Following a first in Mathematics at Auckland University and several teaching and lecturing positions, John Maindonald settled down to working with other researchers as a quantitative problem solver. From 1970 to 1978 he was Biometrician in the Faculty of Science at Victoria University of Wellington. Then for 14 years through to the breakup of the NZ Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in 1992, he was Officer in Charge of the DSIR Applied Mathematics substation at Mount Albert in Auckland. Until his move from New Zealand to Australia in 1996, much of his work was in plant, fruit and pest research, with industrial consulting as a sideline. He took up a position at The Australian National University (ANU) in 1998. At ANU he has relished the stimulus of working with biologists, ecologists, epidemiologists, public health researchers, molecular biologists, demographers, computer scientists, numerical analysts, machine learners, an economic historian, forensic linguists, and a lively group of statisticians. He is the author of a book on Statistical Computation. He the senior author of “Data Analysis and Graphics Using R — An Example-Based Approach” (CUP, 3rd edn, 2010). This has sold more than 10,000 copies over the three editions. From 2004 through to 2015, he fronted numerous workshops on the R system, at Australian universities, for CSIRO groups, for Australian state and national departments and institutions, and for the Australian Consortium for Social and Political Research Incorporated (ACSPRI). In 2015, he moved back to NZ, to live in Wellington.