What does certification REALLY mean?

[Thalassamania]

... There are people out there diving who have been diving for 30+ years and are superior divers (skill and experience wise) to virtually every Instructor, Instructor Trainer and Instructor Certifier on the planet.

Yes, though some of those folks also happen to be Instructors, Instructor Trainers and Course Directors ... not many, but some.

... Certifications sprang up for 2 reasons.

1. Profit. All agencies were started by someone out to make a profit. They have no more basis for existence than that
2. Lawyers and Insurance Companies got involved with the agencies (again for profit) and made it sound like anyone who helped someone go diving would lose everything if they didn't hide behind certifications and cover themselves by insurance.

Certifications actually originated in a much more altruistic fashion. While I go through the good, the bad and the ugly of diving ... keep in mind that this is my understanding, gathered over the years, and it is open to challenge and other interpretations.

The first diving certifications were offered by the University of California for their research divers. In 1953, Los Angeles County Recreation Sports Director Al Tillman and Lifeguard Bev Morgan were sent by Los Angeles County to attend a scientific diver course taught by Connie Limbaugh at Scripps Institute. Connie was famous in the diving industry and was even called the "Greatest Diver in History" by Skin Diver Magazine. The course covered everything from surfing and underwater explosives to SCUBA and first aid along with the scientific aspects of diving. So knowledge of open circuit diving and diver training moved from there to the LA County Recreation and the US Navy. Within a year Tillman and Morgan had develop the first public skin and scuba diver education program in the United States. The Los Angeles County program quickly becomes the template for all programs that were to follow. In 1955, due to the massive popularity of the Los Angeles County program Tillman and Morgan created the first formal instructor certification program.

At the same time while there was the situation you describe as, "when Earl learned how to dive from Jesse and they went out for an enjoyable afternoon on Billy Bob's boat," dive shops started springing up, and in imitation of what was going on at the universities and within LA County Recreation shops started offering their own diver cards, these were usually referred to as "shop cards," and were of greatly variable quality.

Things progressed, in 1959 the YMCA developed s the first national diver certification program. and theUnderwater Society of America (original home of the ANSI Standards) was formed. Neal Hess wrote a column in Skin Diver Magazine called, "the National Diving Patrol" that was full of teaching tips and stories. It was his intent to build an organization modeled after the National Ski Patrol that would upgrade and standardize diver training.

Neal joined wth Tillman, Garry Howland and John Jones, to create the National Association of Underwater Instructors. The first group of instructors have "A" designations, like "A-1," "A-2," etc. (my mentors Lee Somers, and Walt Hendricks Sr. were both "A" instructructors). Anyway, NAUI held its first instructor certification course in Houston during the Underwater Society of America Convention.

We still lack a real profit motive in the diving industry, with the exception of the LDS, who are, primarilly, selling gear and often as not are a section a sporting goods store, not a "dive shop" per se, and often have no training program, but rather refer folks to local LA County, YMCA or NAUI Instructors.

John Gaffney founded the National Association of Skin Diving Schools (NASDS) in 1961, this effectively marks the begining of the "full service" dive shop. John's model looks very much like most all shops do today, but was almost megalomenical in scope. It included a deal (later found to be illegal) with several manufactures, specifically ScubaPro and Bailey Suits to create a world where even knowledge of competing equipment did not exist and everything was sold at list price. There were shops, books, training materials, a magazine, even a resort and a live-aboard where other brands were never seen in either pictures or reality. All diving equipment was renamed to create an even larger cultural gap, regulators became "Air Delivery Systems," weight belts became, "Adjustable Ballast Systems," wet suits were styled, "Environmental Protection Systems," ... you get the idea. NASDS was the first company to require that certifications only be offered through an affilated LDS, thus making their instructors serfs to the local shop owners. There was a big fuss and theft/plagarism fight between Gaffney and Ed Brawley over the "NASDS Gold Book" which was the instructor training manual. Brawley ran an Instructor mill in Monterey that had people paying to live in, what appeared to me to be, virtually third world conditions in his dorm and work for free in his shop ... quite a racket in my mind.

