If you were to redo the scuba industry how would you do it?

[Fishdip]

Drivers licenses and DMV come to mind.
Can you imagine what it would be like on the streets and the freeway if getting a drivers license could be done the way the current scuba certification system is set up!
It’s bad enough as it is!

Actually it is if you want you can hire a instructor who is also able to do the DMV test. IE you can get your license from them after they teach you. on top of that you are talking about something far different.

 

[Fishdip]

Anyone happen to know how it works in skydiving? I tried looking it up.

For me it was the same as scuba they sign off on you after you complete the required jumps with them

 

[scubadada]

I see the industry scrounging for every cent they can get. I don't have the data to what significance the US and Canadian markets are. I would make an unqualified guess that most Americans and Canadians travel to get certified and dive. But training and equipment sales in the US and Canada are still important to the industry.

There simply are not enough new divers and established divers to support the dive industry as it exists in the US. Too many stores, too many places for training, too many part time instructors, many alternative places to buy gear, too little high quality local diving.

I have never done any local diving where I live, but have owned a townhouse just north of Boynton Beach FL for a dozen years. The diving in Boynton Beach, Jupiter, and Palm Beach is a little recognized gem. The dive operators appear to be doing acceptably well with the local and visitor diver population. I would imagine this is an exception to the rule.

An appropriately sized and run industry could charge a reasonable amount for services, could pay employees a living wage, and not have to depend on the onerous tip system.

The training agencies, dive stores and instructors, sales outlets, and scuba operators are all in it for themselves. Who can blame them, this is the US and the American way. Personally, I do not see things improving. I am only glad that I have found a reasonable niche for my own diving.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Eric,

The first thing I would do is reverse the BCD situation to have the BCD independent of the SCUBA unit. That was my patent, and the dive industry abandoned that concept because they wanted the BCD to be integrated with the scuba. I feel that this did a disservice to the new divers, as they were then entirely dependent upon the scuba unit for buoyancy. It also prevented some back-mounted BCDs from then becoming lifsaving devices, as they could not float an unconscious diver face-up.

So far as the industry goes, I’d de-emphasize travel diving. We have to do something about the greenhouse gas signature of divers, and travel diving is an increasingly great source of that greenhouse footprint. We need to dive more locally, and appreciate what we have locally, rather than travel to remote locations.

Finally, concerning dive instruction, I’m a NAUI guy, and think that we need to emphasize ease and skill in the water rather than simply putting divers through a pipeline to certification. Diving is a skill that includes ease of working in the water. Snorkeling should be promoted more as both a part of the sport and a skill, so as to allow the diver experience with the breath-holding aspect of diving before getting into scuba. That way, when an exchange of a regulator is initiated in scuba training, the person will have experience clearing a snorkel which will facilitate clearing a scuba regulator.

‘Just a few thoughts along these lines.

SeaRat
NAUI #2710

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Actually it is if you want you can hire a instructor who is also able to do the DMV test. IE you can get your license from them after they teach you. on top of that you are talking about something far different.

I’m going to try and answer your very poorly written post.
Are you saying that in Montana you can have a private driving instructor also sign you off and issue you a state of Montana drivers license?

In California you take drivers ed in high school, or you go to a driving school, and/or you get a learners permit and your parents or somebody else teaches you how to drive. Then when you turn 16 and you feel you’re ready, you go to DMV (state agency) and take the written test and go for a drive with an examiner. If you pass both of these tests to their standards then you get your license.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

There simply are not enough new divers and established divers to support the dive industry as it exists in the US. Too many stores, too many places for training, too many part time instructors, many alternative places to buy gear, too little high quality local diving.

I can't speak for other parts of the country, but in my area, the number of dive shops has been in a gradual decline. The largest chain of shops is down from 8 shops to 5 now. A longtime 3 shop chain is down to 2. A number of dive shops have gone come and gone in my short 10 years.

