Posted by MHK on June 19, 2001 at 12:37:45:
In Reply to: Re: Renewing/recertifying posted by Jeff B on June 19, 2001 at 12:12:26:
Jeff,
It's gotta start somewhere with someone.. You are correct that the bigger agencies are fat and unwilling to change if they don't have to.. They've got good lawyers that have by-in-large shielded the agencies from liability..
So why change????
In what is somewhat of a rhetorical question, my answer would be because you are in the budiness of teaching diving and you should strive to excel at what you do, not just do as little as possible with the lawyer and the marketing department running the show..
As for more GUE instructors, I seriously doubt you'll see a panacea of GUE instructors.. Walker had been teaching for 15 years and it took him 2 years under JJ and Andrew G's watchful eye before he got signed off.. This isn't some one week PADI IDC followed up by the IE dog and pony show and away you go... JJ, by design, wants to keep it small with direct quality control.. He isn't interested in issuing 964,000 certification a year, he is interested is leading and teaching the highest quality instruction, not as little as his lawyer will let him...
It's a groundswell support and sooner or later the big and fat agencies will have no choice but to start swinging the pendulum back in the interest of safety not numbers.. The only real question is when???? The when is directly proportionate to the level of protest and/or feedback the big agencies receive.. If there was ever a reason to protest it's this ridiculously stupid PADI RecTec program and Karl Shreeve's assinine comments about N2 being better than He at 165'... Next year he'll be selling trimix and he'll distance himself from thses ridiculous comments and cite some *new* study or theory, when in reality PADI is pulling one of the buggest Ponzi's scheme's of all time with this RecTec stuff.. Everyone knows that PADI didn't get there insurance in order to roll out a full trimix program in time for DEMA, so they are selling you what they can today and then once they get their affairs in order they'll be right out there pimping trimix to the masses and completing ignoring all the BS that they are selling today, but hey, in the interim they'll meet there quota of 964,000 cert this year....
Think of all the PADI RecTec patches they will sell ;-)
Later