Meet Our Caring Team

Liz Coffelt

Managing Partner

Liz Coffelt is currently the Managing Partner of Becker Ritter Funeral Home in Brookfield, Wisconsin.  In this position, she is charged with managing the funeral home operations and personnel to insure every family served by Becker Ritter receives compassionate care and excellence in service.

“Serving families in the greater Milwaukee area is a tremendous privilege, and I feel incredibly fortunate to care for our families alongside a wonderful team of compassionate and dedicated professionals who work tirelessly to exceed our family’s expectations. Providing comfort to our families during their time of loss and being able to assist them with creating a meaningful and unique tribute to honor the life that has been lived is what I find to be the most rewarding part of our mission.  We have earned a reputation of excellence that has been based on generations of committed funeral service professionals working hand in hand with every family to honor and pay tribute to their loved one’s unique and special life with customized services that truly reflect each individual’s own spirit. We continue to build on this legacy of excellence and remain ready to serve the ongoing needs of our beloved community.”

Prior to her role at Becker Ritter, Liz was the Vice President of Operations at Memorial Oaks Funeral Home & Cemetery.  Her management responsibilities included oversight of the daily funeral home operations that served approximately 500 families a year, as well as provided additional support for the cemetery that performed roughly 900 interments annually.  Prior to her role at Memorial Oaks, Liz was also the General Manager over 5 Gorsline Runciman Funeral Home chapels, serving 1,000 families annually.

Liz is a licensed funeral director/embalmer and currently serves on the Worsham College of Mortuary Sciences Advisory Committee. She was a recipient of the Athena Foundation’s Business Woman of the Year Award, which honors the success and efforts of women in business around the world.  Previously, she has also served on the Uptown Chamber of Commerce and was twice-elected Vice-President.  Additionally, she has received several funeral service awards that include the ‘Service Excellence Medal,' an award granted by leadership for providing excellence in service; the Karlton A. Koball Award, presented for possessing an unwavering professional attitude towards others; the Funeral Directors Services Association Award, and the Albert Worsham Memorial Award, a distinction awarded to her as the Valedictorian of her mortuary science class. 

Liz has also earned an MBA in Human Resources Management from Northcentral University, and additionally, holds a BS in Biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

She is married to Tim Coffelt, who also works in funeral service, managing funeral homes and cemeteries throughout his 30 year career in the funeral profession. Together, they enjoy spending time with their children and 2 small dogs, as well as being active serving the community, supporting the arts, traveling, cooking and reading.

Paul Andrus

Manager

Paul has served as Manager and Funeral Director at Becker Ritter Funeral Home since 2000. He was raised in Milwaukee, living on the North side for most of his youth where he attended Pilgrim Lutheran School in Wauwatosa, and graduated from Milwaukee Lutheran High School in 1980. Soon after graduation Paul began working full time in his father's funeral livery service. This time gave him the chance to work for many different funeral homes in the Milwaukee area as a hearse driver. These valuable experiences led to his apprenticeship and eventual attendance at mortuary school, graduating in 1986.

"Working for Becker Ritter has been one of the most rewarding events of my life. The firm's service-first approach and their ability to serve each family in their unique or special ways are most gratifying. Dealing with death and dying is a journey that we all must take and to be that person who's able to walk alongside a family and guide them through the process, is something I'm truly honored by."

Paul has served as President of Milwaukee/Waukesha Funeral Directors Association. Over the years, he has also served the State Board of Funeral Directors through the chairs and ultimately as President in 2009. Paul currently represents the Wisconsin Funeral Directors as policy board representative to the National Funeral Directors Association. In addition to industry associations, Paul has been involved in various community boards and activities including coaching Little League Baseball.

On the personal side, Paul is an avid outdoorsman enjoying hunting and fishing. He is married and has one son, Joseph, with his wife Cherie and lives in the Menomonee Falls area. 

Tim Coffelt

Manager

Michelle Schneider

Office Manager

Michelle Schneider joined Becker Ritter Funeral Home as the Office Manager in 2011. Born and raised outside of Boston, Massachusetts, she also lived in New York prior to moving to the Milwaukee area.  Michelle’s degree and educational background is in Business Management and Criminal Justice; attending college in Worcester, MA, New York, NY and Milwaukee, WI. She enjoys combining her business skills with her compassion for helping people.

Michelle and her husband Andy reside in Lake Country, have a daughter named Harper and are expecting their second child this summer. Michelle is a volunteer with Big Brothers Big Sisters, is an avid fisher woman, loves spending time with her family and being outdoors. 

Chad Enright

Funeral Director

Chad has been a Funeral Director at Becker Ritter Funeral Home since 2015. He was born and raised in West Allis, spending his time involved in many activities throughout the Milwaukee, Brookfield, and Waukesha areas. After Graduating from Nathan Hale High School in 2011, Chad continued on to MATC to pursue his degree in Funeral Services.  As he journeyed through the program, Chad eventually attained an apprenticeship at Becker Ritter in May 2013. After graduating in 2015, he started his new journey as a full time Funeral Director at Becker Ritter Funeral Home.

Working for Becker Ritter has been abundantly rewarding for Chad. He feels Becker Ritter is a funeral home that puts service first for our families and being a part of it has allowed him to shepherd his families through their difficult times. 

"It is truly humbling to walk alongside a family when a loved one passes away, and I am honored to be there every step of the way."

In January 2018, Chad proposed to his best friend, Becky, and will be married later this year. They enjoy being outdoors, especially hiking, and creating new meals in their kitchen. In Chad's free time, he also loves discovering new movies to enjoy and discuss with his family and friends. 

Tracy Schessow

Funeral Director

Tracy is originally from Fond du Lac and moved to the Milwaukee area to start mortuary school in 1990 at Milwaukee Area Technical College in West Allis.

“Becoming a member of the Becker Ritter family of funeral directors has allowed me to touch peoples’ lives in ways that I hope brings them a little reassurance in a time of great sorrow. When I was younger I experienced the death of someone very close to me.  And while losing a loved one is never easy, one person was able to lessen my grief.  I found a source of great comfort in the understanding and compassion of a funeral director who really cared. At that moment, I decided I wanted to be able to help people in the same way.”

Tracy was previously a funeral director at Cesarz, Charapata & Zinnecker Funeral Home and in her role was able to compassionately serve countless families during their time of need. Working in the Milwaukee and Waukesha areas has given Tracy the experience and diversity to create personalized tributes to help honor the lives of every family she has served.  Having served on the Board of the Milwaukee/Waukesha County Funeral Directors’ Association (MWFDA) has additionally kept Tracy current on meeting the communities’ needs and wants. 

Megan Olszewski

Administrative Assistant

Melissa Herman

Ambassador/Administrative Assistant

Gloria Voss

Ambassador

Sue Zidek

Ambassador

Lyn Enright

Ambassador

Kurt Schultz

Ambassador

Janet Hertig

Ambassador

Karen VanTiem

Building Care