John Staudhammer passed away in February, 2017, at the age of 85. With his family he fled Hungary in 1944 to escape the advancing Russian troops. The family lived in Germany as refugees until 1949, when two Hungarian immigrants of limited means, and Father Matthais Lani of St. Steven's Catholic Church, sponsored the family to come to Los Angeles. Through hard work and with access to affordable public education, all of the children went on to professional success in technical fields. The five children earned a total of five Bachelor's degrees, five Master's degrees, and three PhDs. John's degrees were earned at UCLA with a BS (1954), MS (1956) and PhD (1963) in Engineering. Dr. Staudhammer was a pioneer in the field of Computer Graphics. During a career which spanned over 50 years, he taught at: UCLA, ASU in the College of Engineering from 1964 to 1967, North Carolina State University, Zhejiang University, and the University of Florida where he retired as an emeritus professor. In addition, he consulted for the Army Research Office, National Science Foundation, and the Pentagon, and served as an expert witness. Always mindful that this country "took a chance" on him, Prof. Staudhammer was willing to "take a chance" on unorthodox students who were interested in the emerging field of computer graphics and animation in the 1970's and 1980's. He established and ran computer labs at NC State and the University of Florida. He was on the editorial board of IEEE's Computer Graphics and Applications magazine from 1980 to 1990 (three years as editor-in-chief), published 40 papers, and led dozens of short courses. He and his students were early and prolific contributors to SIGGRAPH. His professional endeavors took him to universities and assignments throughout Europe, the U.S., and Asia. He is predeceased by a brother and his former wife, Monique. He is survived by a sister, two brothers, a daughter, son and two grandchildren. A memorial will be held this summer in Los Angeles.