Steven M. Barsky has been diving since 1965 and has worked in the scuba and commercial diving industries since 1968. He has been a diving instructor with NAUI, PADI, and SDI and has written 18 diving textbooks and numerous articles as well as having produced 9 underwater videos on a variety of diving topics. Steve works full-time in the diving industry and has consulted for diving companies from AquaLung through Zeagle Systems. He has written dry suit user manuals for DUI, Henderson, Gates, and Viking. Steve serves as an expert witness in diving accident litigation and has trained the U.S. Coast Guard in the techniques for investigating both recreational and commercial diving accidents.

Stephen Benavides is a Californian with over 40 years of local coastal piloting and diving experience. He is an extensively published free-lance nature writer, photographer, and certified research diver. He has been actively involved in California ocean conservation management for over 25 years. Steve holds a statewide political appointment to the Recreational Abalone Advisory Committee and serves on the MLPA Initiatives South Coast MLPA Regional Stakeholder Group representing scuba diving interests.

In 2007, Steve received the prestigious California Scuba Service Award from the St. Brendan Corporation (Parent Corporation of California Diving News and the SCUBA Show) for positive long-term contributions to the California diving community.

Jeffrey Bozanic is active in teaching cave diving, rebreather, nitrox, and trimix courses. He publishes extensively on diving education topics, with heavy emphasis on rebreathers. He authored the recently published 2nd Edition of Mastering Rebreathers. Jeff has traveled extensively throughout the world, conducting scientific diving in many disciplines. He as received the NAUI Outstanding and Continuing Service Awards; the Silver Wakulla, Abe Davis, Henry Nicholson, and International Cave Diving Awards for safe cave diving; The SSI Platinum Pro 5000 Award, and is a NAUI Hall of Honor inductee. In 2007 he was honored as the DAN/Rolex Diver of the Year.

Jack and Sue Drafahl are a husband and wife team who has devoted their lives to both pursuing and teaching concepts of underwater photography. Their articles have appeared in Skin Diver, Sport Diver, Diver, Dive Training, Petersen's Photographic, Rangefinder, and many more.

Jack and Sue started their professional photographic careers at Brooks Institute of Photography, Santa Barbara, California and Jack developed the school's Audio Visual Department. Both received their diving certification in the early '70s and are Platinum Pro 5000 divers. They were awarded Divers of the Year from Beneath the Sea in 1996, and are members of the International Accolade Foundation for their efforts to protect, manage, and educate the population about ocean and reef conservation. Sue is an inaugural member of the Women Divers Hall of Fame and is an Honorary Trustee.

Jack and Sue have been actively involved in digital imaging for over 20 years including serving as a Beta tester for Adobe, Kodak, Applied Science Fiction, Corel and more. In 2004, they founded the Oregon Coast Digital Center, an enhanced learning facility featuring in-depth Photoshop courses. In order to guarantee personalized instruction, class size is limited to four students. They recently released a DVD Tutorial series containing Basic and Advanced lectures on using Photoshop and Elements with underwater images.

Jack and Sue make their home on the Oregon coast but enjoy teaching photo seminars and leading digital diving trips worldwide. Jack and Sue have written several photography books including Master Guide for Underwater Digital Photography, Adobe Photoshop for Underwater Photographers, Digital Imaging for the Underwater Photographer, Photo Salvage, Step-by-step Basic Digital, Advanced Digital Camera Techniques and Plug-ins for Adobe Photoshop.

Peter DenHaan is a full time Scuba professional and has been training divers & instructors on rebreathers for the past 15 years starting with the Drager including the MK 15 series, Megalodon, KISS, Inspiration and Evolution. He's a Workshop Director for NAUI & NAUI Tec.

Peter has been involved in the development of training standards for Rebreather training to make Closed Circuit Rebreather diving saver. He travels throughout the US & Europe to conduct technical training for NAUI and Silent Diving. He is a NAUI Technical Workshop Director, an Instructor Trainer for TDI & IANTD and the National Sales Manager for Silent Diving Systems, the distributor for the Inspiration & Evolution rebreathers in North & South America.

