Scubaduke, this comes from a 10 year veteran of PSDiving. I am a former Commander of a 31 member Dive/Rescue Team from central Georgia, who took 5 volunteers, trained them to be rescue divers and built the team to 18 certified rescue divers and 13 surface support techs. We had no money, held fundraisers and took on private donations of equipment and resources. When the new Sheriff got elected, we had $300,000.00 worth of equipment and resources. The new Sheriff decided that central Georgia did not need a Dive/Rescue Team and fired all the Captains and Commanders and took all of the equipment and left it sitting on the pavement to dryrot. $800.oo AGA masks and communicators, $2000.00 drysuits and so forth. My suggestion to you is, don't put too much into it. Especially if it's for a Sheriff. We saved lives, helped lost children and elderly people find their loved ones, we touched many hearts and inspired many young people to persue our tasks. But after it was all said and done, the very people we were making look good out of all of this were the one's who shafted us. Training, training,training is the key to surviving the blackwater dives you get in Georgia. GPSTC has a good program with Donnie Roberts and all, but don't stop there. get as much training as you can and stay in the water yearround. Not just ten or twelve times a year. Good luck my friend.
ScubaDuke...Good luck!
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Boy that sucks but thats the way it goes when your working in a political setting.
I have been with my department and on the team sense October 76. I have been through five Sheriff's with a total of seven terms of office. Each Sheriff has gotten stronger as far as Marine Division and the Dive Team are concerned. They have even pushed us into working harder on training. But keep in m ine that we are expensive as we are an all inhouse fulltime paid team.
We work our normal positions, mine in Patrol as are others are, some in Detectives and a couple in Marine Division so wages play a big part in the team. Every Sheriff has known the need for the team and how visible in the public we are.
Most of you know the amount of calls we roll on. Even as busy as we have been the past few months we still have several days slated for training. Today was one, tomorrow another and then the first and second of Sept will be training.
Normally one of two training days for me end up being a 20 hour day. I can either adjust my shift or trake the OT and they don't balk at either one. We need it and we get it.
Admins idea is don't go through the chain of command to get training as it will most likely be denied due to budget problems. Just put it on the board, do it and tell them when we are done. Our strong point is that most of our brass have been on the team in the past.
This is just a quick guess right now but I venture to say that right now we have around 1500 years of diving experience as a team on the department. If anything I think this is going to be a low est..
Political climates can play havic with any department. It is just a shame that when it comes time to drop the ax on something the teams seem to get the first chop.
Hang in there the public might demand your return. In the mean time don't PO the Sheriff or he just might not give a damn what the public he serves wants.
Gary D.
I have been with my department and on the team sense October 76. I have been through five Sheriff's with a total of seven terms of office. Each Sheriff has gotten stronger as far as Marine Division and the Dive Team are concerned. They have even pushed us into working harder on training. But keep in m ine that we are expensive as we are an all inhouse fulltime paid team.
We work our normal positions, mine in Patrol as are others are, some in Detectives and a couple in Marine Division so wages play a big part in the team. Every Sheriff has known the need for the team and how visible in the public we are.
Most of you know the amount of calls we roll on. Even as busy as we have been the past few months we still have several days slated for training. Today was one, tomorrow another and then the first and second of Sept will be training.
Normally one of two training days for me end up being a 20 hour day. I can either adjust my shift or trake the OT and they don't balk at either one. We need it and we get it.
Admins idea is don't go through the chain of command to get training as it will most likely be denied due to budget problems. Just put it on the board, do it and tell them when we are done. Our strong point is that most of our brass have been on the team in the past.
This is just a quick guess right now but I venture to say that right now we have around 1500 years of diving experience as a team on the department. If anything I think this is going to be a low est..
Political climates can play havic with any department. It is just a shame that when it comes time to drop the ax on something the teams seem to get the first chop.
Hang in there the public might demand your return. In the mean time don't PO the Sheriff or he just might not give a damn what the public he serves wants.
Gary D.
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