Now John made an interesting discovery. As I understand it, he was making a bit of money by selling shop memberships, certification cards, as well as materials, the magazine and licenses for the resort and live-aboard ... he was about to hit the gold mine ... insurance. By this time a small market for diving instructor insurance had developed. Everyone was insured by the same carrier and there was a single agent that wrote the policy which was the same for all the agencies. When Gaffney started looking into other sources he discovered that the agent (who's name I've fortgotten, I can see his face, but I can't remember his name) was more than willing to pay him a finder fee (what I'd call a bribe) for his agency's business. By the late 1960s Gaffney was neting more money from this single payment than from any other aspect of NASDS. Anyway, that's the story as I heard it, from several different sources. Maybe it's made up out of the whole cloth, maybe its just apocryphal and maybe its the Gods' Honest Truth, I can't say for sure, but given the sources I heard it from ... I believe it.

In 1966, John Cronin (then a regional rep for USD) and Ralph Ericson found the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI). The story, (once again as I've heard it told) was that Ericson had a NAUI ITC scheduled and that NAUI (in what was rather typical form for an organization that at the time was volunteer and in point of fact little more than an Adressograph - Multigraph machine and some filing cabinets in Art Ulrich's garage) neglected to send him the requisite materials to run the course. In those days these materails did not amount to much, the texts were, as often as not, The Science of Skin and Scuba and the U.S. Navy Diving Manual. The exams were made up by the Course Director on the spot and what you really needed were the registration form and the certificates.

Now ITCs were very different back then. There was no "Course Director" certification, you were a "Course Director" when you had a scheduled program on the books that was approved by Headquarters, as the story continues Ericson claimed that he had a program on the books and the NAUI claim was that he did not. I tend to believe Ericson here, I suspect that NAUI was just trying to save face ... but again the truth has been lost in the mists of time.

Anyway, lacking the NAUI material and permission to run the ITC, and having a bunch of candidates, Ericson invented a new agency, called it the "Professional Association of Underwater Instructors), and went and had certificates done up at a local print shop. His friend John Cronin, being a really bright and energetic guy, not only helped Ericson with this but (having observed Gaffney and NASDS) saw the value for U.S. Divers in in having their own captive certifying agency.

So the thing that I hope you can see is that there were two competeing views, one based on volunteerism and "what is best for diving," and one based on profit and "what is best for me." It is the collision across that cultural chasm that keeps the agency flame wars going.

You are right when you say that, "... now people spend enormous amounts of money due to businessmen, lawyers and Insurance agents that they might otherwise put toward diving." I hope that what I've covered above helps you to understand just how right you may be.

The fear was that unless the industry regulated itself, government might step in and none of the early entrepreneurs wanted that... so they joined with the lawyers and insurers and today - this is what you're stuck with.

I think that your analysis is off ... fear of government regulation was non-existent and that was aptly demonstrated when OSHA caved in almost immediately and exempted recreational instructors (despite their enployer/employee relationships) from the commercial diving standards that took the science diving community spent ten years of work to get out from under. It was more a case of how to get the biggest buck for the bang. The (alleged) model was to scare everyone with the lawyers and then take a goodly kickback from the insurance agents. That's the only explanation that I can think of for the fact that the industry never developed "defense only" insurance like the sky diving industry did.

You don't need a cert to go diving - unless you want to dive with someone else who's lawyer told them you need to show them one.

This has a lot to do with why so many advanced divers can't dive worth a poo and is what led you to ask this question... Hurry up, give them a c-card... take some more money give them an advanced card... nevermind they only have 10 dives. They need it to go on that dive trip - advanced cert is required.

God help us all... I'd dive with 10 divers who learned in the 70's with no certs before I'd dive with 10 PADI Instructors from the past decade... I'd feel a lot better about the chance of being rescued if god forbid I needed help.

