Joseph C. Foster
Foster Grant Corporation
Inducted 1977
Joseph Foster (1904 – 1971) is the son of Sam Foster, founder of the Foster Grant Corporation, a pioneering corporation in eyewear and the plastics molding industries. Joseph became Chief Executive Officer of the Leominster, MA-based Foster Grant Corporation in 1969 following Sam’s death, a company that introduced sunglasses to the American public. In the three decades he led the corporation, it became the world’s largest manufacturer of sunglasses and a leading producer of chemicals and thermoplastics.
The company, founded in 1919, was originally founded to produce lady’s hair combs and accessories from celluloid sheets. Sam Foster’s original business partner, Grant, was involved in the business for a very short time, but his name was never removed from the corporation. The first generation of celluloid eyewear he developed was marketed at the Woolworth Five and Dime Store in Atlantic City in 1929. Foster Grant also became the first American company to adopt injection molding, importing a molding machine from Germany in 1934. They eventually designed and built their injection molding machines.
Under Joseph’s leadership, the company expanded and diversified. Their famous advertising campaign from the 1960s, “Who’s Behind Those Foster Grants,” was a tremendous success. In the early 1970s, Foster Grant introduced molded acrylic lenses and later developed silicone hard coats to protect the lenses from scratching. Joseph Foster is credited for the marked growth of the sunglasses industry after World War II.
Joseph also started the company in the petrochemicals field against the advice of many. He built plants to produce polystyrene in Leominster, MA, Peru, IL, and Baton Rouge, LA, with capacities for as much as 750 million pounds a year. He also built a plant to produce nylon 6 in Manchester, NH. This is a great example of vertical integration, as these materials were used to produce their eyewear. By 1980, Foster Grant began to focus on the safety and military markets, opening the Technical Products Division of Foster Grant known today as Fosta-Tek Optics, Inc., headquartered in Leominster, MA.
Areas of Expertise:
Plastics processing, Plastic materials, Business management