FAKE NEWS!!--PADI to be sold once again

[Alexandros]

I was surprised that here in Rhodes, Greece where I am right now, all the dive ops have crossed over to SSI. 7 years ago, all PADI

cause it's cheaper for the diving center operator...

 

[tursiops]

In 1965, NAUI decided that the best way to solve their constant money woes was to consolidate and focus solely on California. They therefore canceled the major instructor training program they had scheduled for Chicago. Cast adrift, the Chicago branch of NAUI reformed itself as PADI.

And I was caught in the middle of all this. As a student at Northwestern, in Evanston (just north of Chicago), i took the school's scuba class in winter 1966, and again in winter 1967. Both times we never got to do any open-water dives because Lake Michigan was frozen over. (In retrospect, I'm kind of happy about that.) Northwestern issued its own certification card, since there was no agency backing. The instructor was simply a PhysEd grad student who knew how to scuba dive.

 

[boulderjohn]

I've told this story before...

I was at a conference several years ago, and one of the speakers told a story of a dive trip he went on in Australia in 1967. It was a weeklong trip on a boat that would be doing some exciting diving. The captain asked to see everyone's certification card, but he did not have one. He explained that his father had first put him on scuba when he was 7 years old, and in the two decades since then he had done thousands of dives. Sorry, the captain said, no certification card from a recognized agency, no diving. No exceptions.

Apparently the rest of the crew intervened and convinced the captain to make an exception to that rule, and he was allowed to dive. As soon as he was home, he sought out a nearby PADI instructor so that he would not have to go through that again. He opened his wallet and showed us that half-century old card, which he still always carries.

His name is Jean-Michel Cousteau.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

cause it's cheaper for the diving center operator...

I understand that. But on Kalymnos, I didn’t see any SSI shops, only PADI. SSI certainly dominates in Greece now. I’ve spent a fair bit of time on SSI’s and PADI’s websites for dive ops as I’m looking where tonopen onebof my own and my candidate locations are underserved ones.

 

[Wookie]

I've told this story before...

I was at a conference several years ago, and one of the speakers told a story of a dive trip he went on in Australia in 1967. It was a weeklong trip on a boat that would be doing some exciting diving. The captain asked to see everyone's certification card, but he did not have one. He explained that his father had first put him on scuba when he was 7 years old, and in the two decades since then he had done thousands of dives. Sorry, the captain said, no certification card from a recognized agency, no diving. No exceptions.

Apparently the rest of the crew intervened and convinced the captain to make an exception to that rule, and he was allowed to dive. As soon as he was home, he sought out a nearby PADI instructor so that he would not have to go through that again. He opened his wallet and showed us that half-century old card, which he still always carries.

His name is Jean-Michel Cousteau.

Stan Waterman refused to carry a card. In all of the different boats I've been on with him, he has never (to my knowledge) shown a card to any crewmember. It causes no end to angst, which I'm sure he reveled in.

 

[kelemvor]

It seems I spend half my posts correcting false versions of history that people seem oh-so-eager to repeat. You can read about the split between PADI and NAUI from NAUI's perspective in this history of NAUI, co-written by NAUI co-founder and instructor #1 Al Tillman. Everything that follows is in that document if you want to check it out.

The people who eventually created PADI were with NAUI from its start in the Houston gathering in 1960. They were the contingent from Chicago, and they very nearly took over the process and became its leaders, according to Tillman. Tillman et al prevailed though, and with them came the vision of a dive agency they had formed when Tillman was the director of the Los Angeles County program.

The problem was that the LA County program was supported by tax dollars, and since the new NAUI program could not use tax dollars and yet wanted to be a non-profit like LA County, it had to find some way to generate the funds needed to survive. It relied heavily on handouts from a dive magazine, including having its offices rent free in that magazine's headquarters. When that magazine was sold and the new owners were not so generous, they were in trouble.

One way they decided they could make ends meet was to focus their training efforts through colleges. That way the students would pay for the classes through the tuition that would have been paying for classes anyway. If students just had to choose between bowling and scuba, the classes would be essentially free to them. (In his commentary, Tillman said that in hindsight this was a serious mistake.) But that was still not working for them, and they were constantly on the edge of bankruptcy. One year they only survived on a loan from Bill High, who later went on to found the PSI-PCI tank inspection program.

In 1965, NAUI decided that the best way to solve their constant money woes was to consolidate and focus solely on California. They therefore canceled the major instructor training program they had scheduled for Chicago. Cast adrift, the Chicago branch of NAUI reformed itself as PADI. Seeing the NAUI mistakes that were causing it to be in constant danger of bankruptcy, they used an approach of getting students through the stores selling dive equipment rather than focusing on college tuition as their primary revenue source. It worked.

Interesting. This is contrary to accounts from other books on the subject. It was all before my time, so all I have to go on is the word of those that were there.

 

[boulderjohn]

Interesting. This is contrary to accounts from other books on the subject. It was all before my time, so all I have to go on is the word of those that were there.

As I said, everything I wrote is in that History of NAUI, which was written by the people who founded NAUI.

 

[tursiops]

all I have to go on is the word of those that were there.

Interesting that you think this is a problem.....

 

[kelemvor]

Interesting that you think this is a problem.....

Certainly someone else's word, no matter how trustworthy, is inferior to your own personal experiences. My point was that I was not there myself.

 

[tursiops]

Certainly someone else's word, no matter how trustworthy, is inferior to your own personal experiences. My point was that I was not there myself.

LOL. You must have an awful problem with history books!