I have never done any local diving where I live, but have owned a townhouse just north of Boynton Beach FL for a dozen years. The diving in Boynton Beach, Jupiter, and Palm Beach is a little recognized gem. The dive operators appear to be doing acceptably well with the local and visitor diver population. I would imagine this is an exception to the rule.

I think Florida is an exception as people can dive reasonably most of the year.

An appropriately sized and run industry could charge a reasonable amount for services, could pay employees a living wage, and not have to depend on the onerous tip system.

What is this tip system to which you refer? I have never seen it in practice in my area.

The training agencies, dive stores and instructors, sales outlets, and scuba operators are all in it for themselves. Who can blame them, this is the US and the American way. Personally, I do not see things improving. I am only glad that I have found a reasonable niche for my own diving.

Of course everyone is in it for themselves. But this reminds me of a meeting at Intel when Andy Grove ran the show. There was applause when he informed us that Intel had surpassed IBM in market cap. He admonished those who clapped by saying that "we should never cheer the demise of a competitor. As a healthy IBM is a healthy industry."

Caring about the health of the entire ecosystem is in everyone's interest. The attitude of "screw you, I've got mine, you get your own" is shortsighted.

 

[MidOH]

If you were to throw out the current structure of the entire scuba industry and re-do it, how would you do it?

Here’s what I would do as a start:

You go to a dive school of your choice. That could be a current agency like PADI, NAUI, SSI, or others. Either an established school or a private certified instructor. You can supplement your training and knowledge with written materials, books, etc. mentors, but you would need a signed training sheet filled out by a certified instructor/instructing agency to get to the next step.
When your skills are good are you are ready, you go to a separate certification agency that is for certification only and you go for your test. There is a pool portion, a written portion, and an open water portion. You book your appointment.
The testing is on a pass or fail basis and there is no cheating. Either you can do the skills and pass the exam or you don’t. And of course there is a fee for the cert test.
The employees of the cert agency are not affiliated with any if the scuba schools, the cert agency is completely independent.
In this environment, the teaching of scuba and the certification would be separated.
This would create the opposite effect of what we have now of the easiest least path of resistance effect. It would create a culture of quality to be sure that students would be able to pass the exams set by the cert agency. Those schools/instructors with crappy teaching and rounding corners would soon be gone because they wouldn’t be training people adequately enough to pass the tests. Their Yelp reviews would suck and nobody would go there.

There was another thread in which a lot of corruption was mentioned within agencies with the idea that it’s the fox guarding the hen house. Having one agency teach AND certify students with no real outside oversight leads to a lot of poor training and a cattle drive of student certifications. I agree with this, I think this does lead to corruption and poorly trained students and the only oversee’er at this point is the legal system in the form of law suits when someone dies or gets maimed, after the fact.
If the industry was broken up and the final certification was issued by a non affiliated agency it would introduce a check and balance system which I think this industry desperately needs.

Discuss.

The people that you see diving poorly, will still be diving poorly after this more stringent certification.

They choose to suck. Its really that simple.

Half of this forum is scared of a CESA.

All this process does is create more gatekeeper headaches for the rest of us. The people commited to diving better will still dive better, and the ones that could care less, will go back to sucking after they pass the advanced cert.

My open water training was quite good actually. I worked out trim and buoyancy later on my own.

 

[TMHeimer]

Oh sweetJesus do you have any idea of the impact of enforcing such a standard? (I know you do)

I agree with you but I look at the reality of what happens.

I know the idea of "everyone can scuba" is a common myth, but that is a myth

Agree, it's probably a nightmare to enforce it. I suppose most everyone CAN learn to scuba
effectively even with severe shortcomings going in. I suppose I'm thinking more of the major obstacles
some must overcome in the OW course that would not occur if such a standard could exist.

Alekeolsen-- My bar for swimming, as I mentioned, would simply be knowing a proper stroke. This of course means you don't see anyone in OW course "bicycle kicking". The stroke wouldn't have to be "perfect" the way my Mom's was, but none of this head way out of the water each stroke and arms up so high that one might take flight.

