NACD Instructor standards violation

[Jack Hammer]

The NACD has yet to release any info other than they are investigating a named instructor for a standards and ethics violation. To my knowlege neither the specific standard nor ethic in question was named, nor was the location/timeframe, just the instructors name. The rest is here say and rumor as to the charge.

For reference, The police do not release names of people being investigated. Names are not released unless an arrest has been made and specific charges pressed, those charges are released at the same time.

"Standards and ethics" is a generalism, not a charge. It is akin to saying "John Q Citizen is being investigated for being a criminal." A charge would be "John Q Citizen has been charged with XYZ offense." Until they are proven guilty by their peers they are said to have allegedly committed said offense.

Sent via

 

[Pavao]

So, I understand 0 (zero) investigating was done, all that was done was wait for the complaint to provide with names?


I get your point, but at the same time, doesn't all complaints start off as "hearsay" or "rumors", hence the need for an investigation, otherwise it would be the agencies just expelling any instructor anytime anyone


so enlighten us. Exactly what other evidence other then witnesses was Jim suppose to be looking for? I mean what other evidence should Jim have looked for, is there CDS - CSI unit? Or cameras mounted in the cave to catch would be offenders? Maybe a guy following classes with a video camera but then that's an eye witness. So what other evidence is there? I mean to accuse Jim of not investigating is well pure heresy

Well, I posed it as a question, that's what I got from it.

And what I got from it is that no investigation was done, as in...

-Was the instructor involved contacted and asked about it?
-Were former students contacted with a QA questions (do they even have such a thing)
-How many students said instructor produce weekly? Monthly? Is it really that hard to pin point who the students were? Seems like they're fully aware what kind of class it was
-Was there any effort to contact anyone to at least verify the alleged instructor was even there that day? It's a tiny community, there's 2 shops right there, got fills?
-How does the info provided by an instructor stack up against what the student says, former student says?

I believe this pretty inline with how even PADI investigates any POSSIBLE standard violation, but one more time, my questioning isn't about the outcome of this incident in particular, you're making it very clear where you stand about this specific case though, and that's fine, but it is not my fight.

If you read carefully the things I wrote, perhaps you'll notice some things are actually in favor of Rob Neto's side.

 

[bamafan]

Would someone care to summarise what this is all about? Obvious to those in the know I suppose but to us non-cavers, a little elucidation would be wonderful.

Just another day in cave country that is all.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

Pavao:

You make it difficult to respond to adequately. You leave no hint of who you are, where you are from and I have no frame of reference to address your concerns. I am assuming you do not live in the USA or if you do have no idea about the "due process" we afford ourselves here in the good ole' USofA.

You are of course welcome and encouraged to place yourself on the ballots of the NSS-CDS or the NACD and become a member of the group of people who volunteer to try and administer one of the two cave diving agencies. Unfortunately all I see from you is criticism of how you think things should be done based on some third world concoction of justice and due process. I encourage you to go read about due process and what it means here in the USA, after you understand the process then, maybe then you will have some standing to whine some more.

When the complaint originated it was sent to the training director, 3 weeks later I took over as td. I handled it from that point on.

To use the examples above we were told there was some bad training by a guy at a place and no one who was there or was a witness or was a student was willing to admit it, the letter was not even dated. We were apparently expected by the likes of you to wade in and start chopping off heads because of "he said, she said".

Just so you will not wonder..in the future I will handle it the same way. Until there is an eyewitness willing to point a finger I will not point my finger because you heard a rumor.

I never even contacted the instructor in question regarding this complaint...it was and is insulting to move on or to be expected to move against someone with no evidence. I will not be a party to arbitrary and unfounded accusations against anyone for any thing.

Now...if people now have the cajones (probably a term you understand) to step up and tell what they saw then things change. In the meantime why don't you listen instead of talking..

 

[Michael Angelo]

Btw, in your example, that is an improper way to handle the situation by the police, do you see them busting down doors guns out just because someone makes a phone call? I believe they have better training than that[/QUOTE]

actually the police don't respond to phone calls at all. They respond to the 911 report of possible shots fire with possible fatality. With means that unless you live in Mayberry and Barney lost the towns only bullet, the proper response is assume there was shot fired and assume there are fatalities. If they didn't there would be dead cops and dead civilians. The real question is if you don't believe Jim Wyatt did enough to investigate, what other evidence can there possibly be other then witness.