You've got that all right.

It isn't a matter of getting tanks filled. That's easy! Just have your certified buddy do it for you. Or buy your own compressor.

Many of the long time divers realize, by their own experiences and interactions with new divers, that modern SCUBA training is inadequate. There already exists some form of industry association that may, or may not, play a part in establishing some type of standard. But that only provides legal cover for the members. It doesn't raise standards and it doesn't lengthen the programs.

The problem is that the 'market' for diver training demands a shorter format so new divers can head to the resort for their first open water dive scheduled for 'next week'. In the very old days, there were no resorts so divers had no time pressure to get certified. It happened when it did, it was taught by a small cadre of highly experienced divers and the training was rigorous and substantial. That is no longer the case and it never will be again. Hopefully...

I'd suggest that it is not market forces but rather marketing forces. There existed (exists) a strong profit motive in cutting training (at all levels including leadership) to the bare bone, and as long as the beaches are not littered with dead divers everything is honky-dory. I find this short sighted.

Why hopefully? Well, the only way we will ever get back to a minimum 100 hour program is through governmental interference. And that is only going to happen if the number of fatalities increases or somebody really famous dies. Something that shocks the conscience of some governmental agency. If they have one. But nobody wants governmental interference.

We'll never get back to 100 hours, 40 would be nice.

So, PADI sets the benchmark and the other agencies follow along or lose market share which they already don't have. It's the divers themselves that are to blame. They don't want to learn diving at a 100 hour level, they want 20 hours. The agencies just provide the program the customers demand.

It's not the would-be divers, they don't even know that such programs exist, they don't know the history, they don't get the choice beyond the loaded question of would you rather take a 20, 40 (or 100) hour program to get the same certification, the deception in the question is, of course, that that despite getting the same card ... you don't get the same training. PADI hit, early on, on the idea that that name of the course on the card is like the weight of the product in the box ... that's what's compared. The diver-candidate has no idea of how to measure the actual quality of the the training offered.

I contend the training is 'good enough' not because I don't prefer the older programs but because you can't prove from the accident statistics that new divers are dying at an unreasonable rate. In fact, one could argue, as was done way back in this thread, that it is the experienced divers that have the unreasonable accident rate. That makes sense! They're the ones doing the risky dives. Most newcomers, if they have a brain in their head, are scared out of their minds. Deep down, they know that they don't have a clue and, for some period of time, they will tend to be quite cautious.

The fatality rate is, in my mind, almost irrelevent. The real measure of the lack of success of diver training programs is more in the drop out rate. There are going to be people who try an activity and decide that it's not for them, but 80% to 90%?

I wish the training were better, I know it will never be what it was and I know there isn't anything I can do about it. It's all very personal, you see, because my grandson was certified by PADI a month ago. I know that he can do the skills, I know that he can swim, I know he has prepared for this for years and years but I also know that he doesn't know anything about diving. Sure, he passed the tests. He can regurgitate the text material but he won't know anything until he has done a lot of dives. Hopefully without scaring himself right out of diving.

There are alternatives, it just that they are more difficult to find and to complete. Most of the 100 hour courses that I teach now are for the children of people I taught decades ago. I know of excellent LA County, NAUI and YMCA Instructors who still teach 40 hour courses and now GUE has a 60 hour course. You've just go to look. Barring that I'd sign him up for O/W, Peak Buoyancy, AOW, Rescue, and Fundies and not consider him a certified diver until he complete all five.

 

[Mike Campbell]

Thalassamania, it is obvious you don't need me to say this, but I will anyway, very good.
Looks like Walter is not the only one who's six I'd take in a bar fight.
Mike

 

[Thalassamania]

Thanks Mike.

One of the things that I hate is rewriting of history to make everything nice, nice. It's almost always ex post facto rationalization.

That old maxim about, "when in doubt, follow the money," however, will rarely lead you wrong.

