In this episode we hear about the new Scuba Diver Destinations Magazine as well as a revolutionary neoprene-free wetsuit by Henderson called Greenprene.

Welcome to The Dive Locker podcast, the podcast for dive professionals where we bring you the latest and diving industry resources that make you excellent at teaching techniques, risk management and dive business.

I am your host Tec Clark and in today’s episode I want to introduce you to some innovative items in our industry. First up is Destinations Magazine. This is a new quarterly free diving publication now, not freediving, free – diving publication. That is dive travel heavy. Editor, and my good friend, Mark Evans tells us about his lavishly illustrated new magazine. In fact, he has multiple magazines worldwide under the Scuba Diver Magazine brand, but he created a special one for the U S market Destinations magazine. It’s gorgeous, it’s glossy, beautiful.

This is great for customers and students to get for free and wait to you hear Mark’s strategies of how to use this free publication in your dive center or dive business. It’s awesome. And our next interview is with Joe Polak, the president of Henderson Aquatics. Now they have just introduced the Greenprene wetsuit line. This line of wetsuits is made of Greenprene, which is 100% neoprene free, sustainable insulating foam.

It has been tested and approved by the US Department of Agriculture, USDA, and it is a bio-preferred item. This bio-based product green preen is formulated from deprotienised natural insulating foam. They add that along with other natural additives such as sugar cane, plant oils, and oyster shells. The result is a sustainable insulating foam that is totally soft, stretchy, yet it’s durable and lightweight too. Oh and for those who have a neoprene allergy, no more problem with allergies in this wetsuit. It is neoprene free! And wait till you hear what they are doing with the packaging of this product. It is a complete sustainable packaging. Your customers are really, really going to respond to this. I think it’s absolutely awesome. I felt it, squeezed it, stretched this product. I am totally sold on it. I haven’t yet dived in it, but my industry friend and colleague Stephen Frink was one of the testers of this product and he gives it glowing remarks. In fact, I’ll put a link to his video testimonial in the show notes page. All right, pros, let’s get into my interviews with Mark Evans from Scuba Diver magazine and with Joe Polak of Henderson Aquatics.

Scuba Diver Destinations Magazine

TEC CLARK:           Welcome to The Dive Locker podcast. Great to have you here.  

MARK EVANS:      Thank you for having me.

TEC CLARK:           So tell us about the new publication you’ve got out.

MARK EVANS:      Yeah, we’re very excited to be launching this.  Scuba Diver Destinations as the name kind of gives away is a nice glossy, lavishly illustrated travel magazine.  and it basically aims to inspire and educate any level of diver. Doesn’t matter if you are a new open water diver and experienced advanced diver and instructor, a tech diver, keen photographer.  there’s something in there for everyone. Nice.

TEC CLARK:           Nice. Well, I have seen the issue that has landed here in the United States, so yeah, of course. Everybody’s hearing now that you are a brother from another mother across the pond. So this originated from the UK, right. And now you’ve dropped this new one to here. I love it. It’s absolutely gorgeous and beautiful. So, let’s talk about like the origins of that and talk about the Destinations issue. I want to get into everything because you’ve got multiple publications and multiple markets. So tell us the whole story about this.

MARK EVANS:      Yeah. Well, let’s start with the beginning is, back in the day I started as editor of Sport Diver magazine, the UK edition, and I did that for about 18 years.  and then when that magazine got unexpectedly closed down,  myself and my advertising manager at the time,  we basically were left out on a limb, suddenly had the rug pulled out from under our feet. So we decided, well, we know what we’re doing. So we set up our own company. So our first magazine then was Scuba Diver magazine, which we did in the UK.  certain areas in Europe, in Malta and things like that.  The content of that was very much the same as what we did with Sport Diver because the way we looked at it was, if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. So we had a good blend of articles in there that were suitable for beginners.

MARK EVANS:      We have stuff in there for technical, we have stuff for intermediate divers. We are how to choose from industry experts. So it was tech finning techniques, weighting, stuff to make you a better diver. Yeah, we had photography tips and advice in that we had a large gear test section because all divers like to talk about shiny equipment and see what’s new and then a new section cause all divers like to be informed. So we kept the same general format but we just changed our approach. So we still worked with PADI, which was obviously the,  the link with Sport Diver was the official magazine of the diving society.  But we still work with, but we also work with all the other training agencies. So we worked with the British SubAQUA club, SSI and all the tech agencies as well. So GUE, IANTD, TDI, et cetera.

