The article is dedicated to the scientific and educational work of the docent (associate professor) Jānis Sauka (1911–1970) at the University of Latvia and the Department of General Chemistry at the Riga Polytechnical Institute (1958–1970). The beginning of the article briefly outlines the biography – it shows the dedication of J. Sauka to fulfil his ambition – to become a chemist. J. Sauka started his scientific career under the lead of professor M. Straumanis with roentgenography research of crystals, which required working persistently and accurately. Persistence and precision were two characteristics of J. Saukas work throughout his entire scientific and education career. After the re-establishment of the Riga Polytechnical Institute in 1958, he was actively seeking a direction for the scientific research of the department and he chose to research the characteristics of compounds of inorganic peroxides and polysulphides. Even though J. Sauka’s chosen avenue of research was completely new for the Chemistry Department, the work produced interesting results. As early as 1967, the first science candidate’s degree was awarded, soon followed by another four. Simultaneously with scientific work, great advances were made in organising chemistry education for engineering technical students, too – both with establishing teaching laboratories and working on chemistry teaching methodology. Associate professor J. Sauka led the development of a guide of new kind of practical laboratory works. As opposed to other guides, this one featured separate work tasks for students that did not offer the complete process of the reactions. The lectures of the docent (associated professor) Sauka were informative and visually attractive thanks to the considerate appearance and posture of the professor as well as the experiments that were demonstrated. By taking into account the enormous work on organising the teaching process and developing the methodology of teaching general chemistry of J. Sauka we can safely say that he is the founder of training of not only chemistry engineers but all engineers in general at the re-established PIR. Jānis Sauka’s scientific legacy consists of 38 scientific publications, 16 methodological works and books, and 5 chemical science candidate’s degrees were awarded to applicants under the supervision of J. Sauka.