Mobile Chamber Names Foster Director Of Government Affairs

The Mobile Chamber has named Ellis G. Foster, Jr. its new director of government affairs. Foster is to help advance the chamber’s advocacy agenda on behalf of its nearly 1,600 member businesses, coordinate the chamber’s Governmental Affairs Committee and represent the Mobile business community in Montgomery during the legislative session. He joins the Chamber from the Mobile Downtown Alliance, where he has served as director of economic development since January, leading developer recruitment, stakeholder engagement and grant management. He previously served as a senior advisor to U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures. He is stepping down from the chamber’s board, where he has served since 2024, and from the Industrial Development Board, where he has supported major expansions including Austal USA, Airbus, Brookley by the Bay and the Gulf Distributing Co. headquarters project since 2021. He is a governor-appointed commissioner on the Southern Rail Commission and served as the 2024 governmental affairs chair for the Mobile Association of Realtors. A licensed real estate broker since 2019, Foster also served eight years in the U.S. Army National Guard as an ammunition specialist. He is a 2022 graduate of Leadership Alabama’s Alabama Leadership Initiative and holds a bachelor’s degree in urban and regional planning with a focus in construction management from Alabama A&M University.