MARK EVANS:      So we worked with all the training agencies and our approach was we wanted to get it in the hands of active divers. And the best way of getting into the hands of active divers is to go into the dive centers. So we put the magazine to the same quality as Sport Diver used to be, but instead of selling it for four pounds an issue, we put it into the dive centers for free so that when a customer comes in, the dive center can give them a nice glossy magazine and hopefully that helps keep them inspired and interested in diving. And we get into the hands of actual active divers because if they’re in a dive center, they’re an active diver or they’re wanting to learn to dive.

TEC CLARK:           So, right, right, right. And then, so you branched out. And so, you’ve gone into two other markets.

MARK EVANS:      That’s right. So first of all, we got that up and running.  We were up to about 14 issues we’d done of this, a monthly magazine.  We then decided to move into another English speaking market, which was Australia and New Zealand. So that in that market we do a bespoke version. So is Scuba Diver Australia and New Zealand and it covers from the East coast of South Africa to the West coast of the States. So that includes the Maldives, anything in the Indian ocean, the Southeast Asia, obviously Australia, New Zealand,  Micronesia, Pacific islands, all that sort of the sort of areas that divers in Australia, New Zealand would travel to. So it’s be sport content. The news is bespoke for that area as well. So we try to make it for that region.  We’re now up to issue 18 of that.  That’s going really, really well and being very well received.

MARK EVANS:      And that then led us into the new title. So Scuba Diver Destinations,  slight change on the title. Like I said, the other ones are just Scuba Diver and Scuba Diver Australia and New Zealand. The reason this one is called Scuba Diver Destinations is it’s only a quarterly magazine. It’s not monthly at the moment.  The whole idea was with this one is it is more travel. So there is a little bit of equipment test at the back. There is a little bit of news.  They are some photo tips but it is mainly about showing what a wonderful place we live on this water planet.

I’m trying to get people to see beyond where they perhaps have dive before and try to inspire them to travel further afield and just open their eyes. Because I’ve been very lucky in 20 odd years of working in the diving industry to travel to a lot of fantastic locations and I’ve still only scratched the surface. But a lot of people I speak to that they’ve only ever dived in the Caribbean or the, well, only ever dived in the Mediterranean and there’s so much more out there. So we want people to be able to read these lovely eight, nine 10 page articles with all our visually illustrated, with great photographs, some interesting facts, and you know, maybe just light a fire in them to try somewhere new. 

TEC CLARK:           That’s awesome. So yeah, the deal is I’ve looked at the, the new version that’s come out for the U S market. It’s beautiful. It’s stunning and exactly what you’re saying is what I’m resonating with. I look at the magazine and immediately I want to go to these places and I, you know, I just get this upwelling. And yet here I am a seasoned instructor and I’ve been in a lot of places. So I love your approach about how what you’re doing is you’re putting it into the dive center, but it’s so travel focused and now you’ve got individuals that can put this in their dive center and really stimulate lots of interest in many, many different destinations. So, you know, here in South Florida, you know, we don’t go very far where, you know, just to the Caribbean and that kind of a thing and it’s very easy. But there are people and places that are so into going international and going into places that they’ve never been before. But the only way that they’re going to find out about that is either through their dive center and the people that have done it or looking at, you know, other, publications or other type of video or something. This is, I think, one of the smartest ways that a dive center can introduce new destinations to people. In a free context. So talk about that from the dive professionals point of view. How do you feel that this magazine can actually enhance a dive center and a dive professional?

MARK EVANS:      Well, this was one of the reasons when we first started it obviously as I said, going into a dive center, from our point of view, it’s a great business because you are getting in the hands of active divers, there’s little to no waste. When we used to do newsstands, we’d put 5,000 copies onto newsstand. We might sell a thousand the other 4,000 get pulped and the news agents take such a hit of the money. So say you were selling it for a pound, they’d take 80 pence, so you’d have like 20 pence profit. It’s just a waste. But by putting it into the dive centers, from our point of view, it’s, it makes sense we get to that hands back to divers. But at the same we wanted to be doing something to help the dive centers as well. So for them to have a glossy magazine on their side near their till that people can pick up and have for free.

MARK EVANS:      It’s a great opener when you’re talking to people. So if you’ve got one of your regulars comes in, they’re coming in on you can have a chat, you can have a coffee with them, they might buy some equipment and then when you settling up you can be like, hi, here’s the latest issue of Scuba Diver. Take that right here. It’s a nice thing. They don’t need to know that we supply those magazines to the dive center for free. Right. As far as they’re aware, the dive center might be paying for them and out of the goodness of their heart. Given it to them. If you’ve got somebody who comes in interested in learning to dive and you give them the information about their open water diver course and everything, you can then give them a copy of the magazine and again, it’s inspiring them. Hopefully they read that and that helps ignite the fire in them even more than they’re already interested.

