John McCraw was an Earth scientist who began working as a pedologist with Soil Bureau, DSIR, then became the Foundation Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, inspiring a new generation to study and work in Earth sciences, a discipline he introduced into the tertiary education system in New Zealand. In retirement, he was an author and historian with a special emphasis on Central Otago as well as the Waikato region. Throughout his career, marked especially by meritorious leadership, accomplished administration, and commitment to his staff and students at the University of Waikato, John McCraw also contributed widely to the communities in which he lived through public service organizations and as a public speaker. He received a number of awards including an MBE, fellowship, and companionship, and, uniquely, is commemorated also with a glacier, a fossil, and a museum-based research room named for him. The Earth sciences programme today as an integral part of the School of Science at the University of Waikato is stronger than ever. In the past few years several new staff have been appointed, both academic and technical, giving the largest-ever Earth sciences team of about 30 staff. As well as research-led teaching, Earth sciences has strong research groups, at the cores of which are doctoral and masterate students, and postdoctoral fellows, to carry on the work envisaged by John McCraw all those years ago. This thriving continuation of our discipline, which has always had strong multidisciplinary linkages with other sciences, is − alongside the countless students he has taught and inspired − surely his greatest legacy.