History of NAUI Will Never Be Truly Complete Because NAUI Instructors and Divers Are Adding New Chapters Every Day
The History of The National Association of Underwater Instructors by Albert A. Tillman (NAUI #1) and Thomas T. Tillman Interviews by Zale Parry and Albert A. Tillman Editing by John Oakes, Linda Kinney-McNulty, and Mike Williams Special thanks to Tom Hemphill, Bill High, Zale Parry, Ed Cargile, Ben Davis, Garry Howland, Jeanne Sleeper, Cluck Blakeslee, and Jim Auxier for their time. Special thanks to Scuba America for interview transcripts of Larry Cushman, Glen Egstrom, Jon Hardy, Jerry Dzindzeleta, John Jones Jr., John Englander, Joseph Bodner, Andy Rechnitzer, Ralph Erickson, Donnie Weeks, Walt Hendrick, Donnie Weeks, Walt O’Neill, Joseph Libby Jr., Jeanne Sleeper, Art Ullrich, Ed Cargile, Ben Davis, Garry Howland, and Jim Auxier Photographs provided by NAUI, Scuba America archives, Zale Parry, Al Tillman, and John Oakes. Introduction Those that undertook the challenge were more like walruses than Homo sapiens. The first men and women who made the underwater world their play or work area all but had gills hidden under their collars. Diving had existed as a tool of necessity since at least the time of Alexander the Great in 332 BC, but the true Golden Era of diving occurred in a young sports-oriented United States toward the middle of the twentieth century. Hearty pioneers ventured into the sea with all types of makeshift equipment. With shingles for fins and coffee cans for masks, not even science fiction writers would dare to suggest some of the ideas that these pioneers constructed. The turning point in this age of imagination came from two men, Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Emile Gagnon, and a small device they constructed called the Aqua-Lung¨.
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