[1] After serving as a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Navy between 1944 and 1947, he returned to Imperial College for further study from 1947 to 1948, and completed a Bachelor of Science degree.
[1] The title of his doctoral thesis was Geology of the Te Akau District, West Auckland, New Zealand, and its regional implications.
[2] In 1948, Kear married Joan Kathleen Rose Bridges in Maidstone, Kent, and the couple went on to have three children.
[1] In 1974, Kear was appointed assistant director-general of the New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial Research from 1974, and as director general from 1980 to 1983, when he retired.
[6] In retirement, Kear lived in Ōhope,[1] In 2009, he was one of six New Zealanders who signed an open letter from 141 international scientists to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, skeptical of the available evidence for anthropogenic global warming and challenging the UNFCC and the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference to provide further evidence to support the scientific consensus on climate change.