Bill High – Fisheries and NOAA Diving Officer, President of NAUI, Saturation Diver, and Founder of Professional Scuba Inspectors (PSI)
Bill High founded PSI, Inc. (Professional Scuba Inspectors), a training company for inspectors of high pressure cylinders. Located near Seattle, Washington, he began training cylinder inspectors in 1983 and set the SCUBA/SCBA industry standard for technical inspections. Presently Bill is a senior consultant to more than 70 cylinder inspector trainers in North America and at numerous international locations. Bill was a diving consultant to the NASA Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory and a United Nations committee.
Trained as a marine scientist, Bill worked for more than 37 years in the marine science field using scuba and advanced diving systems as essential research tools. In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s Bill introduced and promoted diving to numerous marine science agencies that had not yet learned the value of scuba as a research tool. He served as the national diving officer for both US Bureau of Commercial Fisheries and National Marine Fisheries Service as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) first National Diving Coordinator. Bill wrote the first scientific diving regulations for each agency. Bill led 4 aquanaut first mission saturation scientific diving programs (Tektite, Hydrolab, Edalhab, Helgoland) and directed 5 major deep submersible research expeditions in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
Bill is a prolific writer with more than 160 articles and five books authored or co-authored. His latest book, BENEATH THE SEA– A Sampling of Diving and Other Adventures, recounts many of his technical diving experiences. His book INSPECTING CYLINDERS is the gas industry standard for cylinder safety inspections. The majority of his more than 160 published articles promoted dive industry safety.
Certified as National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) Instructor #175 in 1961, Bill went on to serve NAUI for many years as North Pacific Branch Manager (10 years), Member of the Board of Directors (8 years), President (4 years), Board of Advisors (10 years), Director of International Affairs (3 years) and other duties. He trained more than 8,000 basic and advanced divers before focusing his efforts to promote cylinder safety through technical visual inspections. He personally trained more than 3,000 professional cylinder inspectors and federal hydrostatic re-testers.
Bill’s awards for service to diving have been many including lifetime achievement awards from both NAUI and PADI. He has been honored by inter-state safety agencies, state and community groups. He is the only living person to receive three NOGI Awards (Sports Education (1964), Science (1991) and Distinguished Service (2007). NOGI recognition is among the highest honors awarded in the scuba diving industry. In 2009, Bill was named recipient of the diving industry’s highest recognition, the Reaching Out Award. In 2015, Bill was named to the International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame. Bill High is one of the truest pioneers of international diving. His 64-year contribution to recreational diving, educational diving, scientific diving as well as technical diving support is truly remarkable.
Items in this Podcast
- Began diving in 1955
- Early marine sciences
- 1960 Part of first NAUI Instructor course in Houston, TX
- US Fisheries Diving Officer
- 1970 Tektite II
- Founded the NOAA Diving Manual
- Saturation and submersible diving
- President of NAUI
- The incident that made Bill become a cylinder safety expert
- Bill’s role in the “Dolphin Safe Tuna” campaign
- Favorite diving location
- Tips for divers
Resources
Sponsor
Special thanks to our episode sponsor Aggressor Adventures
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