Business Spotlight: Foster Hospitality Group

Owners: Bill R. Foster and family

Founded: 1996

Address: 426 S. Jefferson Ave., Springfield, MO 65806

Phone: (417) 831-0174

Fax: (417) 831-1873

Services/products: Development, construction and management of assisted and independent living communities

No. of employees: 265

Bill R. Foster is a man who loves what he does.

The soft-spoken, white-haired CEO of Foster Hospitality Group is one of a breed that seems to flourish in Springfield – the serial entrepreneur. In the last 50 years, he has operated a laundry, bought and sold real estate, and renovated and built homes, but the ongoing theme of his career has been health care, particularly nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

What Foster says carries a lot of weight.

“It’s kind of like that old Merrill Lynch commercial: ‘When Bill Foster speaks, people listen,’” says Springfield attorney Joe Passanise, a student regent at Missouri State University in the 1980s when he met Foster on the board of regents. Foster quickly became Passanise’s mentor.

Generous with both his money and his time, Foster was honored with a 2006 Missourian Award for his contributions to the lives of Missourians.

Now 80, the man Jack Stack calls “Springfield’s best-kept secret” shows little sign of slowing down. There’s a current of excitement in Foster’s voice when he talks about his businesses, and he recalls his ventures with a gleam in his eye that is both shrewd and delighted.

Laundry lessons

Foster’s first business was Foster’s Help Yourself Laundry on North Broadway, which he opened in 1949 at the age of 22. But he really wanted to help people.

In 1955, he saw an opportunity to do that in what was then called the rest-home business.

At that time, care for the elderly was often poor.

“People were kept in back rooms and garages and on back porches, kind of out of sight, out of mind,” Foster recalls. “A lot of times they couldn’t care for themselves and were in very odorous conditions.”

He purchased a house on Irving Street, just east of the laundry, and bought eight hospital beds from Smith and Davis Manufacturing Co. in St. Louis.

“I felt good about it because two things happened,” Foster adds. “We were able to create jobs, (and) we were able to help people that needed help.”

Foster had found his higher calling, and his next company, Foster Health Care, had found its niche.

Real estate finds

As the nursing home business grew, Foster got out of the laundry business. Then, in 1960, Foster earned his real estate broker’s license.

In those days, Foster was based in a tiny cubbyhole on the Woodruff Building’s fifth floor. There he met future business associate Bob Green of Green Finance Co. Green had a suite of offices around the corner from Foster, and he got into the habit of chatting with Foster while waiting for the elevator. They struck up a friendship, and in 1962, Foster and Green started buying old houses, fixing them up and reselling them.

“Trading for property and buying property – I really enjoyed the fun,” Foster notes.

But that didn’t mean it was easy. “Bear in mind, every one of the properties we had, we owed money on, so it was a struggle to make ends meet,” he recalls, now able to laugh about it.

Meanwhile, the nursing-home business flourished.

Construction craze

Foster built his first nursing home in 1964 with the help of a U.S. Small Business Administration loan. In 1968, he expanded the home from 60 to 100 units.

That same year, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department introduced the Section 235 program, providing subsidies for low-income home buyers. In the early 1970s, Foster and partners, including Green, went into the business of new home construction for the Federal Housing Administration and Section 235 market.

The housing business dried up after a couple of years, but the nursing home business was humming. Lebanon Care Center opened in 1975 with Foster’s eldest son, John, as administrator.

But 1975 was a rough year for the Foster family. Foster’s wife of 28 years, Eva, died of a heart attack. Two of the couple’s five children were grown and in college, but the remaining three were still in their teens and younger.

Ultimately, Foster’s business would become a family enterprise. All five children – John, Juanita Kaye, Robert Tony, Bill Jr. and Mark – have worked with their father. Foster’s wife of 20 years, Juanitha, is office manager.

“My family and I still work together; we have for years, and hopefully will to the end of time,” Foster says. “I’ve got plenty of help, thank the good Lord. If I stumble, there’s always somebody to pick me up.”

His help includes longtime employees such as accountant Greg Smith, who has been a key adviser for more than 20 years.

In the 1980s, with the support of his family and staff, Foster was able to delegate much of his nursing homes’ day-to-day operations and “I was able to start spreading out,” he says. Foster began a building boom that continued into the mid-1990s. Ultimately, Foster Health Care built more than a dozen buildings, including nursing homes, assisted living and independent living apartments.

Hotel and hospitality interests

In 1996, Balanced Care Corp., a company about to go public, purchased most of Foster’s facilities. Foster retained two assisted living developments, which he leased back to BCC, and Foster Health Care ceased to exist.

“I was almost out of business except for the real estate,” he recalls. “I felt lost – for about five minutes.”

Foster quickly discovered a new interest – building hotels with partner Chuck Wente – and Foster Hospitality Group was born. The firm developed three Holiday Express properties and a Comfort Inn, with locations in Lee’s Summit, Metropolis, Ill., and Edmond, Okla.

But Foster felt something was missing.

“Hotels are good, but my life has been around health care,” he says.

He still had the two assisted living facilities, which were now back under his management, and in 1999, he began to build more. He now has five properties, having just sold one in Licking and one in Paducah, Ky.

Foster just completed an assisted living complex in Springdale, Ark., and is building a 52,225-square-foot development in Jonesboro. He’s ready to start another at Maumelle, outside Little Rock, and he’s just obtained a permit to expand Culpepper Place at Chesterfield Village in Springfield. Foster also offers assisted living in Nevada and Branson.

Foster Hospitality has its own construction staff, as well as an in-house architectural adviser, Dennis Anderson, and an architect on retainer, Richard Ross, of Shell Knob.

Looking to the future, “You never know what tomorrow’s going to bring, but I would like to think that the Foster Group would be able to build at least three residential-care facilities a year,” Foster says.

His staff is researching Missouri and surrounding states to identify cities with populations of 50,000 to 150,000, and the next step is to identify potential building sites.

Meanwhile, asked if he thinks he’ll continue to launch new ventures, Foster says, “That’s a good question.” If so, “It would be a continuation of the assisted living. I think that’s what I like. And anything that we could get into that would help others – that, to me, is the important thing.”[[In-content Ad]]