Technical diving has evolved into a significant part of the recreational diving business; many believe it is the savior of the scuba industry. Equipment manufacturers’ find "high tech" diving to be a major profit center. However, technical diving is not just about equipment; it requires a high level of training and discipline, and a substantial investment in personal preparation plus equipment. Before taking the leap into technical diving as an instructor or dive center we should explore what is involved in technical dive training.

A technical dive is a self-contained untethered dive in which the diver switches a breathing gas during the dive. It usually involves the diver in using a "bottom mix" followed by one or two intermediate decompression mixes of enriched air and oxygen. These types of dives are typically beyond the no-stop time limits of air or enriched air diving tables; they may involve overhead environments such as wrecks, caves, or use of a rebreather. Whenever the diver does not have a direct ascent option to the surface, the dive becomes inherently more dangerous. NAUI defines a category of recreational technical diving for purposes of diving instruction and insurance as diving that is not commercial and that meets any of the following conditions: Depths beyond 130 fsw (40 msw), enriched air mixtures with oxygen fractions greater than 41%, or any other non-air mix (trimix), or planned decompression.

A few things come into play when conducting technical training dives an instructor needs to address long before she decides she wants to be in the technical education business. Let us look at some facts surrounding technical diving training.

Most dive operations are not set up to support technical diving operations; they do not have the personnel, hardware, gas mixing capabilities or boat crews. This makes choices for a proper technical dive training platform limited. Those that are set up for technical training operations will typically cost more than a standard charter fee — and rightfully so. A single tank scuba diver takes up one boat spot, but a technical diver takes up 2.5 spots. Technical trips are usually twice as long as a regular charter is; the result is limited access.

Technical diving has enjoyed a good safety record, which is to say diving incidents share a smaller piece of the pie than nontechnical dives. However, technical diving accidents usually get scrutinized more because they involved more risk. The potential for training accidents is much greater than in most other types of specialty training. This is a real concern for instructors.

Equipment plays a significant role in technical diving. It is merely not enough to have a personal diving rig and a stage bottle or two. The technical diving instructor needs to be fully familiar with all the gear available, own the best possible personal gear and have a full set of back ups. When students make the commitment to learn technical diving, the instructor cannot afford to have a dive washed out because a piece of their equipment went bad during set up. The instructor needs to be able to make the dives happen with appropriate backup gear. The time and boat fees just cost too much to waste.

Money is a big issue. The technical instructor and technical facility need to make significant investments before and during the whole teaching process. This includes training, multiple sets of gear, back ups, oxygen analyzers, cylinders, compressors and gas boosters. Most of this investment will be amortized, but it is still significant and must be factored into the finances of this endeavor.

Motivation
An instructor needs to assess a diver’s motivation for wanting to pursue technical diving. Is it for a specific reason, or is just to be fashionable? There are many levels of technical training that a diver can work toward, and the high end extreme technical diving may not be what that client is looking for. She may want to just go a little deeper, or stay a little longer. Then there is the diver who has aspirations for extreme types of dives. The instructor needs to identify what types of technical diving they feel competent and confident to teach. The instructor also needs to identify their own motivation for wanting to teach technical diving. Are students and customers asking for it or is there another reason? Have they suffered "instructor burn out" and need a new venue to explore? Do they think there is significant money to be earned in technical training? These are some questions that need to be asked and answered before jumping in.

We are ten years into technical diving, not a very long time, but long enough to have seen enough instructors try their hand at it. I asked Billy Deans, (the Grand Daddy of tech training) what he likes to see in an instructor, he said; "I like an instructor who has done a lot of basic scuba teaching first; maybe two to three-hundred students, and has done a significant amount of personal technical diving too, then I feel their motivation may be healthy." When asked why he replied; "Most of technical diving is good basic scuba skills with the ability to cope under extreme pressure. A scuba instructor who has trained many divers within the past few years understands organization and watching the little things. That will keep him on his toes. It also tells me the instructor is not trying to climb to the top of the instructional ladder without paying their dues."