Georgia Hausserman is a PADI Course Director

Karl Huggins has been the Director of the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber Facility at the USC Wrigley Marine Science Center since 1992. He is noted for his work in decompression theory and models, which resulted in the Michigan Sea Grant (HUGI) tables and his participation in the development of the EDGE dive computer. Karl is the 1990 recipient of the Leonard Greenstone Diving Safety Award, the DAN/Rolex Diver of the Year for 1993, the 2004 Conrad Limbaugh Memorial Award for Scientific Diving Leadership and the 2008 California Scuba Service Award

Lieutenant John Kades has been an investigator/deputy coroner for the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office for 10 years. He is a member of the department's Special Operations Response Team (SORT) that specializes in disaster operations, aircraft fatalities, weapons of mass destruction incidents, drowning/SCUBA cases, and skeletal/buried body cases. John has personally investigated most of the diving-related fatalities that have occurred in Los Angeles County in the past eight years. Prior to working for the coroner's office, he spent 14 years as a member of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Underwater Search and Recovery Team. John has been a certified diver since 1979.

Josh Kaye-Carr has been a diver since the age of eight and is a Park Ranger with the National Park Service posted to Channel Islands National Park, headquartered in Ventura, California. Along with his work as a National Park Service diver, Josh provides primary video, audio and photo support for the Channel Islands Live! interactive underwater and terrestrial video programs. Additionally, Josh is responsible for all the multimedia and audiovisual activities at Channel Islands National Park, providing support services to the Park's partners.

For 22 years prior, Josh was an independent media producer, founder and co-owner of Parrotfish Productions, specializing in nature/documentary filmmaking with an emphasis on underwater video, producing commercial, promotional, public service, and documentary programs. His clients included, American Oceans Campaign, The California Marine Mammal Center, the Marine Mammal Fund, Ocean Futures Society, The Nature Conservancy, NBC, Sony, the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, the Channel Islands National Park, and the U.S. Coast Guard.

Prior to his independent production work, Josh worked for the Northrop Corporation as their Senior Photographer, Audiovisual Writer/Director and Senior Videographer producing corporate and industrial video presentations and multi-media events. Josh also spent three years working as biological photographer at St. Joseph's Medical Center.

Kirk Krack is the founder of Performance Freediving International and considered the sport's most successful trainer, educator and innovator.

Ken Knezick is owner and President of Island Dreams Travel in Houston, Texas. He has logged more than 3,200 scuba dives and thousands of hours underwater, quite literally around the world. From the Caribbean to the Pacific, his travels include most of the world's great diving destinations. From 1983 through 2007, Ken served as executive director of Houston's SEASPACE Exposition. He is past president of Houston International Diver's Club, and is a founding member of both the Houston Underwater Photographic Society (HUPS), and G.R.E.A.T., the Gulf Reef Environmental Action Team. At DEMA 2003, Ken was honored with induction into the SSI Platinum Pro 5000 Society. At SEASPACE 2005, Ken was named recipient of the PADI Project Aware / SEASPACE Environmental Awareness Award. This prestigious prize recognizes individuals and organizations that are working to enhance understanding of the marine environment, and the importance of its protection. An accomplished underwater photographer, when not actually underwater, Ken enjoys writing short stories, travelogues, and presenting seminars and workshops at dive shows around the U.S.A.

Ken Kurtis was kicked out of swim class twice by the time he was six (he didn't like putting his face in the water). Hardly an auspicious start to a diving career. But Ken always loved being around the water, loved looking at fish, and in 1978 while running a radio station in Richmond, VA, was offered a chance to get certified and took advantage of it. Ken then became a NAUI Instructor (Top Candidate at his 1980 ITC) and has logged almost 5000 dives all over the world in such varied places as the Maldives, Indonesia, Yap, Tahiti, Bonaire, Cocos, Alaska, and, of course, his beloved waters of Southern California. Ken is the owner of Reef Seekers Dive Co., speaks frequently to dive clubs about diving techniques and safety issues, has been chairman of Chamber Day/Eve since the early 90s, is a member of the Statewide Interests Group for the MLPA, and a volunteer dive team leader at the Aquarium of the Pacific. Ken is an accomplished photographer and his photos and stories can be found in the pages of the California Diving News, Sport Diver, Skin Diver, and other scuba publications, along with the monthly Reef Seekers newsletter. Since 2003, Ken has been a Forensic Consultant to the L.A. County Corner for scuba fatalities, doing equipment testing and accident analysis. With all that, he still finds time to maintain an acting career and leads most of the local and foreign trips for Reef Seekers. He's a very good cook, avid Scrabble & Boggle player, chases total solar eclipses, ran five L.A. Marathons, is kind to animals and small children, and now has a fantasy about making the U.S. Curling Team for the 2014 Olympics. Be sure to ask him his mantra about divers.

