George Kraw (Cowell ’71, history and Russian studies)

George M. Kraw (Cowell ’71) earned his BA in history and Russian studies at UC Santa Cruz. He is a lawyer, occasional journalist, and long-time supporter of UCSC. He was born in Oakland, CA in 1949 and is the grandson of Serbian and Croatian immigrants. His early education was at public schools in the Bay Area; in 1967, he entered the third class at Cowell College where he majored in history and Russian studies. After UC Santa Cruz, he graduated from UC Berkeley, where he received an MA in modern European history and a JD from Berkeley Law. In 1981, Kraw started his own law practice, initially specializing in corporate finance. After partnering with his first wife Sarah Kenyon Kraw, he became increasingly involved in the legal and financial issues of unions and their employee benefit plans. In 2002, President George W. Bush appointed Kraw, at the recommendation of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters as union representative to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), where he helped draft investment policy statements and advised on the financial problems of underfunded pension plans. After he left the PBGC in 2005, his firm, the Kraw Law Group, continued to grow and now has 22 lawyers in offices in Silicon Valley, San Diego, and Phoenix.

George frequently writes on employee benefit and other law related matters and is a member of the Pacific Media Workers Guild. His wife Sarah died in 2001. In 2012, he married Raphael (Rafe) Shannon Kraw, also a lawyer, who joined the Kraw Law Group in 2015. The marriage brought two stepchildren, Nat and Ariel, from Rafe’s prior marriage, and later four grandchildren, now all under age six.

He remains active in UCSC alumni affairs, and recently became a member of the UC Santa Cruz Foundation. Along with his wife Rafe, he sponsors a series of science and technology lectures at the UCSC Silicon Valley campus and has been active in several campus programs, including the UCSC rugby team, which he played on from 1967-71. They also sponsor the Sarah Kenyon Kraw Fellows program at Berkeley Law.