MARK EVANS:      A lot of the content, the travel content, the hints and advice and stuff that is in there, it doesn’t date. So if you’ve got some copies left, so you get 30 copies a month then and you have 10 left, well that’s great because the next open water course, you do make a little bundle, give them four magazines. You’ve got nothing to lose, just give them out. But they think it’s great. They’ve got full glossy magazines. The read through of this new exciting sport that they’ve gone into. So from that point it’s great. Then it goes further than that dive centers in the UK, and I’m sure it’s the same in the States, eh, they make another as well as selling equipment and courses. They make a nice slice of profit from leading trips.

MARK EVANS:      That is the bread and butter of it. And like he said, he saw him go into just into the Caribbean or it’s going further afield. So what better way of showcasing some of the places that you do trips to? Then there’s a magazine that’s got a 10 page article on the Cayman islands for instance, and you can use that then as a selling tool of this is where we’re leading the trip. And we’re hoping that that might expand the market for dive centers because they might have gone into a rut and they just do the Cayman trip, The Bahamas trip, the Turks trip, the Cozumel trip. Well divers are quite you know, well-traveled bunch. They like to, you know, travel to places that are perhaps a slightly off the beaten track. It’s nice when they come back and they’ve got the dive tee shirt from the Philippines or Oman or South Africa.

MARK EVANS:      So this might actually get new destinations in front of the dive staff. And you’ve got your dive center on ago. That place looks great. That’s right. Look into it, organize a group trip to go there and then they can now make a profit on taking people further afield. So yes, it’s a good, it’s a good business model for us. But our whole ethos right from the start was how can we do something to actually benefits dive center? And then the nitty gritty is right down to it is, dive centers who are switched on, when the magazine comes out, they put it on Facebook, spread some copies out, have a coffee cup with their logo on next to it photograph on Facebook. Come in, pick up your latest issue of the magazine while stocks last. It drives customers in on a monthly or a quality basis into their dive center.

MARK EVANS:      They come to pick the magazine up, but while they come to pick the magazine up, you’ll have the opportunity to either sell them a trip, sell them a course, or just engage with them on a more regular basis perhaps than you would’ve done before.

TEC CLARK:           I love that. That is a really cool thing. So it’s like this, you’ve got to, you’ve got this, this value add. So if you come in and here’s what it is, so there’s this scarcity of supply and we get this amount come on in while it lasts. I love that. And so now people are going, yeah, I’m going to, I’m going to stop in or they’ve been wanting to get in but they haven’t, but now all of a sudden this lights a little fire. I want to get in there and get that. I love that. That is a great strategy.

TEC CLARK:           You also mentioned,  what it is in the international destinations. We see a lot of dive centers that do get into that rut. Just like you’re saying, we’re really comfortable on our Cozumel trip and we’re really comfortable on Belize trip. That’s all we do in a year and that’s what we call international travel. But folks, the thing is is that people are seeing that there are many, many different dive sites all around the world and if they start inquiring and you are giving them no’s and no’s and no’s, they’re going to find another way to go on that trip and cross that off their bucket list or whatever it is. Red sea or Oman or what you’re saying. So I love what you’re saying here. This stimulates more interest in travel and travel can be an amazing profit center. In a dive center. Yeah, I think that that’s awesome.

MARK EVANS:      And the great thing is obviously as you know, when you do a trip, you can tie other things to that. So you then sell them travel kit for them to take their own equipment with them rather than renting. And then they might do a course with you while they’re on the trip. There’s all sorts of things that you can tie into just making the profit from you going on the trip as well. So you know, that was the whole idea behind it is the Destinations will always have something US-based. So there’ll be something in Florida or it’ll be something in California or maybe something in as an unusual one, one of the inland sites or something that the States has got. But then it will have like Caribbean stuff and then it’ll have Pacific stuff in Southeast Asia.

MARK EVANS:      So we’re branching out and then it will have an unusual dive site that is not normally covered over here. And that is, that was the main thing us for doing it. But also if people can’t get the print copy, you can get the digital version of it on the website. The great thing is with that, you can also access our UK magazine and the Australia and New Zealand magazine via that way as well.

