Tom Ingram—An Interview With DEMA’s Director Text by Rosemary E Lunn. Photos courtesy of Tom Ingram, Cathy Church, Dan Orr, Alese Pechter, Barb Roy and Peter Symes The month of November sees were presented with a little green Sharkskin long sleeve jacket some the return of the international paper card that said we were divers, years later. but the course itself was pretty basic, Living in South Florida, a lot of our dive industry trade convention, involving mostly “self-study,” a couple early diving was done in some of the DEMA Show, to Orlando, of short pool sessions and diving off the local flooded limestone quarries, Florida, USA. In a peek-behind- Miami Beach and in a rock quarry. sink holes and marl pits nearby our the-scenes conversation with The self-study itself was pretty short house (complete with gators, snakes, too—the book we studied was a thin and the occasional sunken car or Tom Ingram, Executive Director green how-to guide called Skin and other debris), off the beach in Fort of DEMA (Diving Equipment Scuba Diving. This was new at the Lauderdale and Dania (I saw my first and Marketing Association), time, and as I recall, featured a lot of shark there), and of course, in the Rosemary Lunn’s interview Nemrod brand equipment. We also Florida Keys. used the first edition of the U.S. Diver’s We dove with several operators out reveals an engaged, enthusi- publication, Let’s Go Diving. of Key Largo. Later, when we could astic diver who is passionate Sometime after receiving our “cer- get a ride, we made the three hour about our industry and the tifications,” we also discovered an trek to Big Pine Key, where we would early edition of The New Science of rent a 13-foot open Boston Whaler business of diving. Skin and Scuba Diving—a much more with an outboard and motor. We comprehensive book. After reading would take it out to Looe Key Reef, RL: Where did you learn to dive? that one, we found out how much seven miles away from the marina we really didn’t know! and what seemed like out in the mid- TI: I was born in Florida, and grew up We bought equipment with our dle of the ocean. Boy, did we get in Miami. I was fortunate enough to life savings (several hundred dollars sunburned! have an older brother who became judiciously saved after mowing neigh- Eventually we bought a 1965 VW a ready-made and long-time dive borhood lawns and doing household bug, folded down the back seat, buddy. chores). I cannot tell you how proud I filled the back to the brim with four We got started in diving because was of my Mistral single-stage double- scuba tanks and dive gear for two, my Dad was the manager of a hose regulator and how long it took and started driving to Key Largo and Woolworth store on Miami Beach, until I could finally afford a Mae-West points south almost every weekend. and Woolworth’s actually sold dive style vest. By far, one of my happiest moments equipment! As a result, Dad was con- Eventually, I purchased a 1969 in those early days of middle and nected to a local dive store, and we model Calypso single hose regulator, high school was buying a camera got “trained” to dive by one of the the last of the diaphragm first stage and underwater housing. Looking instructors there. versions of that model. Later, I finally back, that first set up wasn’t much— In 1965, I was all of 11 and “certifi- bought a tank pressure gauge and an Instamatic Camera and a hous- cation,” as such, was “kind of option- a capillary depth gauge. Luckily, in ing that allowed the use of “flash al” for most divers and operators. At South Florida, wetsuits weren’t critical, cubes”—but it took pictures and it the completion of the “course”, we but I eventually did buy a Parkway was fun. I even took second place in PETER SYMES 56 X-RAY MAG : 57 : 2013 EDITORIAL FEATURES TRAVEL NEWS WRECKS EQUIPMENT BOOKS SCIENCE & ECOLOGY TECH EDUCATION PROFILES PHOTO & VIDEO PORTFOLIO Tom Ingram Tom Ingram at Trinity diving the Caves, Cayman Islands Cayman (right); Reflection, by Tom profile Islands Ingram, 1985 (below) Ingram Dave Reidenbach American “English” refers to a six-pas- ing, using nitrox and attended—in fact, senger dive boat. I spent a lot of time heliox (heresy in the this is where Dave as a student doing weekend work as a early 1980s), rebreath- and I first met. divemaster and dive guide aboard those ers, and I operated Over the years, I smaller boats in West Palm Beach, Florida the university’s rec- was fortunate to work and other places, too, and spent some ompression chamber in retail, divemaster- time on bigger boats as