 

[rstofer]

I know of excellent LA County, NAUI and YMCA Instructors who still teach 40 hour courses and now GUE has a 60 hour course. You've just go to look. Barring that I'd sign him up for O/W, Peak Buoyancy, AOW, Rescue, and Fundies and not consider him a certified diver until he complete all five.

This is all part of the plan. For the next two years (until age 12) he is on hold in terms of taking Junior AOW, Junior Rescue and some of the specialties. He is on hold until age 15 or 18 for other programs. But this will give him years of simple, shallow, dives to build his confidence before he is able to take the advanced programs. It's our job (the family) to make sure those dives are safe.

It was my view when I took the courses and it remains my view today that a diver isn't even marginally competent until they have completed Rescue and that with perhaps 100 dives or so they might begin to have an idea about the nature of diving.

Richard

 

[Thalassamania]

If you've got to go the PADI route, get Peak Buoyancy in there as early as possible.

 

[sweatfrog]

The first diving certifications were offered by the University of California for their research divers. In 1953, Los Angeles County Recreation Sports Director Al Tillman and Lifeguard Bev Morgan were sent by Los Angeles County to attend a scientific diver course taught by Connie Limbaugh at Scripps Institute. Connie was famous in the diving industry and was even called the "Greatest Diver in History" by Skin Diver Magazine. The course covered everything from surfing and underwater explosives to SCUBA and first aid along with the scientific aspects of diving. So knowledge of open circuit diving and diver training moved from there to the LA County Recreation and the US Navy.

I was talking to someone many years ago when I was in the Navy, that had just finished taking the oral exam for Warrant Officer. He thought a question he was asked was degrading. The question was; who was the greatest guerilla fighter that ever lived? If you know anything about the 60's, you would have probably answered Che Gueverra. His answer though was that Che was dead and he was still alive. That made him the greatest guerilla fighter alive at that time. That's quite a statement and one some would call ego-maniacal, but he believed in himself strongly and his arrogance helped keep him alive.

Now, while your description of Connie Limbaugh is factual, http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1076&context=sio/arch it reminds me of that story, because Connie died at 35 and there are people still around who have been diving for many more years than that and are very competent at what they do.

Cdr. Doug Fane is the one who brought Scuba to the states during its infancy. One thing about the Navy is that training has always been ingrained in the sailors. Although Limbaugh may have given pointers for military training later on, but he wasn't part of the initial military training.

Within a year Tillman and Morgan had develop the first public skin and scuba diver education program in the United States. The Los Angeles County program quickly becomes the template for all programs that were to follow. In 1955, due to the massive popularity of the Los Angeles County program Tillman and Morgan created the first formal instructor certification program.

Absolutely, just don't neglect some of the more interesting characters like Morgans future partner Bob Kirby and many others.

At the same time while there was the situation you describe as, "when Earl learned how to dive from Jesse and they went out for an enjoyable afternoon on Billy Bob's boat," dive shops started springing up, and in imitation of what was going on at the universities and within LA County Recreation shops started offering their own diver cards, these were usually referred to as "shop cards," and were of greatly variable quality.

In 1959 Connie was involved with starting one of the first dive stores in the US History along with other future leaders of this industry. He was just one of a great number of icons who helped start this industry. The driving force behind that store was Chuck Nicklin.

Things progressed, in 1959 the YMCA developed s the first national diver certification program. and the underwater Society of America (original home of the ANSI Standards) was formed. Neal Hess wrote a column in Skin Diver Magazine called, "the National Diving Patrol" that was full of teaching tips and stories. It was his intent to build an organization modeled after the National Ski Patrol that would upgrade and standardize diver training.

There was also a Junior Skin Divers Club for kids aspiring to become divers.

Neal joined with Tillman, Garry Howland and John Jones, to create the National Association of Underwater Instructors. The first group of instructors have "A" designations, like "A-1," "A-2," etc. (my mentors Lee Somers, and Walt Hendricks Sr. were both "A" instructructors). Anyway, NAUI held its first instructor certification course in Houston during the Underwater Society of America Convention.

