In an age of quick fixes and instant gratification, Craig celebrated 50 years with Telecom this month.

Of course it wasn’t Telecom back in 1958 when he first joined the organisation after arriving in Palmerston North from Scotland.

Back then telephone services were still provided by the Post Office and Craig signed on as a draughtsman, following in his father’s footsteps.

From here he progressed to become chief draughtsman with a staff of 18 and then moved into property management just as the draughting office was closed down.

In this role Craig was involved in managing the team negotiating with 180 landowners for a Palmerston North to Napier cable. An agreement with all landowners was reached in a week, at the reasonable sum of $1.50 a metre.

Craig moved to Hamilton for a time when two regions and roles were merged.

In 1994 he was asked to move to Auckland as national property planning manager where he pulled together the best work methods from Telecom’s various regional operating companies at the time.

Two years later Craig joined a new national property team in Wellington and spent eight years commuting to work by train from the place where it all began, Palmerston North.

In 2005, he returned to Auckland to be closer to family and today he looks after 2,600 Chorus network sites and over 1,000 mobile sites throughout New Zealand.

Chorus CEO Mark Ratcliffe says Craig’s commitment is awe-inspiring for everyone.

“Craig has pride of place in Chorus as our longest serving staff member. The knowledge he has gained over the years, together with the improvements he has helped our business make, are much appreciated and admired by his colleagues.”

In recognition of Craig’s hard work of the last 50 years, he was presented with a weekend’s stay at a Hawke’s Bay lodge and a round of golf at the exclusive Cape Kidnappers Golf Course.