In re-thinking it, you probably could have a requirement that you must be able to surface snorkel, go down to the bottom in pool deep end, back up and blast clear snorkel. That must be done right away--if you fail, try the OW course at a later time and lose your deposit. That would seem easy to describe to people and to enforce. If one can do that, most of the "airway" skills will be a breeze, as they should be.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

Eric,

The first thing I would do is reverse the BCD situation to have the BCD independent of the SCUBA unit. That was my patent, and the dive industry abandoned that concept because they wanted the BCD to be integrated with the scuba. I feel that this did a disservice to the new divers, as they were then entirely dependent upon the scuba unit for buoyancy. It also prevented some back-mounted BCDs from then becoming lifsaving devices, as they could not float an unconscious diver face-up.

So far as the industry goes, I’d de-emphasize travel diving. We have to do something about the greenhouse gas signature of divers, and travel diving is an increasingly great source of that greenhouse footprint. We need to dive more locally, and appreciate what we have locally, rather than travel to remote locations.

Finally, concerning dive instruction, I’m a NAUI guy, and think that we need to emphasize ease and skill in the water rather than simply putting divers through a pipeline to certification. Diving is a skill that includes ease of working in the water. Snorkeling should be promoted more as both a part of the sport and a skill, so as to allow the diver experience with the breath-holding aspect of diving before getting into scuba. That way, when an exchange of a regulator is initiated in scuba training, the person will have experience clearing a snorkel which will facilitate clearing a scuba regulator.

‘Just a few thoughts along these lines.

SeaRat
NAUI #2710

I’ve always said that scuba diving grew it’s own wings and flew in a different direction than where it’s roots were. This is ok in some ways but problematic in other ways. The problem part is the BCD just like you say. It is the most abused piece of dive equipment, IMO. Scuba has become way too gear dependent and a lot of core skill has been lost to technology.
As far as NAUI, I’ve seen some of the best training and instructors and also some of the worst offenses committed by any agency affiliates. Some the best training I’ve seen is the university programs where they are the most thorough certifications I know of. A full semester class of dive theory, swimming, skin diving, water acclimation (in the ocean in skindiving gear), then they get to put on a SCUBA and learn that, not first.
The worst I’ve seen was independent NAUI instructors certifying people that were severely lacking in skills and knowledge.
Private NAUI instructors are given a lot of leeway to train students the way they see fit and this isn’t always for the better.
One guy I personally know was given a crash course in one afternoon by a NAUI instructor and they did one check out dive to 100’ on steel 72’s, no BC’s, in wetsuits. The guy in question was a competitive freedive spearo and needed to be certified to be able to compete in an international event coming up so he called his instructor buddy…
Another was a different NAUI instructor that needed DM’s desperately to satisfy his insurance requirement so he made his girlfriend into a DM and she couldn’t dive her way out of a wet paper bag.
There is another guy who somehow became a NAUI instructor that was so FOS he managed to get thrown off every scuba forum he’s ever been on (including this one) due to his idiotic rhetoric.

So, nothing’s perfect.

 

[johndiver999]

Commenting on a whole industry is pretty challenging.

What I would say is that the current industry would benefit from better marketing to young people. I know there are huge economic challenges for that demographic, but if you rely almost completely on old fat people who are dying off or who no longer find hauling tanks to be fun, your future is limited.

The obesity epidemic (in the developed world) makes the activity much less safe and enticing.

I watch TV and see social media being used extremely effectively to promote certain ideals, perspectives and even behaviors, some of which I personally find bizarre or even offense. Nevertheless, these “marketing” efforts seem to be reaching people and for the most part, must be successful.

Not sure I know exactly “how” to accomplish this marketing to the younger generations, but it doesn’t appear to be taking place right now.

Lastly, I don’t think an industry can be robust if it concentrates on training people to dive. The industry must find a way to promote the activity of diving itself.