Doing it Right

[lv2dive]

Reading this thread makes me believe that I missed the news of GUE merging with Halcyon.

(Could there be an IPO in the near future?)

I'm pretty sure you are being sarcastic but I'll clarify for the people who may be confused about how all of this relates (since I responded to the OP's post with links to class reports):

The OP asked about GUE classes out of Extreme Exposure in High Springs, FL. The shop, EE, offers classes by GUE (a 501c-3), and sells gear manufactured by Halcyon (among others).

 

[vladimir]

The OP asked about GUE classes out of Extreme Exposure in High Springs, FL. The shop, EE, offers classes by GUE (a 501c-3), and sells gear manufactured by Halcyon (among others).

Do the owners of EE also own Halcyon?

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I think the "best training agency" is experience.

I'd have to agree with that. Dive classes are an artificial environment. They don't teach you how to dive ... they teach you how to learn. The real learning comes from diving ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[danvolker]

Firstly if you have not attended each and every agency courses (all of them) you are only having a biased opinion. Secondly instructors are the people that get the knowledge/skill across, not an agency manual!!! Lastly, Halcyon’s equipment is VERY good and I use most of their stuff, however there are many other vendors that have equal quality equipment. I would love to hear why their stuff is so much better?? I appreciate your feedback.

Halcyon was the ONLY manufacturer to create gear needed by the technical community, and CAVE COMMUNITY, that was built to do what these communituies needed it to do.

When the Halcyon Bp/wing first came out, it was after years of pleading by the WKPP, to all the OTHER mfg's to produce something like this, and the big mfg's of the time refused to do anything other than come up with NEW Hot colors, or bigger pockets on BC's, or more d-rings, etc.

The other mfg's did not care about best function, they cared about best focus group response from a general population of non or new divers.

Halcyon was and IS, the manufacturer that puts the thinking into " what do divers need, to make them better and safer, and to help them have bigger adventures! "

When the "other manufacturers" saw the fantastic response Halcyon got at the first DEMA show ( in Halcyon's first year of operation)--litterally a huge line at the tiny halcyon booth....while the small town sized spaces for Mares, and Scubapro, and all the other big guys were pretty much empty---they all realized the dive world had just changed, and that they had been dangerously out of tune with it....Rather than loosing the focus groups of non-divers though, as the main impetus for new advertising and marketing, they just begain watching what Halcyon did, and making knock-offs whenever they thought Halcyon had hit on an area that could be profitable.

 

[DevonDiver]

Recommend that the OP reads some of the classic literature by George Irvine III.

It's all fair and reasonable stuff....

 

[ucfdiver]

When GUE began they used to say that they preferred to be small and did not seek to become a big agency like PADI and all their specialty courses. Now, of course, GUE offers Primer, Fundamentals and the long touted and delayed expensive OW class. As for minimalist gear, check out some of the items they sell;

Cinch system

Harness padding

Giant harness pocket

Gators

T-shirts

Drysuit heater packs

GUE may make you a more competent dive buddy, but to call their approach minimalist is way off course. There is nothing new under the Sun. Everyone is in it for the money.

Drysuit heater packs ARE necessary, and therefore minimalist. They have customers who are doing 12+hr dives multiple times a month during some seasons, they're not pushing this on the average recreational diver at all.

 

[ajduplessis]

Dan V,

I never for one moment indicated that Halcyon is not very innovative at what they do. I stated that other makes out there are just as good even though they copied the ideas/concepts from H. No need to get emotional about the product, I also love their equipment (I own SS plate, ali plate, cinch, webbing, 2x wings, eos led can light + scout, reels, SMB, pockets) and will most likely buy more stuff.

Regards,
ajduplessis

 

[danvolker]

Dan V,

I never for one moment indicated that Halcyon is not very innovative at what they do. I stated that other makes out there are just as good even though they copied the ideas/concepts from H. No need to get emotional about the product, I also love their equipment (I own SS plate, ali plate, cinch, webbing, 2x wings, eos led can light + scout, reels, SMB, pockets) and will most likely buy more stuff.

Regards,
ajduplessis

AJ,
I just wanted those who were not aware, to know there IS a real difference....
Personally, if I know a US company inovated and perfected something I need, I will be willing to pay a little more for it, than to a "knock off" parasite in someplace in the far east. If we make it so that the American Inovators can't have our business because of knock off companies doing things cheaper, we get to the sorry state of appliances available for your home today.....
Example.....when Sandra and I redid our kitchen, original applainces all still working since 1975, we went to Home Expot and got the best brands we could afford, expecting another 20 years at least of life out of the kitchen appliances. Brands like Jennaire dominated our purchases....The new microwave failed out of the box, and again 3 months later. The oven was made with computer-like circuit board on top of the oven door, to provide unneeded bells and whistles, and every 6 months or so the circuit board is "cooked", and the oven useless..the list goes on....all made in china instead of the US, for cheap labor and retail cheaper than possible by American brands like we had in the 70's.

When someone tells me they can get an Oxycheck wing for much less than a Halcyon wing, it makes me sad to think how short sighted divers are becoming. When we were kids, we were "forced" to learn history by parents and teachers. The reason was simple...If you don't understand what happened in the past, it will keep repeating--history is crucial so you can spot trends that have happened historically for hundreds or thousands of years.
The really sad thing is, Americans DO NOT PROCESS the information of history, and they do not learn from it.

 

[fisheater]

Then, I suppose, you're also a big fan of designed, manufactured, sold and supported in the USA Deep Sea Supply gear, too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[danvolker]

If where you are going with this, is that Halcyon and some of the other inovators are now getting some parts from the Far East, I do know that is NOT how they began, and that the ONLY reason they would have considered sourcing from the Far East, was because of what I would describe as the "retarded behavior of the retail consumer, choosing price , far over all other criteria."

I remember when Robert Carmichael was having his people assemble the halcyon gear they were making in the Brownies Factory in fort Lauderdale..and the enormous disparity between costs for labor and final cost of Fort Lauderdale priduced parts, versus the labor and parts costs of each of the big BC manufacturers( which were outsourcing virtually everything).
The hard reality was that if Halcyon was to exist beyond making gear for 100 or so WKPP members, and maybe 100 other tek people that knew of the gear, they would have to find some of the parts cheaper--and they looked for things that a monkey could get right...things that even cheap labor would not destroy the quality of. This all goes to what is wrong with Americans embracing Sams and Walmart, when there are better American options.....you can buy cheap food from chile or from other far a way place, harvested a month early and almost tasteless ( but really cheap), or, you can go to a farmers market and buy local produce ( tasting much better than Publix droppings, for actually pretty great prices--way better than Publix... But without the Ad Budget of Publix, people don't find out about the this option of the local farmers market, don't think about it, and tend to do what is easier or percieved as "cheaper".... ...so people don't do anything but Publix or the guys screaming cheaper, like Walmart. They SHOULD have been buying vegatables , milk and eggs from local farmers, but the local Farmers can't compete with the Walmarts or Publixes of this world.

****Note...this language is "my language"... I am the one calling the American consumer retarded, not Halcyon
I have a tendancy to see things much differently than most corporations or their CEO's ...and apparently much different than a lot of divers ...