Paul Toomer – Legendary Technical Diving Instructor
In this episode of The League of Extraordinary Divers I chat with technical diving legend Paul Toomer.
Hey everybody welcome to another episode of the League of Extraordinary Divers. It’s so great to have you here with me today.
Today’s guest is one of the most stand out, iconic figures in our industry. Paul Toomer looks more like a rockstar than an accomplished technical diving instructor trainer. His wit and his fun-loving nature are balanced by his dedication to his craft.
Bio
Paul is the President of training agency RAID, he is a working instructor trainer and expedition diver.
After living in South Africa for 23 years it’s odd that Paul discovered diving in the cold waters of Southern England. It is this kind of behavior that defines Paul and his passion for doing things differently. Within months of learning to dive he had his own center in London and rapidly progressed to Course Director before finding his passion for technical diving in 2002. Paul is an avid wreck, cave, sidemount and rebreather diver.
In 2002 Paul began pursuing his technical diving interests and rebreather diving became his main focus.
In 2007, he decided to concentrate purely on technical diver training and expeditions, and Diving Matrix Tec Lab was born. Tec Lab was innovative in its design and philosophy and set the benchmark for advanced diver training. In 2011 Paul was offered the position as Director of Technical Training for SSI (Scuba Schools International) and was responsible for writing diver and instructor manuals and training standards as well as training future technical instructors and trainers.
In 2014 Paul became a co-owner of RAID International. Initially he held the position of Training Director but in 2019 he accepted the position as President for the company.
Paul has dived wrecks and caves all over the world and also safely planned and executed many deep ocean wreck dives.
He has participated in multiple expeditions including the HMS Hampshire, Vanguard and Royal Oak in Scapa Flow. In Malta and Italy, he has worked on ancient Italian and Phoenician amphora wrecks and has participated in exploratory dives on the Polish destroyer L-72, the British submarine HMS Olympus, an American WWII B-24 bomber, and many others.
Paul regularly contributes to various dive magazines including Submerged, Diver, Sport Diver and Tanked Up. He has worked with Film and TV Companies as a diver, supplier and advisor. He has given many diving related presentations at training agency member events, OZTek, DEMA, TekDive USA, BalticTech, ADEX, EuroTek, TekCamp, the British Scuba Industry Trade Association, the London International Dive Show and global dealer Seminars.
A little boy called Sebastian, motorcycles, tattoos and playing drums are the other major influences in Paul’s life.
Items In This Podcast
- BSAC dive training
- From terrified of marine animals to dive pro
- Opened a dive shop the week he became a scuba instructor
- Worst PADI Course Director application in history
- Working for SSI
- Working for RAID
- Getting through COVID
- The DEMA hotel bar
- Sardine run excitement
- Flooded rebreather loop at 110 meters
- Panic diver at 100 meters
- Pee valve practical joke
Sponsor
Special thanks to our episode sponsor Aggressor Adventures
Thanks For Listening!
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