As well as my role in the Technical Diving Division I, along with a team of Regional Training Consultants in each PADI Regional Headquarters, can help you with all of your training queries.
So sometimes my office is here:
And sometimes it is here:
So what happens when we receive your phone call or question?
First of all, although my memory for PADI standards is pretty good, I always check the reference materials. The relevant instructor guide, Training Bulletins, Guide to Teaching etc.
Just a few weeks ago, one of my colleagues from another office asked me a tec question. Due to the time difference, I wasn’t in the office so didn’t have the instructor guide. I told him what I could remember about previous discussions and what I thought the outcome had been, but that I didn’t have the instructor guide so wasn’t sure. I was completely wrong!!! So it happens to us too!
A lot of the time the PADI member enquiring is actually saying “I think this is ok, but I just want to check”. Isn’t that great! I love phone calls like that because it shows that someone cares enough to make absolutely sure and isn’t afraid that they might be wrong.
Of course, sometimes we haven’t heard the question before. This is more common when we introduce new courses. In these cases, we may need to refer the question to our colleagues. This ensures that you get the right answer as well as that the whole global team supporting our members knows the answer in case it comes up again.
Helping PADI members when they have a question is one of the things we most enjoy. As well as answering individual questions by email or phone we also love to be proactive. We do this via lot of media, webinars, Training Bulletin Live for example, are one of the most popular, as well as training tools here or on the Pros site.
Aha, so I’m finally getting to the point, I hear you saying to yourself (What? You don’t talk to yourself? I don’t believe you!)
Yes, we have a new document in the Instructor Toolbox (and on the Pros site under Training Essentials/TecRec – check it out!
https://tecrec.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/rebreather-diving-and-supervision-requirements-faqs.pdf
A big thank you to Michael Richardson, one of our Regional Training Consultants in the PADI Americas office, for leading the way with this one.
Michael is a PADI Course Director, TecRec Instructor and new member of the Technical Diving Division. In fact, we have a few new members of the Technical Diving Division who we’ll introduce properly in the coming weeks …..
TecRec Blog 