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Mel Foster Co
Mel Foster Co. is a business headquartered in Iowa that provides real estate, insurance, and property development, as well as a variety of other related services. It was founded in Davenport, Iowa, in 1921 by Iowan Mel Foster, Sr. Today, the company employs about 140 workers and also utilizes a sales force of about 300 agents.1

Annually, Mel Foster Co. provides services to about 4,400 home buyers and sellers in Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois. The company is also responsible for about 50 percent of all new construction in the Quad Cities area, according to Kris Ratigan, Mel Foster Co.’s director of marketing.2 In addition to property development, the company also specializes in commercial and residential home sales, farm and land sales, auction services, property management, relocation services (corporate, nationwide, and international), insurance and home warranty sales.

History
After serving in the U.S. Army in World War I, Mel Foster, Sr., founded the company in 1921, opening a one-person, one-room real estate company in downtown Davenport, Iowa. Foster’s office was a former storeroom in the Whitaker Building, a five-story office building. Foster recorded his first real-estate transaction in 1922 when he sold a lot owned by an acquaintance and received a $50 commission. Foster acquired a number of small businesses and by 1924, the company reported sales of $200,000. The company built its first house in 1927.

Although Mel Foster Co. suffered a severe setback after the stock market crash of 1929, Foster persevered, managing properties, acquiring other businesses, and eventually marking his 15th year in business in 1936. The company specialized in providing affordable housing and the city of Davenport expanded as a result of some of Foster’s land development programs. In 1946, Foster assembled his most substantial deal, by acquiring land needed to build a $30,000,000 plant for the ALCOA Davenport Works factory.3

Foster’s son, Mel Foster, Jr., became involved in the company in 1953, after having served in the U.S. Army. Foster, Jr., assembled similar land packages for a number of large building projects including a nuclear power plant in Cordova, Illinois; area plants for Caterpillar and John Deere, and a regional sales center for International Harvester. Foster, Jr., also oversaw a number of redevelopment projects in downtown Davenport. The son served as president and CEO of the company until his death in 2005. The company’s current president and CEO, Rob Fick, helped encourage additional property development in the Quad Cities, starting in the 1990s, among many other building and real estate projects.

Current Business
Today, Mel Foster Co. continues to provide the same services it has since its founding, along with many others. The company has residential sales offices in Bettendorf, Clinton, Davenport, and Eldridge in Iowa, and in Galesburg, Geneseo, Kewanee, and Moline in Illinois. Land and development and insurance offices are located in Davenport, while the Bettendorf sales team handles commercial real-estate transactions. Antra Wayne, executive assistant to the president of brokerage at Mel Foster Co., attributes the company’s success to a number of factors, starting with the company’s name, which people recognize as a quality company and equate with trustworthiness. Wayne says the company’s focus has always been on being fair and honest with the client that the company serves. “We’re not in it for us, we’re in it for the people that we serve,” she says.4

Currently, the company leads the market in residential sales in most of the markets it operates in, according to Ratigan. Ratigan says the company claims between 40 to 45 percent of the market sales in the Quad Cities, compared to its competitors. Wayne and Ratigan both mentioned quality customer service and a client follow-up service as reasons for the company’s success. The company also has a school that trains and educates all agents to prepare them for real estate transactions in Iowa and Illinois.