Brady Foust

James Brady Foust, who died at his home in Eau Claire on November 27, was born on April 12, 1943.  The son of Ida Brown Foust and James O. Foust, in Clarksville, Tennessee, he had a free range, unsupervised childhood, roaming the woods, sloughs, and caves along the Cumberland River.  On his own at thirteen, he had hitchhiked around the South by the time he was sixteen.

He received a BA in Philosophy and Geography from Stetson University and a MS and PhD in Geography from the University of Tennessee and taught at the University of Tennessee, Appalachian State University, and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (1971- 2009). When he retired, he had devoted 43 years to undergraduate teaching, research, and mentoring.

Chair of the Department of Geography at UW-Eau Claire off and on for more than 25 years, he helped grow the department into one of the premier undergraduate geography departments in the country and led the development of a strong Geographic Information Systems component there, encouraging its spread through a variety of disciplines.  He loved Wisconsin, Eau Claire, and the Chippewa Valley; had a fierce devotion to UW-Eau Claire and to his students; and was a defender of the Wisconsin Idea.  His spring field trips to New York, Paris, Los Angeles, the Mississippi Delta, French Louisiana, the Borderlands, the Mormon oases, and Las Vegas were the stuff of student legend.

Outside of academia, he was an early pioneer in the use of Geographic Information Systems for site location, geo-marketing, and economic development.  A senior founding partner of Matrix Research, a top retail site location company, and of Proxix Solutions, which was later sold to CoreLogic, he was one of the three co-founders of HazardHub, which provided the financial resources to make significant philanthropic contributions to scholarships at UW-Eau Claire, to the Pablo Center at the Confluence, and to the Eau Claire Public Library. He was inducted into the Wisconsin Academy of Arts, Sciences, and Letters in 2024.

A bon vivant, raconteur, gourmand, deipnosophist, and wit who did not suffer fools gladly, he loved many people: his wife, Jeanne; his children, Graham (Amy), Matthew (Charlie), Maryam (Sam), and Nabil (Mei); his grandchildren (Merle, Mavis, Liv, Waylon, Henry, Alicia, and Jonathan); his first wife, Sarah Herrell; and his many friends. He never met a stranger and often began a toast with the lines from W.B. Yeats, "Think where man's glory most begins and ends / And say my glory was I had such friends."  Brady loved cocktails (especially Sazeracs and Brandy Old Fashioneds) and cities (particularly New York, Paris, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and St. Paul) and he could instantly recommend wonderful bars and restaurants the world over, from lowly Delta joints to haute cuisine.  An avid loser at many racetracks and poker tables, he led a happy and rewarding life. Lift a glass to him.

A memorial service will be held at 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, December 28, 2024 in the JAMF Theater of the Pablo Center in Eau Claire.  Doors will be open at 10:30 a.m.