| In
1968 he joined Merrill Lynch in Toronto as a
stockbroker, becoming registered with the New
York Stock Exchange, the Ontario Securities
Commission and the Chicago Board of Trade.
By 1973
he was head of investment fund sales and of
advertising for Canada. In 1974, he was transferred
to New York City as vice president and worldwide
director of advertising and sales promotion. |
| In
1975, he planned and executed National Investment
Seminar Week for Merrill Lynch in the USA,
in which every ML office (over 400 of them)
put on an investment seminar during one week,
focusing the company and the investing public
on what they should be doing with their money
in tough times. Merrill Lynch opened 50,000
new accounts as a result of this.
The programme
won the Silver Anvil Award for excellence in
marketing from the Public Relations Society
of America.
|
|
| In
1976, having earned a fat bonus, he bought his
first aeroplane, a Piper Comanche 250, and wrote
the best-selling The Aircraft Owner's Handbook
|
|
| as a result (sample review:
"With this book, the Library of Congress
can close the doors to the general aviation
stacks, because it's all here in eight
vast codices unlike anything we've ever
seen." (The Aviation Consumer)
55,000 copies were sold. |
|
| Comanche
'Five One Papa' over Bucks County, PA.
|
|
|
Foster with 'Five One Papa'
his beloved Comanche, N8251P, in 1976.
|
He soon went out on his own
to write, producing five more books in the process,
Upgrading Your Airplane's Avionics, How to Become
an Airline Pilot, Flying in Congested Airspace, The
Aviators' Catalog and Word Processing for Executives
and Professionals, which he co-authored with computer-communications
guru Alfred Glossbrenner.
In 1984, he joined the leading public
relations firm of Burson-Marsteller in New York as
a creative director, and moved to London in 1986 in
the same role, where he became vice president.
He returned to the independent sector in 1987, remaining
in England, where he writes books and runs his advertising
slogan business.
He has also developed a radio programme,
based on his books. In 1995 he scripted a five-part
television programme for Russian TV on personal investment
as part of a British Know-How Fund privatisation initiative.
He spent nearly a month in Moscow and St Petersburg
in 1994 working on privatisation initiatives. In 1998-99
he developed a series of three CD-ROM programs on
business skills for Southwark College.
He has completed the creation of 20
training modules on advertising effectiveness for
the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, brochures
for Andersen Consulting, Brussels Airport and Levi
Strauss Europe, and a paper for The Journal of
Communications Management. He has contributed
a story 'How Ad Slogans Work' on the website How
Stuff Works.
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