Baird Foster, salesman, lover of Austin-Healeys
Baird C. Foster of Moorestown was more than the chairman of an international fund to honor a developer of Austin-Healey sport cars.
Baird C. Foster of Moorestown was more than the chairman of an international fund to honor a developer of Austin-Healey sport cars.
"He was instrumental in rejuvenating, within the last 10 years," the DMH Memorial Fund, which, in Cornwall, England, honors the automaker Donald M. Healey, said Fred Dabney, president of the Austin-Healey Club of America.
Since its creation in 1991, the fund has financed educational grants for students in Healey's home county of Cornwall.
And after Mr. Foster became fund chairman in the last year, Dabney said, he "and I had been talking about making it more dominant in the States."
One idea, Dabney said, was funding students at schools with classes in the restoration of antique cars.
Dabney owns a 1967 model BJ8 Austin-Healey. Mr. Foster's was a 1962 BJ7. Dabney said the cars were produced from 1952 to 1972.
On Sunday, Aug. 7, Mr. Foster, 77, a former publishing salesman in Pennsauken, died at Cooper University Hospital in Camden of complications following a July 28 fall at a grocery store.
"He was a character in his own right," Dabney said from his home in Charlotte, N.C. "He was a delightful friend."
The DMH Memorial Fund was set up in England to honor Healey, who died in 1988. Its first effort was to install a stained-glass window at a church in the town of Perranporth, Healey's hometown.
After he retired as a salesman in California in 1995, Mr. Foster bought the 1962 Austin-Healey BJ7 and received awards from clubs that honored Austin-Healeys.
In 2000 and 2010, Mr. Foster's wife, Margo, said, her husband took part in the Drivers' Parade at the Formula One Grand Prix du Canada in Montreal.
Mr. Foster grew up in Haddonfield, graduated from Haddonfield Memorial High School in 1956, and earned a bachelor's degree in business at Rutgers University in 1960, the year that the Fosters married.
He played drums in high school and college with small combos to help fund his education.
Mr. Foster became a salesman, first for his family-owned firm, the former International Envelope Co., in Philadelphia in the 1960s, and then for the former Lehigh/Rocappi, a manufacturer of textbook covers in Pennsauken, in the 1970s.
He retired as a salesman for Auto-Graphics Inc., a software producer in Pomona, Calif., in the 1995.
Besides his wife, Mr. Foster is survived by sons Kyler and Preston, two brothers, and four grandchildren.
Services are to be private.
Donations may be sent to Beverly Sealand, the Donald M. Healey Memorial Fund, 15 Ancient Way, Wethersfield, Conn. 06109-3929.
Condolences may be offered to the family at lewisfuneralhomemoorestown.com.
610-313-8134@WNaedele