Jeff Loflin has been teaching various aspects of diving for almost 30 years. Jeff’s background includes, but is not limited to, Sidemount diving and design, Technical deep diving, Cave diving, Public Safety Diving, Commercial Diving, and Scientific Research. Jeff is a PADI Course Director, NSS-CDS Deep Cave Instructor and former Chairman of the Board of the NSS-CDS. Jeff is an accomplished TDI Advanced Trimix Instructor, IANTD Technical Cave Instructor, Certified Florida Underwater Bridge Inspector, and former adjunct faculty member of the University of Tampa with the Marine Science Department. Jeff authored the first PADI Sidemount Specialty Course and assisted in the development and testing of four (4) sidemount systems with four (4) different manufacturers.

Chet Moore has been diving for some 35 years, eschewing his home waters of Monterey Bay, CA for the little latitudes where the water is warm and the viz unlimited. Chet and his wife have been diving Papua New Guinea since 1993 and they now represent Loloata Tufi, Walindi, MV FeBrina and Tawali Resort.

Dan Orr is President of Divers Alert Network (DAN). He came to Divers Alert Network in 1991 as Director of Training, responsible for developing and implementing DAN training programs including the internationally successful DAN Oxygen First Aid Course. Prior to coming to DAN, he was the Associate Diving Officer at Florida State University and, before that, he was Director of Diver Training Programs at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

Dan has Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Biology and has authored and contributed to many books and magazine articles including co-author of Scuba Diving Safety and DAN's Pocket Guide for Diving Safety series.

Dale Sheckler is a Southern California native who has worked around the world as a commercial deep-sea diver, mostly on deep-water oil field projects. For the last 25 years he has served as editor/publisher for California Diving News. Dale has authored several books, most notably: Southern California's Best Beach Dives and Successful Underwater Hunting and Gathering, California Edition. Dale is the producer of SCUBA Show 2010. Dale is also an Ordained Deacon in the Catholic Church spending his non-diving time working with the poor.

Marty Snyderman is one of 63 people inducted into DEMA's SCUBA diving Hall of Fame, and a proud recipient of DEMA's 2008 Reaching Out Award. Marty is an EMMY Award winning cinematographer, still photographer, author and speaker specializing in the marine environment. He is the Marine Life Editor of Dive Training magazine, authoring at least three columns a month in every issue, including the underwater photography column entitled Behind The Lens. Marty represents Dive Training magazine in Hawaii, and he teaches underwater photography seminars in dive centers in North America and at destinations around the globe.

Dr. Tabby Stone is a practicing pediatrician in the Los Angeles area. He has been an avid diver since his initial certification in 1979 and developed an interest in diving medicine. He is a past President of the Pacific Chapter of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society and wrote the "Medical Fact" column for Discover Diving from 1988-1999.

Stan Waterman is one of the true pioneers in today's diving community. In 1954 he had the first live-aboard dive boat in the Bahamas. Over the years he has produced over 50 documentary films and videos that have been featured in film festivals and seminars in the U.S. and England. The Discovery Channel produced a 90-minute documentary on him and his family entitled, "The Man Who Loves Sharks." The story of his year in French Polynesia was an hour special by National Geographic. He received five Emmy awards for his work with the networks in the U.S. He was a cameraman for two theater -release films, The Deep and Blue Water, White Death.

Stan is a seminal inductee into the International SCUBA Divers Hall of Fame and a Trustee of the Women Divers Hall of Fame. At age eighty-seven he still travels the world's oceans to dive and produce documentaries. His book, Sea Salt is in its third printing.

A graduate of Dartmouth College he studied with Robert Frost and is known as an eloquent speaker.

Bruce Watkins is a photojournalist specializing in marine topics. Bruce is a regular contributor to California Diving News, and over 400 of his articles and over a 1,000 of his photographs has appeared in national and international publications. He is the author of A Diver's Guide to Monterey County and A Diver's Guide to Northern California, both published by Saint Brendan Corp.