While those men had a lot of experience, they became Instructors and Trainers through the good old boy system.

We still lack a real profit motive in the diving industry, with the exception of the LDS, who are, primarilly, selling gear and often as not are a section a sporting goods store, not a "dive shop" per se, and often have no training program, but rather refer folks to local LA County, YMCA or NAUI Instructors.

See above information, regarding The Diving Locker.

John Gaffney founded the National Association of Skin Diving Schools (NASDS) in 1961, this effectively marks the begining of the "full service" dive shop. John's model looks very much like most all shops do today, but was almost megalomenical in scope. It included a deal (later found to be illegal) with several manufactures, specifically ScubaPro and Bailey Suits to create a world where even knowledge of competing equipment did not exist and everything was sold at list price. There were shops, books, training materials, a magazine, even a resort and a live-aboard where other brands were never seen in either pictures or reality. All diving equipment was renamed to create an even larger cultural gap, regulators became "Air Delivery Systems," weight belts became, "Adjustable Ballast Systems," wet suits were styled, "Environmental Protection Systems," ... you get the idea. NASDS was the first company to require that certifications only be offered through an affilated LDS, thus making their instructors serfs to the local shop owners. There was a big fuss and theft/plagarism fight between Gaffney and Ed Brawley over the "NASDS Gold Book" which was the instructor training manual. Brawley ran an Instructor mill in Monterey that had people paying to live in, what appeared to me to be, virtually third world conditions in his dorm and work for free in his shop ... quite a racket in my mind.

You left out the fact that Ed Brawley won that suit. His chief Instructor left his operation (PDIC) and took the book to Gaffney. plagarism lives on.

Now John made an interesting discovery. As I understand it, he was making a bit of money by selling shop memberships, certification cards, as well as materials, the magazine and licenses for the resort and live-aboard ... he was about to hit the gold mine ... insurance. By this time a small market for diving instructor insurance had developed. Everyone was insured by the same carrier and there was a single agent that wrote the policy which was the same for all the agencies. When Gaffney started looking into other sources he discovered that the agent (who's name I've fortgotten, I can see his face, but I can't remember his name) was more than willing to pay him a finder fee (what I'd call a bribe) for his agency's business. By the late 1960s Gaffney was neting more money from this single payment than from any other aspect of NASDS. Anyway, that's the story as I heard it, from several different sources. Maybe it's made up out of the whole cloth, maybe its just apocryphal and maybe itÃÔ the Gods' Honest Truth, I can't say for sure, but given the sources I heard it from ... I believe it.

NASDS was the premier agency in the 60's and most of the 70's, so something appealed to the general public. One of Gaffney's protege's Bob Clarke SSI, was an Insurance agent and saw the writing on the wall. That was back when Instructor Insurance was a lot more reasonably priced.

In 1966, John Cronin (then a regional rep for USD) and Ralph Ericson found the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI). The story, (once again as I've heard it told) was that Ericson had a NAUI ITC scheduled and that NAUI (in what was rather typical form for an organization that at the time was volunteer and in point of fact little more than an Adressograph - Multigraph machine and some filing cabinets in Art Ulrich's garage) neglected to send him the requisite materials to run the course. In those days these materails did not amount to much, the texts were, as often as not, The Science of Skin and Scuba and the U.S. Navy Diving Manual. The exams were made up by the Course Director on the spot and what you really needed were the registration form and the certificates.

A lot of businesses start because someone thinks they have a better plan than the other guy.

Now ITCs were very different back then. There was no "Course Director" certification, you were a "Course Director" when you had a scheduled program on the books that was approved by Headquarters, as the story continues Ericson claimed that he had a program on the books and the NAUI claim was that he did not. I tend to believe Ericson here, I suspect that NAUI was just trying to save face ... but again the truth has been lost in the mists of time.

Anyway, lacking the NAUI material and permission to run the ITC, and having a bunch of candidates, Ericson invented a new agency, called it the "Professional Association of Underwater Instructors), and went and had certificates done up at a local print shop. His friend John Cronin, being a really bright and energetic guy, not only helped Ericson with this but (having observed Gaffney and NASDS) saw the value for U.S. Divers in in having their own captive certifying agency.

You did a good job of historical documentation here. However, Cronin always took off his USD hat, when he put on his PADI hat. That was tested, way later, when a lawsuit arguing that point was thrown out of court.

So the thing that I hope you can see is that there were two competeing views, one based on volunteerism and "what is best for diving," and one based on profit and "what is best for me." It is the collision across that cultural chasm that keeps the agency flame wars going.

As you have said many times, you make a lot more money than a typical Instructor, when you teach a class. No one should be faulted for making a buck. It's a good thing when two philosophies; 1) what is best for diving, 2) while I make money in the process compliment each other. Giving your time away will burn out your love for teaching anything.

I think that your analysis is off ... fear of government regulation was non-existent and that was aptly demonstrated when OSHA caved in almost immediately and exempted recreational instructors (despite their enployer/employee relationships) from the commercial diving standards that took the science diving community spent ten years of work to get out from under. It was more a case of how to get the biggest buck for the bang. The (alleged) model was to scare everyone with the lawyers and then take a goodly kickback from the insurance agents. That's the only explanation that I can think of for the fact that the industry never developed "defense only" insurance like the sky diving industry did.

Thanks for breaking ground for us, but Instructors (like Billy Deans) had been teaching those courses for years before the recreational industry got involved. In my opinion, TDI was making a killing teaching those courses and the others wanted a piece of the action. The problem was that OSHA said any gas different from compressed air was for commercial diving ONLY and that was of huge concern to agencies and manufacturers alike. The recreational Instructors teaching those courses needed to be covered by commercial diving insurance, or if they had an accident, they wouldn't be covered.

I There existed (exists) a strong profit motive in cutting training (at all levels including leadership) to the bare bone, and as long as the beaches are not littered with dead divers everything is honky-dory. I find this short sighted.

Again, in my opinion, a good portion of the course is taught in the water. Things have changed, because Instructors no longer teach to the weakest link in the class. If students don't come to class prepared, they should not be spoon fed the material. If they want that kind of class, they should pay extra for it. Otherwise, they need to go home and come back when they are prepared.

We'll never get back to 100 hours, 40 would be nice.It's not the would-be divers, they don't even know that such programs exist, they don't know the history, they don't get the choice beyond the loaded question of would you rather take a 20, 40 (or 100) hour program to get the same certification, the deception in the question is, of course, that despite getting the same card ... you don't get the same training. PADI hit, early on, on the idea that name of the course on the card is like the weight of the product in the box ... that's what's compared. The diver-candidate has no idea of how to measure the actual quality of the training offered.The fatality rate is, in my mind, almost irrelevant. The real measure of the lack of success of diver training programs is more in the drop out rate. There are going to be people who try an activity and decide that it's not for them, but 80% to 90%?There are alternatives, it just that they are more difficult to find and to complete. Most of the 100 hour courses that I teach now are for the children of people I taught decades ago. I know of excellent LA County, NAUI and YMCA Instructors who still teach 40 hour courses and now GUE has a 60 hour course. You've just go to look. Barring that I'd sign him up for O/W, Peak Buoyancy, AOW, Rescue, and Fundies and not consider him a certified diver until he complete all five.

You make a number of good points here.
1. The majority of people won't stand for a longer course. Instant gratification is the buzz word today. They willl switch to another sport, like skydiving.
2. Nowadays, people can get certified quickly on vacation.
3. People look for the PADI logo.
4. Continuing education is important to keeping people diving.

Getting (keeping) people diving is the key. There also needs to be middle ground between the people spouting the doomsday machine philosophy and the one's promoting the rose colored glasses.

 

[Thalassamania]

I was talking to someone many years ago when I was in the Navy, that had just finished taking the oral exam for Warrant Officer. He thought a question he was asked was degrading. The question was; who was the greatest guerilla fighter that ever lived? If you know anything about the 60's, you would have probably answered Che Gueverra. His answer though was that Che was dead and he was still alive. That made him the greatest guerilla fighter alive at that time. That's quite a statement and one some would call ego-maniacal, but he believed in himself strongly and his arrogance helped keep him alive.

Now, while your description of Connie Limbaugh is factual, http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1076&context=sio/arch it reminds me of that story, because Connie died at 35 and there are people still around who have been diving for many more years than that and are very competent at what they do.

Connie died in a cave diving accident. Cave diving was an unknown world back then, and even recently divers who have done far more than you or I have died (e.g., Turner and Exley).

Cdr. Doug Fane is the one who brought Scuba to the states during its infancy. One thing about the Navy is that training has always been ingrained in the sailors. Although Limbaugh may have given pointers for military training later on, but he wasn't part of the initial military training.

The actuality is that Fane did introduce scuba to the US, but he had little impact, even within the military until the folks at the Navy Electronics Laboratory got involved in Connie's program at Scripps. This was a major shot in the arm and vindication for Fane.

In 1959 Connie was involved with starting one of the first dive stores in the US History along with other future leaders of this industry. He was just one of a great number of icons who helped start this industry. The driving force behind that store was Chuck Nicklin.

The Diving Locker was (at the time) unique in Diving History. The contributions of the Nicklin family should never be underestimated.

While those men had a lot of experience, they became Instructors and Trainers through the good old boy system

There were good ones (Mainly, Stewart, Somers, Hendricks ... and a few bad ones).

You left out the fact that Ed Brawley won that suit. His chief Instructor left his operation (PDIC) and took the book to Gaffney. plagarism lives on.

I didn't see that as important, but yes, Gaffney lost. I find it irrelevent since the quality of the document in question was, in my estimation at least, so poor.

NASDS was the premier agency in the 60's and most of the 70's, so something appealed to the general public. One of Gaffney's protege's Bob Clarke SSI, was an Insurance agent and saw the writing on the wall. That was back when Instructor Insurance was a lot more reasonably priced.

NASDS was never the "premire" agency (except in its own mind). Both NAUI and YMCA were larger and more influential. All NASDS had going for it was an illegal marketing scheme that took advantage of California's "fair trade" laws. Once the courts demolished that NASDS all but dried up and blew away. Bob Clark is an interesting character, he perfered golf to diving and saw SSI as primarily a vehicle to sell books to a captive audience.

You did a good job of historical documentation here. However, Cronin always took off his USD hat, when he put on his PADI hat. That was tested, way later, when a lawsuit arguing that point was thrown out of court.

If you really believe that I have a bridge that I'd like to show you.

As you have said many times, you make a lot more money than a typical Instructor, when you teach a class. No one should be faulted for making a buck. It's a good thing when two philosophies; 1) what is best for diving, 2) while I make money in the process compliment each other. Giving your time away will burn out your love for teaching anything.

I give away more time than I charge for, I fell no "burn out."

Thanks for breaking ground for us, but Instructors (like Billy Deans) had been teaching those courses for years before the recreational industry got involved. In my opinion, TDI was making a killing teaching those courses and the others wanted a piece of the action. The problem was that OSHA said any gas different from compressed air was for commercial diving ONLY and that was of huge concern to agencies and manufacturers alike. The recreational Instructors teaching those courses needed to be covered by commercial diving insurance, or if they had an accident, they wouldn't be covered.

That's a more recent OSHA battle. I'm talking about the mid 1970s, long before Billy.

Again, in my opinion, a good portion of the course is taught in the water. Things have changed, because Instructors no longer teach to the weakest link in the class. If students don't come to class prepared, they should not be spoon fed the material. If they want that kind of class, they should pay extra for it. Otherwise, they need to go home and come back when they are prepared.

I expect students to be prepared, they are, but I also belive that if they've not learned then you've not taught.

You make a number of good points here.
1. The majority of people won't stand for a longer course. Instant gratification is the buzz word today. They willl switch to another sport, like skydiving.
2. Nowadays, people can get certified quickly on vacation.
3. People look for the PADI logo.
4. Continuing education is important to keeping people diving.

Getting (keeping) people diving is the key. There also needs to be middle ground between the people spouting the doomsday machine philosophy and the one's promoting the rose colored glasses.

You missed the critical items and are not highlighting points that I was making but rather are reading your own opinions into places where they do not exist.

 

[sweatfrog]

Connie died in a cave diving accident. Cave diving was an unknown world back then, and even recently divers who have done far more than you or I have died (e.g., Turner and Exley).

Exley died in 1994. That is not current in anybody's mind. Don't get me wrong, I'm not taking anything away from those pioneers. Exley also helped start the NSS-CDS program. A lot of the cave divers who live in Northern Florida forego everything to be either there, or in Playa.

I didn't see that as important, but yes, Gaffney lost.

You brought this up, in this thread, but the only things you seem to see as important are those coming from your own viewpoint.

Bob Clark is an interesting character, he perfered golf to diving and saw SSI as primarily a vehicle to sell books to a captive audience.

That's funny, especially since Jeppesen published the SSI books for most of his career.

If you really believe that I have a bridge that I'd like to show you.

For your information, Don Dibble initiated that suit back in the early 80's and stirred up the pot for PADI, in a big way.

That's a more recent OSHA battle. I'm talking about the mid 1970s, long before Billy.

That was before I became involved in the recreational industry. Please enlighten everyone.

 

[Thalassamania]

Exley died in 1994. That is not current in anybody's mind. Don't get me wrong, I'm not taking anything away from those pioneers. Exley also helped start the NSS-CDS program. A lot of the cave divers who live in Northern Florida forego everything to be either there, or in Playa.

A bit more current than Connie's accident.

You brought this up, in this thread, but the only things you seem to see as important are those coming from your own viewpoint.

It would be a bit hard for me to see as important all the things that come from your viewpoint, if I could then there would be no reason or need for conversations.[/quote]

That's funny, especially since Jeppesen published the SSI books for most of his career.

Funny, but true ... Bob expressed that view often in meetings.

For your information, Don Dibble initiated that suit back in the early 80's and stirred up the pot for PADI, in a big way.

Don's an old friend, in fact we talked about it just before he filed his suit.

That was before I became involved in the recreational industry. Please enlighten everyone.

Read the background section in 29 CFR Part 1910 and here's a pretty good summary. If you have any questions I'll be glad to answer them.

 

[sweatfrog]

Read the background section in 29 CFR Part 1910 and here's a pretty good summary. If you have any questions I'll be glad to answer them.

I see that part of that information (listed below) is regarding the changes allowing recreational Instructors to teach nitrox.

"On February 17, 2004 (see Federal Register notice 69 FR 7351), OSHA amended 29 CFR Part 1910, Subpart T - ("Commercial Diving Operations"), to allow recreational diving instructors and diving guides to comply with an alternative set of requirements instead of the decompression chamber requirements in the existing 29 CFR Part 1910, Subpart T standards. The final rule applies only when these employees engage in recreational diving instruction and diving-guide duties; use an open-circuit, a semi-closed-circuit, or a closed-circuit self-contained underwater-breathing apparatus supplied with a breathing gas that has a high percentage of oxygen mixed with nitrogen; dive to a maximum depth of 130 feet of sea water; and remain within the no-decompression limits specified for the partial pressure of nitrogen in the breathing-gas mixture. This final rule became effective on March 18, 2004."

This is burocracy at it's best. It's scary to think that the government in it's infinite wisdom will ever be out of debt again. The pencil necked geeks have got those guidelines laid out so that you have to be a commercial operation to be able to keep it going.

If the government ever takes over recreational diving, the whole sport will not survive.

All of this, just to blow a few bubbles?