Career
The Foster Publishing Company"s line of low-cost art manuals were widely distributed to art stores, often displayed in a metal rack specially made for Foster"s oversized art books Today, Foster Publishing is part of the Quayside Publishing Group, which is owned by Quarto Publishing. Foster Publishing In 1988, a group of investors comprising Andrew McNally IV (former president of Rand McNally), Illinois businessman Rhett Butler, attorney Paul Hegness and California businessman and former Price Waterhouse Certified Public Accountants Ross Sarracino purchased the Foster Publishing Company.
With Sarracino at the helm, the company began developing instructional drawing and painting books for children.
The popularity of these children's books eventually led to licensing agreements with The Walt Disney Company, Nickelodeon, Hasbro, Marvel Entertainment, District of Columbia Comics and Warner Brothers Foster Publishing"s Walt Disney books and activity kits have sold more than 4,500,000 copies since 1991.
In 1996, Quarto Publishing, under direction of Chief Executive Officer Laurence Orbach, acquired Foster Publishing, leaving Sarracino at the helm as President and Chief Executive Officer. In addition to growing its publishing and custom packaging (creating books and kits for Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Chronicle Books, Disney Press, Michaels, Scholastic, TJ Maxx and Target) business, Foster teamed with MEDL Mobile to create the Learn to Draw Digital Sketchbook app for the iPad. Since the app became available in December 2010, it has been downloaded over 200,000 times.