When a diver decides they want to learn a specialty they have two choices; learn it on their own through trial and error over a long and possibly dangerous road or they enroll in a specific training program. What an instructor’s technical background is and where they obtained it is critical to being a successful technical instructor. "Instructors who stay in the loop with technology believe it makes them better instructors." says Billy Deans, "But they need to do more than just a few dives and fill out a specialty instructor application. They need to get out there and hang out, train with, and dive with the people who do this all the time," he adds. An instructor who has a desire to teach technical programs needs to get some more training in how to conduct these programs. They need to learn how they are done within standards and how to reduce the risks to themselves, staff and students. Just as we promote continuing education for our students instructors need to heed that advice too. "Too many people want to teach tech but will not take the time to learn how to do it correctly. The ones who do take that time will have much better success at it than those who don’t.", said Deans.

NAUI Technical Operations has approximately twenty highly skilled Technical Workshop Directors (TDW) who train instructors how to teach all of the NAUI technical courses. Candidates will work with a TWD for an entire course where they are introduced to the materials and tools used to teach technical diving students. Instructors are shown how to teach the various programs and are evaluated on presentations, watermanship, organizational skills, counseling, and academics. Most instructors who have attended Technical Workshops have found that they are more confident of their ability to go out and teach a program than they would have been had they just attempted it on their own. Lee Livingston, a NAUI instructor from New England who had a significant amount of technical diving experience said; "Sure I could have taught a technical course with maybe one or two students on my own, but the techniques I learned in the technical workshop instructor training with a full group, in real life situations made all the difference in how I now approach technical instruction. It was well worth it."

How Much Can I Make Teaching this Stuff ?
The answer is, it depends on how you are set up and what you charge. "We price our technical programs competitively, but high enough that we can pay our instructors well and make a fair profit." said Course Director Capt. Kathy Weydig.

Before pricing the course examine the specific direct costs incurred. The worksheet (figure 1) illustrates suggested costs for an independent instructor and has been based on a class size of six Technical Enriched Air students, and assumes they have completed the NAUI Enriched Air Diver course. When pricing look at the required hours for academic work, how many required dives, costs for certification cards, books, tables, materials, contingencies, amortization, instructor fees, and profit. Some courses may be combined to share certain expenses but costs like, instructor fees (make sure you pay yourself first,) books, certification cards, boat fees, gas costs all need to be looked at very carefully. Forgetting to budget even the smallest item will wipe out any possible profit if you are not careful.

It is important when pricing the course that the instructor surveys the local marketplace for equivalent courses, not just equivalent course titles, there are significant differences from agency to agency. Look over the competitors course materials and requirements, (you can find a lot of this on the Internet) in short know exactly what your competitor is selling. Keep your course competitively priced, but make sure you profit from it too. Too many technical instructors price courses too low and ultimately are unhappy. Price it right for the quality you sell and in the end everyone wins. "Technical diving courses cannot be priced cheaply, they involve a lot of risk, a lot of equipment and a lot of time." added Billy Deans.

But I Want To Do It
While technical diving instruction seems, to some, to be the next level of accomplishment take some time to examine and explore the reasons why you want to expand into this highly specialized area. It is not safer than no-stop enriched air diving, although it has significant rewards and can be done with minimized risk. If this is what you want to do be prepared to do it right and take no shortcuts. Make sure that your motivations are in the right direction, then get some training for the particular programs you want to teach, next team teach it, don’t go it alone. Many of the top technical trainers will travel to your location and work with you and your clients; this approach makes getting into the technical diving business a little easier for many. Make sure you continue to teach your regular training programs, that keep the business running while you learn this very special area of diving.

A technical diving arm of your operation requires an appropriate student based with good skills. Continue to develop that base from students who have completed the NAUI Enriched Air, Rescue and Master Diver programs, these are essential stepping stones to a good technical diver. Most importantly is to keep the "high tech" out of your general scuba courses, while it may be attractive to some, to many it’s just too much work. If technical diving education is where you want to be, take the time to do it right, in the long run it pays off.

Joel D. Silverstein is a Technical Workshop Director, and has been involved in the development of technical diving procedures and training for almost a decade. Projects include the NAUI Enriched Air Diving program and the NOAA Mixed Gas Diving manual section.