Oliver, that is a stupid analogy because it doesn't follow course of events.
For this, report filed, investigation started, based on findings of initial investigation suspension was voted on. This would not have happened if the investigation didn't reveal enough evidence, but enough was provided to show the BoD that the instructor was endangering students or the agency, so it was voted on to suspend, after suspension, an in depth investigation is conducted to decide whether to reinstate or expel.
If this followed your analogy it would have been, report, suspend *no voting on suspend, just suspend*, then start the investigation process. Doesn't work like that.
Also, Rob was just as much of an agitator, just in a different sense. He was taking a stagnant organization and trying to bring it into the modern era, it ruffled a lot of feathers. It needed to happen, and I commend him on it because he had the balls to do it when those before him didn't. Victor had the balls to talk to people who were just moaning about the long list of complaints they had with current cave instruction, decided to compile them, and take it to the agencies and say "look, this is what is going on. I don't know if you're turning a blind eye to it because you don't want to deal with it, or literally just don't know, but this is the impressions of many well respected cave divers and you need to do something about it". Did he agitate, heck yeah he did, but it had to be done, because otherwise the moaning would continue and nothing would be done about it. He didn't file any complaints, a process that has to be done for an investigation to occur, you are hurt because one of your buddies was TD, was on the list, happened to be at the top, and timing sucks so it all came crashing down at once. Fine, you have every right to be defensive because he's your good friend and you don't believe that what has happened is fair. You don't agree with the amount of agitation that Victor has done since all of this happened, fine, take it up with him in person.
That doesn't mean that he has any say in what happened to Rob, he can't, he does not meet the criteria to file a formal complaint against the vast majority of people on that list because he didn't observe it personally, but that doesn't mean the agencies shouldn't be made aware of what people are saying. All that it says is that Rick had the balls to go up against the Good Ol' Boy network in the NACD that caused many good people to have their lifetime memberships revoked, and turned a blind eye to what was going on, and he apparently had enough ammunition to start with what he deemed to be the top of his priority list. Also remember that the vote to suspend was 3/1, which means the majority agreed with the findings from the initial investigation so none of this can be put on any single person. 75% of the vote said that we believe there is enough evidence that Rob was violating standards to the point that he was endangering students or the agency, and we need to suspend him to prevent any future damage. To be fair to him, we will conduct a full investigation to ensure that all of this was correct, and if we find that it wasn't, we will reinstate, if it confirms the initial investigation, they expel.
Very simple, this was not a knee-jerk reaction, they did their due diligence to get to the point that they voted to remove one of their own temporarily, and are now trying to make sure they made the right decision.
