Dr. Edward Klima was born on July 30, 1934, in Catskill, New York. He began working for the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries in 1962 as a shrimp biologist. He spent time in the Panama City Lab working on gear research before moving to the Pascagoula Lab. He spent 4 years in Washington D.C. where he worked on the drafting the legislation for the 200 mile limit which became the Magnuson Stevens Act. He returned to the Galveston Lab as the Lab Director in 1977 until his retirement in 1992.