Suit filed in case of "Girl dead, boy injured at Glacier National Park

[cerich]

I am pretty sure scuba is not the only business that has acquisitions, mergers, and companies going out of business. If I want to buy a new car, I will not be buying a Packard, Hudson, Rambler, Nash, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saab, etc. If I sit down to discuss it with friends over a beer, we will most likely be drinking something belonging to one of the mammoth multinational firms that control almost all of the brewing market. If it gives us headaches, the remedies we seek will also be owned by huge multifaceted corporations.

Before I retired from public education, I created one of the first online schools in our state, and I co-created the state's official online education program. Upon retirement, I was hired by a small online education company to be their director of curriculum and instruction. I created the vision for the company, and we thrived. We were then purchased by a major corporation headed by the famed Michael Milken, and I was suddenly the Executive Director of Curriculum for K-12 Learning, the largest such company in the world. I went from creating much of our coursework at the desk from which I am writing now to directing teams creating each course with a budget of at least $100,000 per course.

That was good.

Unfortunately, as we grew, I lost control. My vision of a targeted market for our product was changed by executives I never met to making one product that would work for every market, which meant it could not be just right for any market. We also had to use some of the 30 or 40 other companies in our family for much of the work, and some of them just plain sucked. For example, they made us use one of their companies in India to create an Advanced Placement Art History course, and the first time I looked at what they produced, I was aghast. Not only could they not write in clear English, even with my limited knowledge of art history, I could see that much of what they wrote was simply wrong. The pictures they used were misidentified, and it would only take me a few seconds on Google to confirm that. When I talked to them about it, I realized no one in their company knew a thing about art history.

So I see the good and the bad of mergers and acquisitions, but I don't see how any of it can be controlled.

Yeah, that has less application to what we are seeing in dive industry than you suppose.Not being mean. In a declining industry the largest players can get assets and market share very cheaply, which contrast to the market not rewarding investment in IP, product development, sales and marketing effort which is more expensive. It can be very lucrative if the purchased asset was just mismanaged, but in a declining industry that isn't enough, as some players in our industry have discovered.

There are also a ton of reasons to do regards accounting as well depending on the corporate structure, especially if diversified. You can also paper over your fundamentals doing it for a variety of reasons, from good strategic plan, hope, prayer to crook as well.

 

[Wookie]

You have done a nice job telling me all the problems. I am still interested in hearing the solutions.

My solution was to leave.

If I had the cash, charisma, and desire to re-create the vision, I would start an agency that delivered decent materials for a reasonable price, and truly was an agency. When I had the Spree, I felt that every crewmember represented me and my business, I paid for their training, I bought their insurance, and the only thing they had to worry about was their job. I provided them training on what their job was, and gave them the tools to succeed there. I also monitored their work so that if they didn't represent my standards, I could correct whatever the problem was.

But I have none of those things. I watched Chris and Pete strive to replace DEMA. I have seen a number of attempts at the same goal over the years, with the same results.

The only recourse I had was to hit them in the pocketbook. So I did what I could.

 

[cerich]

So I see the good and the bad of mergers and acquisitions, but I don't see how any of it can be controlled.

LOL, well, honestly, what you described was controlled exactly how the owner wanted it controlled. Your vision was not aligned. That speaks well of your character but not to the reality.

 

[cerich]

My solution was to leave.

If I had the cash, charisma, and desire to re-create the vision, I would start an agency that delivered decent materials for a reasonable price, and truly was an agency. When I had the Spree, I felt that every crewmember represented me and my business, I paid for their training, I bought their insurance, and the only thing they had to worry about was their job. I provided them training on what their job was, and gave them the tools to succeed there. I also monitored their work so that if they didn't represent my standards, I could correct whatever the problem was.

Love ya brother, wouldn't work.

 

[MrVegas]

Interesting discussions -- I have only been diving about 5 years now, but my impression of PADI as an organization is more of a certifying agency than a training agency. PADI doesn't really train anyone. I don't think medical boards train doctors either, right? If your doctor is board certified, it means that the board has determined the doctor completed some form of accredited residency or fellowship and passed some extra tests beyond the bare minimum to get a state medical license. If you have a PADI certification, it just means you have completed a specified set of requirements.

Recreational diving is largely unregulated (and hopefully stays that way). If you have your own boat and compressor you don't need a certification card, right? However, divers, boat operators, private caves and quarries, shop owners, and instructors generally don't want to die or hurt people, and, for those that want insurance, insurance companies will want evidence of steps taken to reduce the odds that someone is going to get hurt. What the certification process consists of will depend on (1) what consumers of the classes want; and (2) what those selling services to divers need to be reasonably comfortable that someone is not highly likely to hurt themselves and to satisfy insurance companies.

To bring it back to the lawsuit at hand (and maybe the Ginnie Springs lawsuit), the extent to which the law permits liability to extend outward will affect the cost of insurance (and extent of bureaucracy) for everyone. So, here, we have the claims against the individual dive shop owners (not just their company), the claims against the sellers of the drysuits, and the claims against PADI. It's hard to say what the impact of what any one case would be, but if all of these claims actually make it to trial and there are big judgments against those defendants, it could well scare a lot of people. Would that make certification classes more extensive and more expensive? Would that result in fewer divers and instructors? Would it result in fewer boats and dive sites willing to incur the costs to host divers?

 

[ginti]

True, quite sadly...

To be honest, there are disadvantages but also advantages. Given our experience with club diving and associatiobs, we should be able to mitigate the disadvantages if we try. And that would be a great win for everyone.

 

[ginti]

Excluding BSAC the national agencies training is becoming obsolete. Materials are old, standards are older and support for individual instructors is not existent.

Fipsas in Italy improved its own materials and standards about tech and cave diving few years ago. Quite drastically as far as I know. But I am NOT an insider, so keep my knowledge lightly please

 

[SlugLife]

Would that make certification classes more extensive and more expensive? Would that result in fewer divers and instructors? Would it result in fewer boats and dive sites willing to incur the costs to host divers?

"Extensive?"

I doubt it, that doesn't really help the liability angle, and in practice is almost never how it works out.

I'd say less available, which is a problem that exists today but could be made worse.

I think there are large numbers of divers (like artists) who are essentially willing to share knowledge with less experienced divers or next-to-free, because it's a fun hobby that we enjoy doing and sharing with others. The dive industry then helpfully swoops in to ensure they pick up that money left on the table. Those of us with an aversion of working for free, for someone else's financial gain simply nope-the-fk-out. It's even worse, when you consider potential liability, insurance, etc.

 

[BRT]

You have done a nice job telling me all the problems. I am still interested in hearing the solutions.

Tort reform. Without it scuba is not the only thing in trouble.

 

[cerich]

Tort reform. Without it scuba is not the only thing in trouble.

pick the battles you can win while still supporting the big things where you can.

We could have done something, we didn't