 

[Jax]

When the complaint originated it was sent to the training director, 3 weeks later I took over as td. I handled it from that point on.

To use the examples above we were told there was some bad training by a guy at a place and no one who was there or was a witness or was a student was willing to admit it, the letter was not even dated.

snip

I never even contacted the instructor in question regarding this complaint...it was and is insulting to move on or to be expected to move against someone with no evidence. I will not be a party to arbitrary and unfounded accusations against anyone for any thing.

Now I am confused.

You got the complaint. You found insufficient evidence to continue through. Sounds fair enough.


So, what happened to re-open on this? What changed? Someone suddenly grew cajones?

---------- Post added April 22nd, 2015 at 07:39 PM ----------

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Or did someone develop an attitude or agenda?

 

[kotik]

So, what happened to re-open on this? What changed?

Different agency...

 

[ucfdiver]

Personally I wish Jim would have called Rob, asked for the student names, called the students and asked them for proof (cert#/agency so it can be validated) of full cave certification before the date of the trimix course. This would have cleared any confusion up, and a simple social media post "We have investigated a recent rumor that an instructor for our agency taught a trimix course to an intro to cave diver. Upon investigating we validated that all 3 divers on the team were full cave certified by the date of the course".

Given that the agency gets only 1-2 complaints in as many years, I don't think this is an unbearable amount of diligence for an agency that wants to continue certifying cave divers. This silences the rumors.

FWIW I had someone report me for diving Indian on a mixed team with a guide who wasn't rebreather certified. Someone from the shop who manages access called me asking all sorts of questions about our dive, ultimately asking me directly. Turns out, my buddy was RB80 trained and somehow that had turned into he was diving RB80 that day. I was asked about it, luckily had gopro pictures from surface deco after the dive and sent those to the accuser. I then sent an email to everyone on site that day and squashed the rumor. It's really difficult to keep a rumor going when someone addresses it head on.

Just FYI, Jim posted this story a week or so ago.

Lets do it -- I do not have much experience with YELP, but it seems like we setup a "business" called "cave diver training" and advertise it on the forums.

Outing names here could result in scubaboard being sued by someone who was named as a bad instructor. Yelp seems to be about "opinions" and "experiences".

There will of course be people posting negative comments because of personal agendas against individual cave instructors that they simply don't like or have "heard" they are dangerous.

Vic: One of the things we at the CDS require is "Due Process". Let me cite an example.

In May of 2013 the CDS received a complaint against one of our instructors - the complaint alleged that the instructor had taken intro to cave students into Lower Orange Grove, the deep part which would be a gross standards violation. My initial reaction was WOW we cannot allow this person to teach for us. After we looked at it closer we had no eye witnesses, we had no students who would verify that this happened. All we had was hearsay from a person who seems to have a personal vendetta going on....

Further investigation by the training committee discovered a personal/business disagreement between the guy who sent us the complaint and the guy he was complaining about. The issue then became very difficult for us to deal with because there was no proof -- there was no one telling us we saw that, or we were the students.

We informed the complainant that if he could give us the names of the students we would interview them and that if what they told us constituted a standards violation then we would act swiftly and definitively to remove the offending instructor from the ranks. He was never able to provide us with those names

Fast forward to March 2015, a few weeks ago I was called by another cave diver training agency who had recently received the exact same report from the exact same complainant, almost two years later. They too asked for names and have not been provided with names.

If we have a YELP account for this you will see reviews like the one above where unsubstantiated rumors and hearsay would potentially permeate the listings. People with personal agendas will post lies for their own personal reasons.

It would of course be up to the owner of Scubaboard if such a thread could exist on here.

Now: Would it be appropriate for me to identify the instructor who was accused given the set of circumstances described above?

 

[Pavao]

Responses in red!

