There were "certification cards" at the time. I have one from 1967, but they date back to 1951, five years before I learned how to dive through mentoring without certification.
While the actual events are sometimes disputed, it is generally acknowledged that the then new aqualung was brought to the United States in 1948 by a Navy UDT commander, Doug Fane. In 1949 we now that Cousteau sent six units to a friend, Rene Bussoz, who owned a sporting goods store near the UCLA campus. Seeing the potential value of scuba for scientific investigation, a young graduate student, Conrad Limbaugh, convinced his professor, Dr. Wheeler North, to buy two of the units. Soon after, Limbaugh, along with an associate, Andy Rechnitzer, began diving along the Southern California coast. I once heard Glen Egstrom (wearing his UCLA DSO hat) remark, in jest, "How do I get those damn things off my inventory?"
In 1950 the two enrolled in the Ph.D. program at San Diegos Scripps Institute of Oceanography, and the first scuba training in the United States the informal tutoring Limbaugh and Rechnitzer did for their colleagues had begun. The need for more formalized training was soon apparent when in 1952, when a UC Berkeley graduate student died in a diving accident off the coast of La Jolla, Scripps Director Roger Revelle asked Limbaugh to develop a training program in scuba. The first official course was held at Scripps in 1951. Rechnitzer writes about a situation Limbaugh faced in that 1951 class: Today, diving operations for universities and scientific organizations are governed by a diving control board, Rechnitzer said. This originated when Limbaugh refused to certify a student on the grounds that he was not psychologically balanced enough to be a diver. He proved our point when he threatened to kill Limbaugh. He really meant it. We said, Weve got to take that burden off you and set up a committee, so he will have to pick on five or six people. So certification goes back to 1951, and was the rapid and immediate outgrowth of the formal program that the original scuba mentors, Limbaugh and Rechnitzer set up.
In 1954, also concerned over the potential hazards of this increasingly popular sport, the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation sent three representatives Al Tilman, Bev Morgan, and Ramsey Parks to San Diego to take Limbaughs course. This became the first formal scuba instructor program conducted in the United States. Returning to Los Angeles, the trio formed the nations first recreational scuba training program under the auspices of the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, a program that still exists today.
With the backing of the County, the Parks and Recreation Department joined forces with the Los Angeles County Lifeguards to design a program to teach safe practices for skin and scuba divers. The Department looked to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography as a model to develop the training programs the County desired. Al Tillman from Parks and Recreation and Bev Morgan from the Lifeguards were sent to Scripps to learn everything they could from Limbaugh.
In the summer of 1954 saw the creation of the first basic scuba manual written by Bev Morgan, which he modeled after the Los Angeles County Lifeguard training manual. During this time the first public classes for skin and scuba diving were introduced. The classes filled up quickly and the County realized they would need more instructors to keep up with the interest that was forming.
With that in mind the first UICC (Underwater Instructor Certification Course) was conducted at the Natatorium in Lynwood, California in the spring of 1955. The course was designed and moderated by an advisory board comprised of respected leaders in diving education and teaching.
Limbaugh died in a cave-diving accident in France in 1960, at age 35. In a report about the accident, Scripps scientist Dr. Wheeler North, who had worked closely with Limbaugh, wrote the following: On 20 March 1960, Conrad Limbaugh, one of the most experienced, cool-headed, and safety-conscious divers in the world, lost his life while diving in a submarine cave at the tiny harbor of Port Miou, near the Mediterranean resort town of Cassis, France, about 10 miles [16 km] east of Marseilles. Limbaugh had become separated from his buddy, lost his light, and took a wrong turn that led him deeper into the cave. His body was found a week later.
That was really a shocker when he went, Rechnitzer said. I figured Limbaugh was sitting on a ledge somewhere in that cave, twiddling his thumbs, trying to figure a way to get out, because we had gotten out of some pickles before. He was cool
Hed figure a way out. Whenever we had problems in the canyon, whatever it might be he, would always coolly, calmly figure out what to do.
I guess I'm missing what it is that you're trying to say with respect to Limbaugh's death, perhaps it was that he was not "cave certified?"
I'm not seeing your point, there is no doubt that mentoring is a great way to teach and to learn, mentoring does not require certification and, of late, certification is no guarantee of competent instruction, but then neither is mentoring. In the science community we continue the long tradition that was started by Connie and Andy and refined by many others ... we mentor and certify.
