Edward Kotok was a researcher for the United States Forest Service and was the assistant chief in charge of state and private forestry work. He received his M.S. in forestry at the University of Michigan and subsequently became a forest examiner on the Shasta National Forest, supervisor of the Eldorado, and head of fire control in Region Five. In 1926 he became the director of the California Forest and Range Experiment Station and later the Assistant Chief of the USFS where he oversaw forest research in 1944. Kotok retired from the USFS and became involved with the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations where he was the first head of a mission to Chile in 1951. He was a staunch supporter of the Forest Service and in 1961 joined with Earle Clapp in arguing against the transfer of the agency to the Department of the Interior. Kotok was also part of the Civilian Conservation Corps in which he returned to research and later helped keep forestry at UC Berkeley in the face of the program being moved to UC Davis. In this interview, he discusses his time in the United States Forest Service, relationships with Congress, Presidents Wilson, Hoover, and F. Roosevelt, ties between American and European forestry, contributions of Stuart Bevier Show to the FAO, the Forest Service, and power companies, and his involvement in the UC Berkeley School of Forestry. Also included is a commentary by Ruth Catherine Show Kotok in which she discusses the role of a forester's wife. This interview is part of a group of interviews documenting the history of forest policy in the United States.