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Okay, In the past three years, I post to this group an average of... hmmmm... about once per year. Usually, it is to defend PADI's place in the world of diving... not because I believe in everything they do; but rather, because I (as an instructor) can use their methods and materials to produce recreational divers who will stay alive. I mostly do not post to this group because I read the posts (after filtering out the garbage) to learn... I have nothing of value to add to the technical diving community, so I keep my mouth shut and I learn. After three years; I'm still learning. When I think I've got enough dives and experience under my belt; I'll go to Florida and take GUE courses... I'm an engineer, and from my standpoint a great deal of DIR is logical. Ah... but I digress; on to the real point of this post. First, before I start, let me identify myself so that I'm not hiding behind mama's apron: My name is Joe West, and I am a PADI IDC Staff Instructor (IDCS164452). So I stroll out to my mailbox yesterday to find the PADI sponsored magazine "The Undersea Journal" sitting in it. I pull it out and right on the front cover is a diver with three tanks scattered about and the words TecRec all over the front cover. (I'm one of the PADI people who think that PADI has no business in the technical world, so I've been dreading this moment). After reading a few articles inside... a few things are clear to me, and others are still somewhat vague. I'll see if I can present what I believe to be what is going on at PADI and TecRec. It seems that PADI has created (perhaps for liability reasons) a separate corporation named Diving Science and Technology (DSaT) to handle and govern the "Technical" side of the business. If PADI didn't create this corporation (Division, Institute or whatever it is), they are certainly imbedded in it's operation (and from this you can gather that DSaT is doing what PADI tells it to do). DSat administers the PADI technical program. Now, finally, for the true intent of my post; listed below are the Technical diving professionals who make up the "Technical Diving Experts" who form DSat and therefore will be setting the agenda for training technical divers: Drew Richardson, Senior Vice President PADI Training, Education, Environment and Memberships. Listed qualifications; 4000 logged dives, experience in tec deep and cave diving, recompression chamber operation, mixed gas and enriched air diving and commercial diver training. Member of UHMS, SPUMS, DAN, EUBS and AAUs. Oh yes, and last but not least he received the 1992 DAN Rolex Diver of the Year award. Jon Coon, Regional Manager, PADI Americas. Diving since 1962, Qualified on mixed gas closed circuit recirculators in the early 70s, chamber operator, explosives technician, Enriched Air Diver Instructor, full cave diver, Medic first aid instructor trainer and PADI Course Director.... oh yes, and he's authored several articles for The Undersea Journal and written two novels, Thief of the Deep and Black Wolf. Stush Doviat, Regional Manager. Open water instructor, certified full cave diver and emeritus cavern instructor (what???) He also holds the Abe Davis Safe Cave Diving Award for 100 (yes! One Hundred) safe cave dives... oh and he is one of tec diving's first deep divers. John Kinsella, Director, Training and Quality Management. Started diving in the mid 70s and has deep EXTENSIVE deep air experience (oh...my...god... this IS as bad as I thought it was going to be). Last but not least, he runs a successful 5 star Instructor Development Center. Steve Mortell, educational Consultant. Diving for more than 25 years, a PADI Course Director, rebreather diver and full cave instructor with more than 10 years cave diving experience in North Florida. Jean-Claude Monachon, CEO. Began his diving career in Switzerland's dark, low visibility, Lac de Joux in 1974. Ice dives at 6100 feet and half of his dive experience involves lakes, rivers and cave diving. He likes wreck dives. Yasushi Inoue, manager training and membership. In the dive industry more than 15 years, PADI Course Director since 1991, former electrical engineer with Honda, has a special interest in rebreather technology. Jan Moller Busch, Regional manager. 10 years dive experience in Scandinavia and around the world. PADI Enriched Air Instructor Trainer, Course Director and Instructor Examiner. Hans Olsson, Manager, Training. Course Director. Diving since 1980. Irmeli Wallin, General Manager. One of Europe's most experienced divers. Background ranges from instruction and technical diving to fishery economy, biology and hydrology. PADI Course Director and IE. Diving since early 70's. Oh yes, and she's fluent in 5 languages. Mark Caney, Director, Training, Education, Environment and Memberships. PADI Course Director, enriched air instructor and he is a pioneering trimix instructor who helped introduce mixed gas diving techniques in several countries. Designs gas blending systems and rebreathers. Mark Lazenby. PADI Master Instructor. Certified in deep technical diving and trimix. Technical diving instructor. Karl Shreeves, Vice President, Technical Development. Diving for 30 years, technical diving almost 10 years. Participated in the Farb Monitor Expeditions, Project Nohoch, an tthers. He holds the Wakulla Award for 100 safe cave dives (GEORGE???). Dr. Des Gorman, Navy Master Diver and submariner. Written lots of books and papers but technical diving experience not listed. Grant Graves, PADI Course Director. 20 years diving experience, 15 years technical diving. Regional safety officer for a cave diving organization (they don't say which one). He's a videographer and director for the television series Aquanauts. Jill Heinerth, PADI Master Instructor and technical diving instructor. Teaches closed circuit rebreathers, trimix and cave diving. She was one of the exploratory divers for the Wakulla2 (GEORGE???) exploration. 2000 Canadian technical diver of the year and a member of the women divers hall of fame. Paul Heinerth, (same exact certs as his wife above including 2000 Canadian technical diver of the year, but not the women divers hall of fame). Terrence Tysall, Diving since he was 8 (hmmmm... wonder if PADI certified him? <grin>) Director of the Florida US Deep Diving Team. Most notable dive was to the Edmund Fitzgerald at 500ft depth. And last but not least; Bill Turbeville JD, one of the dive industries key defense attorneys. Instructor, trimix certified. Avid technical diver. (I suspect that Bill will be getting more than his fair share of work from the disasters that are about to arise from PADI's entrance to the world of technical diving). Okay folks, there it is; pretty much straight from the mouth of PADI. These are the diving experts who are leading PADI's entrance into technical diving. For goodness sake; can ANYONE on this list add a bit of credibility to the people listed here? I don't recognize any of the names and the technical experience that PADI has listed seems to be... ummm...err.... in most cases pretty insignificant. I'm hoping that someone on this list can enlighten me. Good, bad, indifferent; has anyone heard of ANY of these PADI "Experts". If I come off sounding a bit angry... I am. I am tied to PADI, and while I don't expect to ever think their entrance into technical diving is a good thing; I hope I can convince myself that they won't be killing divers in huge numbers... By the way; I typed this email while reading the article in PADI's magazine. There may be some typos and I've truncated some of the verbiage, but didn't change the qualifications. I tried to faithfully list the qualifications contained in the article without listing every last paper written or dive completed. Kindest Regards, Joe West -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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