Национальная Ассоциация Подводных Инструкторов (NAUI): История и Стандарты Обучения Дайвингу

Non profit training and certification agency association of scuba instructors

The National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI Worldwide) is a nonprofit association of scuba instructors. It primarily serves as a recreational dive certification and membership organization established to provide international diver standards and education programs. The agency was founded in 1960 by Albert Tillman and Neal Hess. NAUI is headquartered in the Tampa, Florida area with dive and member instructors, resorts, stores, service and training centers located around the world.

It was officially CE and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) certified in May 2007 in all three diver levels and both instructor levels. It was re certified for its scuba diving programs as meeting ISO and European Underwater Federation standards on November 24, 2015. Agency standards, policies, and ethics are governed by the Association's Board of Directors, who are members themselves and who are each elected through a democratic election process by the overall instructor membership.

After Jacques Yves Cousteau introduced the Aqua Lung to the market, there followed a growing interest in scuba diving by the public and a subsequent need to codify the training. In 1951, Jim Auxie Jr and Chuck Blakeslee started a magazine called The Skin Diver (later renamed Skin Diver Magazine). Two year dive teacher Neal Earl Hess contributed to its "The Instructors Corner" column to inform readers about scuba. It was the world's first civilian training program to certify recreational divers and soon began granting Provisional Certification to instructors across the country. In the May 1960 issue of Skin Diver Magazine, the creation of The National Diving Patrol was announced as an official, national organization. Its purpose and function was "to insure competent underwater instruction and to reduce diving accidents through education." In 1959, the name was changed to the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI). It was held at the Shamrock Hotel in Houston, Texas on August 22–26. A year later, the second NAUI ICC was held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, under the direction of Ben Davis. was held in 1969 at Santa Ana College, where it served as a venue for NAUI members from all over could meet and exchange ideas. It was also used as a forum to present information on diving skills and safety, teaching, diving physiology, physics, and other diving and marine sciences. Soon, NAUI membership began to expand internationally, with an ICC being held in Japan in 1970 and NAUI Canada being organized as a separate corporation in 1972. NAUI instructors certified more than 40,000 entry level scuba divers in 1970 alone; 1979 was a year with over 5,000 newly certified NAUI scuba instructors. By the time 1989 came around, over 12,000 NAUI instructors were certified. NAUI Worldwide had established a network of 20 service centers in 1998. and included Board of Directors members from Europe and Asia for the first time. On January 20, 2015, the Ohio Board of Pharmacy amended Code 4729 21 06: Sales of medical oxygen to scuba divers. The code authorized individuals who completed courses from NAUI to purchase and possess medical oxygen for the purpose of emergency care or treatment at the scene of a diving emergency. In November 2015, NAUI released a series of announcements during the 2015 DEMA Show in Orlando, Florida. Its first podcast series, the "Dive Team Report", released once per week. The podcast was designed to inform the general public and divers on trends and issues affecting the sport of diving. The first full episode aired on November 12, 2015. A series of other announcements included its new marketing campaign "The Definition of Diving", its demo version of its new website interface (version 1.0), and its alliance with the Divers Alert Network and Performance Freediving International. For the first time, NAUI and DAN came together to offer DAN's first aid programs to NAUI divers and members. NAUI established and incorporated the co branded DAN NAUI first aid courses into their curricula.

In 2010, NAUI Worldwide formed the NAUI Green Diver Initiative (GDI). GDI was implemented to "empower individuals to preserve and conserve the ocean planet with the common goal of taking action to protect the environment." With stagnant progress, it was not until July 2015 that NAUI renewed its commitment to the Initiative, unveiling its first manager, Sam Richardson, who entered the full time position with over 10 years of non profit experience. GDI remained a U. S. registered 501 (c) (3) non profit that relied on the support of donors to fulfill its mission.

In the United States, US Navy SEALs, Coast Guard rescue divers, and other special military forces are trained to NAUI standards as part of their overall training with open and closed circuit rebreathers; National Park Service and NOAA divers receive NAUI training and certifications. Aqualung inventor Captain Jacques Yves Cousteau was on the original Board of Advisers of NAUI, as was Albert R. Behnke, a pioneer of diving medicine. Actor Lloyd Bridges was the first honorary NAUI instructor member. He played frogman "Mike Nelson" in the American television series Sea Hunt, which popularized scuba diving as a recreational sport. Zale Parry played the female role, and she formally instructed Lloyd Bridges on how to dive for the part. She was a research diver starring in the television's first underwater documentary series, Kingdom of the Sea, in 1954. She made a record setting 209 foot dive that same year, distinguishing women as skilled divers.

NAUI has numerous corporate alliances with organizations, such as Walt Disney World Resort, The Florida Aquarium, NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, and the Fire Department of New York. Many of the first generation of diving safety officers of the top universities, colleges and institutes of technology in the United States were NAUI members and made significant contributions to NAUI's programs, including: Lee Somers University of Michigan, James Stewart Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Richard Bell University of California, Davis, Henry Viex United States Military Academy, Lloyd Austin University of California, Berkeley, Mark Flahan California State University, San Diego, Phillip Sharkey University of Rhode Island, Ronnie D'Amico California State University, Long Beach, Walt Hendricks, Sr. University of Puerto Rico, Glen Egstrom University of California, Los Angeles, and John Heine Moss Landing Marine Laboratories. These institutions, and others, belong to the American Academy of Underwater Sciences, and while their training programs greatly exceed minimum NAUI requirements, certifications in their scientific diving training programs are often arranged through NAUI. Many governmental agencies in the United States do the same, including the US Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, and NASA. and it began including its education systems to all mainline certification courses, listed below.

NAUI's rescue certification course was first proposed and made available to members in 1981 to provide an alternative to the Red Cross training, which was previously required for leadership candidates in NAUI courses. NAUI's technical diving program requires special training, equipment, and qualified support teams. In 1997, the NAUI Technical Diving Division was created. NAUI formed a Technical Training Advisory Board and Rebreather Advisory Board, to assist in the development of technical diving standards and training.

The reduced gradient bubble model is an iterative approach to staging diver ascents. It employs a dual phase approach with separated phase volumes as limit points, along with critical tensions across tissue compartments. It was developed by Dr. Bruce Wienke in 1988 at Los Alamos National Laboratories. He published the model in 1992. The algorithm is now incorporated into many dive computers and advanced dive planning software. Today it enhances the safety of serious deep and technical divers. NAUI's RGBM decompression tables were developed in 1997 exclusively for NAUI by Dr. Bruce Wienke and Tim O'Leary. NAUI began publishing the only decompression manual with a full set of RGBM tables in 2000 for air, nitrox and trimix for both open and closed circuit diving. Recreational RGBM no calculation tables were published in 2001 exclusively for NAUI for sea level through 10,000 feet, no stop diving.

The Chinese Underwater Association (CUA), in conjunction with the China Water Sports Administration (CWSA), officially legitimized NAUI to provide translated diver training materials and diver training in the People's Republic of China. The Malaysian Sport Diving Association (MSDA)] officially adopted NAUI standards for use in their diver training in Malaysia. NAUI is the diver training organization of choice of NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas (USA). a worldwide customer service program that allows instructors to refer their students for certification dives with either NAUI or other diver training agencies. The URP was developed in 1998 through the cooperative efforts of IDEA, NASDS, NAUI, PDIC, SSI, and YMCA. PADI Instructors and facilities can also receive students and be registered as referral instructors and locations under the URP.