MAN & SEA hyperbaric medical operations. in 1999. His entrepreneurial successes He is considered to be one of the in the diving industry have made him a pioneers in diving, and led the multi-millionaire. The aggregate value industry’s evolution and growth of his companies when sold was in from 1971 into the new millennium. excess of USD80 million. He is currently Bret is one America’s most president of the consulting corporation, experienced deep divers and holds Ocean Tech. the world depth record for compressed Bret has also written over 1,500 air diving at 149 metres, set in 1993. articles and worked on 69 books on Since beginning diving in 1959, Bret diving, maritime operations, diving has logged over 19,000 dives around emergency medical procedures, the world. His background includes dive training manuals, photography, scientific expeditions, military and and others. He has won several commercial projects, operating awards in various fields. hyperbaric diving treatment medical Brett currently lives on an island facilities, liveaboard dive vessels and in Maine, travelling extensively on luxury yachts, retail dive stores and diving and maritime business, Caribbean resort operation and filming expeditions. He has a and ownership. custom-built motor yacht for wildlife Bret has founded and sold six photography projects and other corporations V.I. Divers Ltd, Ocean expedition filming usage, located in Quest International, AMF Yachting New England. Group, G2 Publishing Inc, DiveSafe Bret formed the Diving Legacy Insurance, and International Training Foundation in 2005, which makes Inc) since 1971. As vice president and generous financial grants and support CEO, he was instrumental in taking for ocean conservation, scholarships UWATEC public in a sale for USD44 for diving education, honorariums million to JWA in 1997 and sold his to diving pioneers, and funds publishing company (Scuba Timesand humanitarian aid projects in remote Deep Tech) to Petersen/E-Map regions of the developing world. THE SEA SPECIALIST: AN INTERVIEW WITH ABOVE Gilliam working with BRETAsian GILLIAMDiver a dolphin on a movie Interview by: production in 1979 Most people learn to crawl before they walk, but there is a RIGHT man who learned to swim before taking his first steps. Diver, Valerie Taylor and Gilliam entrepreneur, writer, athlete, maritime specialist – Bret Gilliam aboard a dive vessel in the Raja Ampat Islands, is the complete package. Just add water. Indonesia, 2018 FAR RIGHT Captain Bret Gilliam is a master of areas of professional diving, water Gilliam with his 2012 NOGI award alongside his many trades. With a career spanning sports, maritime and shipping, induction into the AUAS almost five decades in all the different underwater filming, and emergency Diving Hall of Fame 59 THE SEA SPECIALIST: AN INTERVIEW WITH BRET GILLIAM MAN & SEA Recently, Asian Diver was on my own in Florida when I was Association of Nitrox and fortunate enough to catch up six. In 1959 my father bought a Technical Divers (IANTD) with Bret, who graciously 25-metre motor yacht named with Mount and Rutkowski, shared his insight and Argo and moved the family but I exited in 1994 to found knowledge. The interview aboard and we were assigned Technical Diving International covered his personal and to Key West. He hated having (TDI) and it became the largest business history, the state of to move into a new house every certification agency of its kind the seas, and his current and two years or so when he got in the world. TDI just celebrated upcoming projects. transferred to a new naval its 25th Anniversary with a big station so the yacht made party at DEMA attended by over ASIAN DIVER: You’ve said perfect sense, but in that era a thousand guests. Quite a night! that your father worked closely it was very unusual to meet a ABOVE But I could see that the with the seas, and that his family that lived on a yacht. But Gilliam’s best-selling book on Deep Diving business model would work has sold over 100,000 copies in seven guidance was instrumental in in my little universe this was my languages to date since I always embraced new shaping your love for the water. reality and I loved our life. technology and innovations to Did you always see yourself That same year we watched equipment design and operational FAR LEFT LEFT as a water baby or is it the first episodes of Lloyd Bret doing Bret conducting protocols. Technical diving also something that was cultivated Bridges’s new TV series “Sea experimental deep the first international was a key platform to introduce diving as part of a training programme based on circumstances? Hunt” that brought scuba diving Navy team filming for Draeger electronic diving computers for into people’s