Owner of a dive shop in a quarry

[emoreira]

Hi
This is my first post here.
I'm AOWD. Only 62 dives under my belt.
The city where I live, Buenos Aires - Capital city of Argentina, there are a lot of diving schools (almost 100, as per the last directory done by a specialized magazine), though there is no place to dive near. The nearest diveable place is some 250 miles away.
PADI has some 70 % of schools and SSI some 25 %.
Recently a property of nearly 820 acre near Buenos Aires has been sold, where there is a fresh water quarry of something like 160 acre with a maximun depth of 80 feet. Water seems to be drinkable.
The property was bought to make a real state project which includes the quarry as one of the main attractions. Swimming, sailing, surf sailing, and diving appeared as a possibility.
The quarry was done to remove stones to build a highway some 40 years ago, and it's flooded since the end of the construction.
I was invited to snorkel the quarry as a first impression to see if diving could be faced. Visibility is within 15 feet and temperature at the surface is 75 °F. A whole deeper assessment has to be done.
As I was invited in this early state of the project, I'm pointing to be the one that will be in charge of the assessment and the further operation of the quarry as a diving destination near the big city.
I've been diving in several quarries and dams and in every place, the operator, I mean the man in charge of the diving operations, who rent gear and tanks, is someone with Dive Master or Instructor card.
I'm not planning to set up a new diving school, as there are so many already. I plan to install a full service for already stablished schools to allow them to make check-out dives and as a dive destination, renting gear and tanks, and giving a nice and comfortable place to enter the water and spent the surface interval.
The question is, which certification should I have to do this. Do I need any certification ?
If I offer baptism dives (new people without any dive certification nor experience in a first and full guided short and shallow dive), the diver that guides each one should be a DM.

 

[Quero]

Eduardo, in my opinion, anyone who is on duty at your shop should have at minimum CPR, first aid, O2 provider, and defib skills; and as the prospective owner/manager of the shop, you should have these same skills, even perhaps at the instructor level. Becoming an EFR and O2 instructor does not require a professional dive rating, by the way. In addition, it's difficult for a business owner to supervise the work of an employee if s/he doesn't know how to do the work him/herself. In other words, if you are not a DM and don't know how to conduct a Discover Scuba experience (what you are calling baptism), it will not be as easy for you to recognize standards violations and cutting of corners in training. But unless local laws require professional-level certs to run this kind of business, you really don't "need" anything more than a good business plan.

 

[emoreira]

Eduardo, in my opinion, anyone who is on duty at your shop should have at minimum CPR, first aid, O2 provider, and defib skills; and as the prospective owner/manager of the shop, you should have these same skills, even perhaps at the instructor level. Becoming an EFR and O2 instructor does not require a professional dive rating, by the way. In addition, it's difficult for a business owner to supervise the work of an employee if s/he doesn't know how to do the work him/herself. In other words, if you are not a DM and don't know how to conduct a Discover Scuba experience (what you are calling baptism), it will not be as easy for you to recognize standards violations and cutting of corners in training. But unless local laws require professional-level certs to run this kind of business, you really don't "need" anything more than a good business plan.

Quite clear and good advice.