well. both as an inside ing with six-pack and tender and outside larger charter dive RL: What type of diver are you? operator. operations, early I had access to an liveaboard boats, TI: I was involved with university dive pro- education in com- manufacturing, and grams beginning in the late 1970s through mercial diving at of course dive instruc- the early 1990s—first as an equipment Florida Institute of tion in stores and later repair technician and teaching assistant Technology, so I went in universities. and much later as Department Chair. through the commer- During that time, I tried (and taught) most cial diving program RL: “Divemastering everything, from open water to wreck div- there, diving in nearly with six-pack”— care to explain this in “English”, Tom? I don’t think you really said, “I went diving with six cans of beer.” TI: Well, there was, most certainly, beer… but a six-pack in CATHY CHURCH a school photo contest with a picture of a reef that was published in the school yearbook, using just that point-and-shoot CATHY CHURCH system. every commer- we regularly participated in deep and After diving for five or six years using cial rig one can extended decompression diving in those that little green “certification” card, my imagine. I spent days, and we had our fair share of sneak- brother and I decided to take a real weeks at a time ing into dive sites that were (at least scuba course from the local YMCA. The in the Mark V theoretically) off-limits to most. We were green card was becoming more prob- helmet diving in involved in shark feeding and diving long lematic, as stores and dive operators zero viz, in har- before the advent of chain-mail suits, started checking cards on a regular basis bors and the like. and before it became a commercially before we could get air or get on the I also dived the viable enterprise. boat. The YMCA course was pretty com- Superlite 17 for a I was a geologist working in the mining plete, lasting about six weeks. variety of tasks industry before teaching at the universi- Eventually, I found myself becoming an and used other ties, and one of my favorite places to “advanced” diver, a PADI Divemaster in surface sup- dive was in the caves of northern Florida. 1974, a NAUI Assistant Instructor in 1974, plied equipment, As an undergraduate at the University of and a NAUI and PADI Instructor in 1976, which were state Florida in Gainesville, I even did my senior as well as a NAUI Instructor Trainer in 1983 of the art at the thesis based on the geology and make- and a PADI Course Director in 1988. This time. up of the caves and springs and taught was the same program that “Big Wave” As instructors, diving there to put myself through school. Ingram preparing for a dive in the mid-1980s 57 X-RAY MAG : 57 : 2013 EDITORIAL FEATURES TRAVEL NEWS WRECKS EQUIPMENT BOOKS SCIENCE & ECOLOGY TECH EDUCATION PROFILES PHOTO & VIDEO PORTFOLIO Tom Ingram shark diving in the Neptune Islands, South Australia (left); Tom Ingram’s images of the great white sharks of the profile Neptune Islands (below) Ingram for Scubapro for years, and when I left in 2000, the company made one of these for me (which, unfortunately was not made from the original orange material… but the design and fit were perfect). Along the way, I have always loved my extra-large Scubapro Jet fins and my Apeks and Scubapro regulators, too. With the difficulties today of travelling with our favorite pieces of equipment, I have come to love my little (and highly transportable) GoPro video camera with twin Sola 1200 video lights. I have always had a passion for underwater photog- raphy, and while I love my Sea and Sea housing and Canon DSLR, GoPro camer- as are just fun. Video (even as elemen- tary as GoPro video) is still pretty new to me, but I enjoy it. RL: Favourite dive site? TI: I’ll always answer this question the same way; it depends on what I am looking to do. I love the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands and Hawaii for the warm While teaching, we had our fair share ence was teaching commercial div- and I consider myself water, sea life and clar- of dives in the muck of the Indian River ing applications in ‘dirty water’, and I fairly flexible with ity. San Diego has great and in unexplored sinkholes around became pretty good at that. I also pho- regard to how and wrecks and kelp and Florida. I was involved in sinking some of tographed my share of catalogs and ads where the dive is con- the Channel Islands in the artificial reefs/wrecks in the Martin and even had the opportunity to shoot ducted.