homes for the first submarines for stealth rebreathers in 1994 increased efficiency and safety. BRET: I don’t think I really time. I was totally fascinated protocols in 1971 in at a TDI conference Computers had been resisted the Virgin Islands. in Nassau, Bahamas had a perspective since and my dad let me take diving Gilliam descended to by a lot of the “old school” I was so young when I started lessons and get certified at the 160 metres on heliox along with things like nitrox. snorkelling, diving, and running ripe old age of eight. How many This was primarily due to a lack boats. My father was a senior parents would do that? of understanding about how all naval officer and I was born By the age of 10, I had started not injured. My customers I had to hire a young naval deeper diving, cave and wreck this worked. at the U.S. Naval Academy. a fish collecting business and included several schools as officer to drive me around exploration, alternate breathing I authored several books I learned to swim before I could was selling my tropical fish well as the Key West Aquarium on the deliveries since I was gases, specialised equipment that covered these topics as walk and I was off snorkelling caught in traps so they were and the Miami Seaquarium. too young to operate a car. like rebreathers, proprietary well as other complicated Ironically, my dad let me decompression models, etc. diving subjects, techniques head out to sea in our Boston But for guys like me coming and procedures that fully Whaler by myself to do the from a background as a military, detailed things in everyday fish collections without any commercial and scientific/ language that divers could worries at all. He trained me saturation diver, I had already understand without a medical well in boating skills. His been completely immersed or scientific background. mentorship really charted the in such activities since 1971. My 1994 book Deep Diving: path on my career. With my Others like myself with similar An Advanced Guide To Physiology, diving experience and maritime backgrounds ended up stepping Procedures and Systems was background, I think it was forward and trying to guide really the first of its kind and inevitable and predictable that and mentor people from the became a best seller. It ultimately I went down that path. I sure sport diving groups so they sold over 100,000 copies in wasn’t going to end up as an had the right information and two editions in seven languages. insurance salesman! didn’t kill themselves! And, of course, all this new stuff Most of the other earlier became mainstream practice in ASIAN DIVER: How did you get leaders in technical diving spite of the uninformed critics. into technical diving, and what included Dick Rutkowski, about it made you pursue this Tom Mount, Billy Deans, niche for all these years? Sheck Exley, Jim Bowden, FAR LEFT LEFT Bret learned to swim Father, Cdr. Gill Rob Palmer, Lamar Hires before he could walk. Gilliam, and sons BRET: “Technical diving” was a and a handful of other Here, he practises his Chris and Bret term that started being used in innovators. I was one of the skills in 1953 aboard Argo at about age two in the in Key West, 1960 the very late 80s and applied to founders of the International Navy swimming pool 60 61 THE SEA SPECIALIST: AN INTERVIEW WITH BRET GILLIAM MAN & SEA ASIAN DIVER: You have been Silver Bank, the Arctic and ASIAN DIVER: Your company an entrepreneur since the age Antarctic and even deep Ocean Quest was the largest of 10! Could you share more submersible dives to over diving operation in the world. about your first profitable 914-metre depths. How did that start? business venture, and what When I sold the last of them made you delve into it? in 2005 the aggregate sales BRET: I was originally brought totalled right at USD80 million. in as a consultant to advise the BRET: My fish collecting So things worked out pretty group of investors on what they’d business was my start but it well from that modest need for a vessel, its dive boats, was small scale and I was a beginning. My instincts were itinerary, crewing, and all the kid. Later as an adult when good and I offered superior other details for a startup in I finished my work with an products combined with an such a specialised trade. I had to experimental Navy diving team excellent staff that embraced explain that their original ideas in 1971, I wanted to see if my attitude for gracious about just about everything were I could come up with a customer service. To me, it was inherently flawed. They wanted different sort of business just common sense. I’ve had to use too small a vessel, dive model for sport diving and three generations of customers launches that were too small, founded V.