David Pesonen was an environmental attorney and activist who was a leader in the legal battle to defeat PG&E nuclear power plant at Bodega Bay in the early 1960s. He was born in Washington D.C. and moved to Oklahoma and New Mexico for his father’s Park Service job during the Great Depression. He later attended UC Berkeley School of Forestry from 1955 to 1960 and worked in the UC Wildlands Research Center on a Wilderness Report for the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission with Wallace Stegner. Later he was hired as the executive director of the Sierra Club where he managed the campaign against the Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s proposed nuclear power plant in Bodega Bay, California from 1962 to 1964. Motivated from this experience Pesonen attended Berkeley Law (formerly known as Boalt Hall) and joined the Garry, Dreyfus, McTernan, and Brotsky law firm. During this period he continued to oppose PG&E’s nuclear power endeavors at Point Arena (1972-1973). In 1977 Pesonen returned to forestry and was a member of the State Board of Forestry and was later appointed by Governor Jerry Brown as the head of the Department of Forestry. He later served as a Superior Court Judge in Contra Costa County from 1983 to 1984 and as general manager of the East Bay Regional Parks from 1985 to 1988. In this interview Pesonen discusses in depth the Bodega Bay case, his time at the Charles Garry Law Firm, involvement with the Black Panthers and the People’s Temple, management and personnel issues, resource renewal programs, and the fire fighting division during his time as director and mediating disputes between the Sierra Club and the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund.