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Introductions You've joined up - now post and tell us who you are, what brought you in to DIR diving, where you dive and who with.
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May 22nd, 2006, 11:05 PM
| #1 (permalink) |
| New Member  Join Date: May 2006 Location: Most Oceans and Seas
Posts: 66
 | It's good to be here I’m always interested in a “better mousetrap” so I’m here to find out what DIR is about. I've been diving since 1956. My Dad was an archeologist and got the idea to recover Babylonian artifacts from a barge that sank in the mid 19th century where the Tigris and Euphrates come together. So he bought two tanks, two regulators, and a copy of the Science of Skin and Scuba (a later edition of which I was later honored to be permitted to contribute to), and we learned how to dive. I continued to dive recreationally (lakes in New York, the New England Coast, North Carolina, Florida, California) till high school when I hooked up with a group that styled itself Beta Oceanographic. It was basically a dive club that had an agreement with Pt. Lobos that in return for mapping and doing some baseline work they could have access to the park. I went to university and had a part time job prepping bodies for autopsies at the Coroners Office’s that led to becoming a phlebotomist at a local hospital. The guy who ran the lab was a PADI Instructor and I became his AI (this is about 1970). At the same time I became involved in the research diver-training program at the university. I took the 100 hrs. course in the spring quarter, did underwater research in Central America over the summer, was an Assistant Team Leader in the course in the fall, and was a Team Leader for the next course. I remained active, both teaching and conducting research until I received my degree. I was accepted to grad school at a major oceanographic institute where I continued my research diving, but there was no real program and no training program going on. In 1975 I attended a two-week instructor course at the University of Michigan run by Dr. Lee Somers. I returned to my home institution and began teaching other students the 100 hrs. course I learned during my undergraduate days. To make a long story short I would up as the Diving Safety Officer there and had a chance to some interesting things and make what where, I hope, some small contributions. I’ve held certifications at many institutions of higher learning, including a 200 foot card, surface supplied, nitrox, mixed-gas, instructor, etc. I’ve been an aquanaut and a deep submersible pilot. I helped found the American Academy of Underwater Sciences and contributed to their standards, I served on the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society's panel on Research Diving Safety, and was also a member of the National Science Foundation panel on Shipboard Diving Safety. I’ve been invited to provide testimony before a number of governmental committees. I'm now semi-retired and work as a consulting taxonomist for a photo agency that represents twenty or so of the top nature (including underwater) photographers in the world. I continue my interests in underwater science, I teach a few private programs each and write. I am currently working on a book addressing research diver training from both an historical and practical perspective.
__________________ “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” Thomas Jefferson Last edited by Thalassamania; July 3rd, 2006 at 07:00 PM. |
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May 22nd, 2006, 11:24 PM
| #2 (permalink) |
| Moderator  Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Fleet, Hants
Posts: 1,994
  | Welcome aboard. Sounds like you have a had a long and varied career in the underwater world. Someone else I can ask questions of.... 
__________________ Gareth Images of Life Photography DIR Team Foxturd Travels Underwater and Further Afar If you don't have the time to do something right, where are you going to find the time to fix it? - Stephen King |
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May 22nd, 2006, 11:54 PM
| #3 (permalink) |
| New Member  Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Seattle
Posts: 623
| Glad to see you show up here. There have been some wonderful and extremely enlightening discussions on this board between the DIR folks and some educated and experienced people of different ideas. I'm sure you'll be involved in some more! |
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May 23rd, 2006, 12:13 AM
| #4 (permalink) |
| New Member Join Date: May 2006 Location: Most Oceans and Seas
Posts: 66
| I sincerely hope so. What we've done for many years in the research community (which I'll usually call the SDC or Scientific Diving Community) is very different than the practices of the recreational community (which I'll usually call RecCom). I think that you'll find much overlap. Keep it simple, uniformity of gear and practice, lots of drill, etc. I hope that a comparison of the differences will help us all to do better each time we dive.
__________________ “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” Thomas Jefferson |
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May 23rd, 2006, 01:40 AM
| #6 (permalink) |
| New Member Join Date: May 2006 Location: Most Oceans and Seas
Posts: 66
| Quote: (Originally Posted by neilh) Welcome to the board - I'm sure you'll have plenty to contribute given your experience! That just makes me harder headed and more of a pain in the rear, I fear.
__________________ “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” Thomas Jefferson |
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