connecticut. Outside of work, Jason is a person of many interests. He’s an avid traveler and counts hiking, blues guitar, freediving, and a host of other pursuits among his hobbies.
John Lee, Operations.
John has worn a lot of hats during his career, doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Learning, adapting, and tackling new challenges has been a constant; launching the first conservation cemetery in New York State is certainly going to be both new and a challenge.
John came of age with what is now called Web 1.0 as an intern at Time Warner Electronic Publishing, home of Pathfinder, one of the very first corporate websites and witness to the notorious Time Warner/AOL merger. From there he jumped feet first into web development. It was heady times, working on properties like Kozmo.com and the David Bowie ISP (!) that have been consigned to the dustbin of history.
Being properly chastened when the first bubble burst, John went from Internet publishing to intranet publishing in a nice, stable industry—pharmaceuticals. It was, however, dreadfully boring, especially when Forest Laboratories moved from Manhattan to Jersey City.
John found the excitement he was looking for by joining a small consumer electronics outift based in his hometown of Queens, NY. Coby Electronics had contract manufactured the CD/clock radio that he had just received as a company-wide holiday gift, so it seemed a sign when his friend approached him about becoming a technical writer for them. Coby had been around since 1990, and as an NYC native, John knew them as the low-budget company that ripped him off when he was a kid with their incredibly low-quality headphones that overpromised the value proposition with their marketing copy. However, he found that the company had ambitions to do more so he joined up and started writing (honest) copy for their MP3 players. He became an active participant in the R&D department trying to innovate new interfaces with which to navigate very large libraries of songs. (A Blackberry-inspired scroll and a spring-loaded slider were two that he helped champion to market, only to be crushed by the flashier and easier to market touchkey players…) John trained staff at the factories in Shenzhen, China to streamline the documentation process, and was an annual attendee at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where he barely managed to keep it together while he was being pitched by Levar Burton (!!). His time at Coby delivered lots of hats and lots of excitement.
A personal move to Southern California meant bidding adieu to Coby and learning how to get a freelance business started as a technical writer. It wasn’t very exciting but the weather was amazing. He did some additional time with another consumer electronics company there, establishing a product information database, revamping their website, producing their annual print catalog, and building out a graphics design team.
Returning to NYC after nine years meant shifting gears again. John was recruited to join the executive board of a public school PTA where he served as Recording Secretary and Communications VP, working on the school website and newsletters amongst other things. He also found that California had really left a mark on him, so, despite not having ever played soccer, he kept upgrading his soccer referee certification until he became the head referee of a division in the local youth soccer organization in Manhattan. This last might not have any bearing on starting a conservation cemetery in New York State, but stranger things have happened.
John currently lives between Manhattan and Queens in NYC with his wife and their two children. In his free time, John likes to partake in the cultural offerings NYC has to offer from Broadway to rock shows at small venues. He used to play Ultimate Frisbee with actors and scientists near JPL in California but has returned to a monthly basketball game, at least until his knees beg him to stop.