William Abbott Foster is an investment banker, professor and politician. He was born in Rochester NY on August 5, 1960. His parents then moved to Arizona where his father worked on the Indian reservation. At age 6 his parents were in Georgia where they attended Ebenezer Baptist Church, the pastor of which was Dr. Martin Luther King. They then went to Nigeria and Bangladesh as part of the Smallpox eradication program.

Read Foster’s family story of Cornelius Melyn and Staten Island.

Biography on audio:

William attended high school in the Himalayas (Woodstock School) and Northfield Mt. Herman in Massachusetts. He got his BA from Williams College in Religion and then went to work for Congressman Walter Fauntroy and then Congressman Jim Moody. He became fascinated by the impact of technology on the democratic process and joined the Riverbend Group where he designed the first internets in 20 federal agencies, Congress and the White House.

 He then went to GE where he designed networks for multinational corporations such as GE, Baxter Health Care, and Bank of Montreal. He then ran for the US Senate in Vermont. He made the decision to get a PhD and studied at University of Arizona under Dr. Sy Goodman. His PhD dissertation on the Diffusion of the Internet in China was published in 2001 by CISAC at Stanford. Sy’s research team, the MOSAIC Group, has studied Internet diffusion in 40 countries.

For 5 years, William was in charge of government for the Commercial Internet Exchange, the world’s first ISP association. He then taught information systems at Arizona State University and then left to found the Institute for Next Generation Internet. He now teaches again at Arizona State University. His speciality is the sociology of the global Internet. He has one son, Austin Henry Foster.

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My Dad, Will

by Austin Foster

My dad, Will Foster, spent spring break with me and while we were driving back to Flagstaff from Tucson, he told me some interesting things he has done in his life. I find it fascinating that my dad went to church in the same church where Martin Luther King was priest. My dad has his Ph.D. and studied the internet in China. He has lived in Africa three different times in his life. There were many different events that led up to these milestones.

My dad was born in Rochester, New York where his dad was a medical doctor. The next year his little brother was born Andy, exactly one year one day apart. Then his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona where his dad worked as a doctor on the reservations for the Indians. He loved to play with the Indians. Two years later, he moved back to Rochester, New York. His second brother, Paul was born. He loved to ice skate there on homemade rinks.

 The next year, they moved to Northern California where Will started kindergarten. His teacher told him he would make a great senator some day. He played a lot with his cousin Jeff and they liked to wrestle. One day, there was a flood in a creek near their house. His dad put all the valuables on the bed and propped it up on blocks while the family was at the neighbor’s house. Then the family moved to Atlanta, Georgia where his dad worked for the World Health Organization to help to cure small pox. My dad went to Martin Luther King’s church. At this time, Will was six years old. He learned about a kid who was killed in some riots at that time. Will has a very strong memory of meeting Martin Luther King who said that his family would help bring the black and white people together.

Will and the family moved the next year to Africa. The family had two dogs and saw a lot of dangerous snakes, fish, and alligators. One day his mom brought home another kid named Josie who was five years old. Josie was adopted by Will’s family. Will’s youngest sister, Becky, was born in Africa. After they lived in Nigeria, they went on a trip to South Africa where Will decided his favorite animal was the lion. The family moved back to California when he was in 5th grade. He was in many accelerated classes and once read over 200 books in a semester. The one thing was, he could never spell. When Will was in 7th grade, the family moved to Bangladesh, India. The new school was challenging, especially spelling. The language was also challenging. For tenth and eleventh grade, Will went away to boarding school in India. He struggled with school although eventually got straight As.

Will moved back with his family to the United States when he was a junior in high school. Then Will went to Williams College. He ended up majoring in religion and he won awards for his work. Will got fellowship to go and work for a Congressman over the summer. This was his second job. His first summer job was making donuts and pies.

Will got an internship in Washington D.C. as a legislative assistant and eventually a press secretary for Congressman Fontroy. He learned how to type fast and answer mail. He was especially good at making the copier work. Will got lots of calls from the press and was quoted in the paper when his boss led a campaign to get a black person elected as president. Will was the only white person in an office of black people. He was very involved in the young democrats and he went to their annual conference when he was twenty-three. Will became tired of politics and the quick pace of Washington, so he left to go and live with a religious group of people in Oregon. He left after a few months and went back to Washington D.C. where he ran the computer network for another congressman. Will became very interested in computers and got a job selling computers to Congress and many different agencies, including the White House. He decided he wanted to run for Congress from Vermont. He went back to Washington and sold computers. Will met Holly in Washington D.C. and they got married in the Tetons. Will decided to get his PhD. At the same time, Holly got pregnant and the new family moved to Tucson, Arizona. Unfortunately, the Will and Holly got divorced. Will got his PhD and studied the Internet in China. Will got a job teaching at ASU West and worked on several books. He left ASU West after a couple of years and he moved back east. Just recently, Will got a different teaching position in the Sociology Department at ASU. That is where he is now.

 What I found interesting was how experiences Will had early in life influenced what he did later, such as his work with blacks and integration. I’m glad I had to chance to interview my dad because I learned some things about his life that I never knew before.