Pavao:

You make it difficult to respond to adequately. You leave no hint of who you are, where you are from and I have no frame of reference to address your concerns. I am assuming you do not live in the USA or if you do have no idea about the "due process" we afford ourselves here in the good ole' USofA.
I'm the new generation of divers, the ones who haven't picked a side in your disgusting bs politics, the one who just goes periodically spend money at your businesses in cc, the one who cares, the one who does intend to get involved and is looking to get informed, so that I can make an informed decision as to where/whom deserves my support.

You are of course welcome and encouraged to place yourself on the ballots of the NSS-CDS or the NACD and become a member of the group of people who volunteer to try and administer one of the two cave diving agencies. Unfortunately all I see from you is criticism of how you think things should be done based on some third world concoction of justice and due process. I encourage you to go read about due process and what it means here in the USA, after you understand the process then, maybe then you will have some standing to whine some more.
Sure, I'll look into doing some reading on that, till then, what's left for me to understand is that...
A complaint can be filed, but only if it contains all the evidence to prove the wrong doing, then, only then an investigation will start. I really must have gotten this wrong, because it is confusing, if all the evidence have already been presented, then what exactly are they investigating???

As to joining the agencies, again, for now I'm only gathering information and getting a feel of how they work, or don't
Some make it pretty clear (as in transparency also) of how much they are worth supporting.

When the complaint originated it was sent to the training director, 3 weeks later I took over as td. I handled it from that point on.
By "handle it" you mean you closed the case with NO investigation. And this is my whole point, how could you have come up to the conclusion that nothing wrong was done, or, that something wrong was indeed done if NO INVESTIGATION was ever done? It's what you've said right here in this thread, post #45

To use the examples above we were told there was some bad training by a guy at a place and no one who was there or was a witness or was a student was willing to admit it, the letter was not even dated. We were apparently expected by the likes of you to wade in and start chopping off heads because of "he said, she said".
Here is where you go way off, maybe because of that saying in your good ole' USofA, I think it says something like, "if the shoe fits, you must wear it"
Because, where exactly did I say the likes of me expects you to go chopping off heads because of "he said, she said", if you hadn't got so but hurt about it, you might have realized that what I was asking was for fairness, chopping off heads without investigating first would be unfair, but dismissing the case without investigating ANY, is also unfair.
Have you not realized that the same goes for the NACD and that I'm not in no ones side? Maybe you know something about it and I don't, you very likely do, but I tell you this, we are looking at the same case, and there were two very distinctive actions taken, were they both right, were they both wrong?

Just so you will not wonder..in the future I will handle it the same way. Until there is an eyewitness willing to point a finger I will not point my finger because you heard a rumor.

I never even contacted the instructor in question regarding this complaint...it was and is insulting to move on or to be expected to move against someone with no evidence. I will not be a party to arbitrary and unfounded accusations against anyone for any thing.

Now...if people now have the cajones (probably a term you understand) to step up and tell what they saw then things change. In the meantime why don't you listen instead of talking..
​It's actually spelled cojones, I know this not because it is my native language, but because I'm educated culturally (probably a term you do not understand) and speak 3 languages fluently, well enough to respond in equally condescending terms on all 3 of them, but you're better at it than I am, I will dare!

I have been enjoying diving for the last 28 years, this is the first time ever, ever, that I've experienced racism and discrimination, 2015! DISGUSTING!!!

---------- Post added April 22nd, 2015 at 11:40 PM ----------

The real question is if you don't believe Jim Wyatt did enough to investigate

Why not let him answer it himself...

May 2013 a formal, written complaint was sent to the training chairman. He assigned a committee to investigate. The complainant could not provide the identities of anyone who witnessed the alleged violations. All we had was hearsay.

The "case" stayed open and active for a couple of months and the investigating committee never was provided with the names of the students or any witnesses. The complainant kept promising us those names, but we never got them. The "case" was closed.

 

[nakatomi]

Were former students contacted with a QA questions (do they even have such a thing)

The travesty regarding the event we are all talking about is:


1. The class was not an NACD class, it was a class for a different agency involving trimix training


2. From what I heard, none of the students even carried an NACD intro certification, they were certified by a different agency

3. The entire process (requirements, limitations during class etc.) was according to said agencies standards


That’s kind of like arresting a German guy in Florida for a gross traffic violation because, on his way to the airport in Germany, he was going faster on the Autobahn than the Florida speed limit allows.