How the training agencies began.

At a glance

Each date is the organisation's own account unless another source is named. Where sources differ, the versions are explained further down. What each agency offers today is covered on training agencies.

Before the agencies

NAUI's heritage page says Jim Auxier Jr. and Chuck Blakeslee launched The Skin Diver magazine in 1951, and that a column there by Neal Hess, called "Instructors Corner", led to Hess certifying instructors. The magazine later gave NAUI office space.

The first civilian course to certify recreational divers, as Wikipedia describes it, was run by Los Angeles County. NAUI's heritage page credits Al Tillman and Bev Morgan with this instructor certification course and calls it the first civilian diver training agency course. Its year is disputed. NAUI and Wikipedia say 1955. A search summary of the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame's profile of Al Tillman says he and Morgan founded the programme in 1954. We could not open that page to confirm the 1954 date.

The YMCA programme

SCUBA Educators International, the successor to the YMCA's scuba programme, says that in 1954 experts from the YMCA, the Red Cross and the National Academy of Sciences urged the Council for National Cooperation in Aquatics to look at diving safety. Bernard E. Empleton directed a test course in the winter of 1954 to 1955, and his material was published in 1957 as The Science of Skin and Scuba Diving. The YMCA began certifying scuba instructors in 1959, which SCUBA Educators International calls the first nationally organised course in the field.

Whether that was a "first" depends on the wording. NAUI's heritage page points out that the Los Angeles County course came before the YMCA's 1959 national programme, so the YMCA claim rests on the word "nationally". SCUBA Educators International says CMAS granted equivalency to YMCA instructors and divers in early 1980, and that YMCA SCUBA became an active member of the US Recreational Scuba Training Council when entry-level standards were approved on 1 September 1986. The YMCA of the USA announced in 2008 that it would end the programme, and Tom Leaird then led the creation of SCUBA Educators International.

Britain, France and the world federation

BSAC's milestones page says Oscar Gugen and Peter Small founded the British Sub-Aqua Club at the Waldorf Hotel, London, on 15 October 1953. Its 70th-anniversary article (posted 3 October 2023) adds that both founders were members of the Royal Air Force Sub-Aqua Club, and that BSAC introduced its first novice diving course in the 1950s. BSAC's own accounts of the first meeting differ: the milestones page says 100 divers attended, while the anniversary article says 22 enthusiasts formed the first branch. The two figures may count different things.

In France, Wikipedia says the federation now called FFESSM began in 1948 under a longer name, the Federation des societes de peche a la nage et d'etudes sous-marines, and took its current name in 1955 after several changes. FFESSM's own statutes, seen only as a search summary, give 1955 as the founding year. What happened in 1955 is described two ways: English Wikipedia calls it a renaming to avoid confusion with a rival federation, while a French history blog, seen as a search summary, describes a merger with the Federation francaise des activites sous-marines. We could not confirm the merger account.

Wikipedia says CMAS, the world underwater federation, grew out of a Brussels congress on 28 September 1958 at which 10 federations agreed to create it, and was founded at a meeting in Monaco on 9 to 11 January 1959. Its predecessor, the Underwater Sports Committee of the Confederation Internationale de la Peche Sportive (CIPS), dated from 1952; a search summary of Wikipedia gives 22 February 1952. Wikipedia names Jacques-Yves Cousteau as the first president, and BSAC says it was a founding member.

NAUI, PADI and SSI

NAUI's heritage page says the National Diving Patrol was renamed the National Association of Underwater Instructors in 1959, and that its first major Instructor Certification Course was held in Houston, Texas in 1960. A NOAA document also dates NAUI's first instructor programme to 1960; a search summary of NAUI's history gives the month as August, which we could not confirm. The founding year is stated more than one way. Wikipedia gives 1959 as the founding date and 1960 as the formation date, while a NAUI press release, seen only as a search summary, says NAUI incorporated in California in 1960 as a not-for-profit educational association.

PADI's history page says John Cronin and Ralph Erickson founded PADI in 1966 after meeting at Erickson's apartment in Morton Grove, Illinois. Wikipedia says Cronin had been a NAUI instructor and wanted modular courses rather than a single universal course. PADI says it introduced its first advanced and speciality programmes in 1967, moved to California in 1970 and launched its Open Water Diver certification in 1972.

SSI says it was established in 1970. Wikipedia names Robert (Bob) Clark as founder, along with Ed Brawley, Jim Brown, Chuck Nicklin and Bud Smith, and says SSI merged with the National Association of Scuba Diving Schools in 1999.

The agencies began to coordinate in the 1980s. Wikipedia says the US Recreational Scuba Training Council was created in 1986 as a permanent body linking training organisations, and the World Recreational Scuba Training Council says it was founded in 1999 to develop worldwide minimum training standards.

Nitrox, technical and rebreather agencies

Wikipedia says Dick Rutkowski, who had retired from NOAA in 1985, formed the International Association of Nitrox Divers (IAND) that year to teach nitrox to recreational divers. It became the International Association of Nitrox and Technical Divers (IANTD) in 1992 according to most sources, or 1991 according to a Diving Almanac entry seen as a search summary. Wikipedia says Tom Mount joined Rutkowski in 1991 and became IANTD's president in 1992, and that the European Association of Technical Divers, formed in the UK in 1992 by Kevin Gurr, Richard Bull and Rob Palmer, merged into IANTD the following year. The story of that period is on nitrox comes to recreational diving.

TDI's founding is told three ways. TDI's own story page and its profile of Bret Gilliam say 1994, with SDI following in 1998 as its sport diving division after TDI instructors asked for an entry-level programme. Wikipedia gives 1993, and Divernet dates the parent company, International Training Inc, to 1992.

InDepth, GUE's own magazine, says Jarrod Jablonski launched Global Underwater Explorers as a not-for-profit on 1 July 1998 with seven courses in cave, technical and rebreather diving. Wikipedia says RAID was founded in 2007 to train divers on one rebreather model, the Poseidon Mk VI Discovery, before adding other courses. The cave diving groups that came before all of these, from 1946 in Britain, are on cave and technical diving.