- Formal and public expulsion of Joe Johnson from NAUI
- Immediate revocation of Scuba Toys’ affiliation with NAUI
- Refresher training on NAUI standards for any NAUI instructor associated with Scuba Toys
- Formal and public expulsion of any Scuba Toys instructor associated with NAUI who resisted refresher training
This stuff isn’t hard.
Leaders of certifying organizations just have to possess a clear-eyed sense of moral courage to adjudicate in favor of their own standards.
What we see once or twice a year are these painful culminating moments in the architecture of habitually poor instruction when a wishy washy organizational leader crab walks away from a situation that seems pretty elementary to everyone else.
What really puzzles me is how the business acumen of these regional and corporate leaders is so weak that they assess shooting a bad dog is going to somehow pre-empt every other opportunity to pursue profit.
Joe Johnson reflects a casual indifference and immunity towards multiple fatalities during initial training for a recreational activity; This far surpasses “bad taste”.
I’d be more worried that keeping somebody like him on would taint the public’s perception of the organization and threaten all my other profit streams.
Losing the profit potential of one shop seems a lot more affordable than a loss of brand credibility. That Joe Johnson is a first class loser is one thing but that NAUI called this “inactionable” is gross negligence.
I’m starting to think the business of SCUBA in America attracts people of weak character.
That doesn’t mean every SCUBA shop owner or instructor is morally weak, just that it seems there’s an inordinate concentration of morally weak people in the “industry”.
While breaking my hip socket, my age (62 at the time), and the general overhead associated with instructing were primary factors in deciding to retire from teaching (2022) and ultimately the entire business (2023), the bolded portion of the comment was no small factor in my decision. The industry has been headed in a direction that was against my moral and ethical beliefs when it came to training and safety.
Standards being ignored or misunderstood, a lack of accountability for shops and instructors putting profit over safety and education, and agencies turning a blind eye to some pretty shady stuff that wasn't hidden at all.
Insurers were getting harder to find and getting more expensive. When I got out, I was looking at roughly a 30% increase in premiums. That was for the minimum 1 million dollars coverage. To get the recommended 2 million was nearly double or more. One insurer quoted me 4600 a year for 2 million because I also taught tech classes. That did not include a rebreather cert, which I did not check because I didn't teach them.
I firmly believe the lack of competition in coverage was in no small part due to the increased risk of a lawsuit that underwriters were not willing to take on. Why the increased risk? Look at the deaths that have happened in training courses due to negligence and to people being taken into open water who have no business being out of the pool yet.
Because it's all about numbers. Get em in and get em out so the next group can go. And the refusal of the industry to recognize that courses are too cheap. Way too cheap. I had to basically break even on OW classes to keep up with the competition, and even then, the lie that this is a safe activity and anyone can do it with a weekend or two of instruction made it tough to teach a 40-hour OW class. 14-16 pool, 14-16 classroom, and a minimum of 8 - 10 hours over 2 days on site at OW checkouts. But I refused to lower my teaching standards.
My con-ed class however, were double the cost of my competition or more and I had no problem getting motivated students who wanted the type of class I taught. Those who didn't want to put in the work? I didn't want to teach them.
But, without fail, every time I took a class to a training site I saw many instructors doing the bare minimum, and sometimes not even that, and no one said anything. I filed a couple complaints over the years with agencies over things I witnessed at training sites.
Because I was not an instructor with those agencies, those reports were ignored.
I haven't been in the water in two years, and every time I think about going to a local site and just getting wet, my anxiety level goes up because I can't say there won't be some issue I see that gets me pissed off.
Other circumstances make traveling to dive somewhere I wouldn't expect to see training going on is just not feasible now.
So I do what I can to try and help others when they get referred to me for advice on training and I run a large social media group to try and call out shady stuff and also provide solid educational advice by giving things like Human Factors a platform to spread their message.