All three so you can read all three titles. So if people pick up a copy of Scuba Diver Destinations and enjoy it, they can always digitally read the UK one and the Australia and New Zealand because there is different content in each one of those. And again, that’s a great thing for you to drive people to as the dive center owner because that just fires them even more because you can use other destinations.

TEC CLARK:           I love it. You know, I’m thinking of the supply that we have. First and foremost is, okay, we’re going to get this to to our folks. Well, putting them in a crew pack, right? So you’ve got your new divers or you’ve got your divers at an advanced level or whatnot. You start throwing that in a crew pack. Now their mind is going to more exotic destinations, more travel and things like that. But the other thing is the dive club. So now you put it in the hands of the dive club members at the next club meeting as well, and now you’ve got an interest where people are sharing stories or they’re earmarking pages and then coming to the next club meeting saying, Hey, from the previous issue, I want to go check this place out. So there can be a lot of synergy with this. And I think that the other thing too is that it’s absolutely gorgeous. So it, it’s, it’s almost like a coffee table magazine if that’s, I don’t know if that even exists, but it’s like a coffee table book in a magazine. So people get so worked up over pictures and photos and destinations. And I think because you’ve been such a travel editor all your life that you have this way of laying that out, you have this way of writing, you have this way of that photojournalism that really pictures this and excites people about where they want to go.

MARK EVANS:      Yeah. And that was all at the start. We wanted it. Yes, it’s a free magazine, but we didn’t want people to think they were getting cheated, if that makes sense. So it is on a heavy stock of paper. It’s a hundred pages. It is a nice quality paper. It’s a weighty magazine. So yes, it is a coffee table. That was kind of the way we did it. So you can have it laid out at home so that when you’ve got friends around they might be non divers, but it’s so nicely laid out. People who are non divers will flip through it and be blown away by the photographs and stuff like that. So you can use it as a, you know, a bit of a conversation starter.  you know, and that was the whole, the whole idea behind it really was to make it beautiful as well as informative, but have that to it so people hopefully will keep hold of them.

TEC CLARK:           Love it. Love it. Well, it’s brilliant. So, tell us how the different markets can be a part of this, especially the U S market because although this is a, an international podcast, how, how can, how can people, how can dive centers now get a part of this? How can they sign up to have these deliveries?

MARK EVANS:      Yeah, well that’s it. So, basically yeah, you can get in touch if you’ve got a dive center and you’d like to stock these magazines.  you can just drop us an email info@scubadivermag.com and let us know how many club members you’ve got, how many, you know, magazines you’d potentially like to have, and then we can get you sorted out with the,  the distribution on that.

And then the other thing that we’re also doing for people who maybe don’t live near a dive center, they might live abroad and then they don’t actually live there. I’ve sent everything is there, can actually still get it on subscription. So we’re doing a subscription price as well, if you want the convenience of having it delivered to your door. So we do offer that. But our main aim, I’d rather make people walk into their local dive center to pick a copy up. Because then that benefits the dive center.

TEC CLARK:           Right. That’s right. Oh, that’s brilliant. Great. All right, so we’ll put all the show. We’ll put all the links to that so that people can do that in our show notes page. So that way they can sign up, they can have them delivered to their dive center.  we’ll also do the digital links too so that people can see you there. I also want to do a, a shout out. I love your Facebook posts and Twitter. They, you have a lot of Twitter posts out there and they’re kind of, you know, little bit, a little bit of, of an article and then this and event. And so the, your content is spread in your Twitter too. So I want to put those feeds out.

MARK EVANS:      That would be great as well. Yeah, because we try to, we have the website and the websites are updated constantly. So we tried to put new stories on there on a daily basis at least. But again, like I said, that we have real news, we have press releases, we have travel features, we have kit reviews on there. So there’s lots of going on.

TEC CLARK:           That’s perfect. Well great. We’ll put all that in the show notes page. Thanks so much Mark for being here on The Dive Locker podcast. We love this content. I think this is going to be a really neat thing for dive centers to be a part of a worldwide, you know, as you’ve got these three markets that are out there.  This just makes a lot of sense and it’s really cool. So well done.

MARK EVANS:      Thank you very much for having me.  

Henderson’s Greenprene Wetsuits

TEC CLARK:           All right Joe, welcome to The Dive Locker podcast. We are at the DEMA Show 2019 and I am here in the Henderson booth because you’ve got something really buzzing here. Tell us about the new Greenprene wetsuit line you have.

JOE POLAK:           Oh, thank you for having me. And I will be happy to give you that information.  We, we take our new product innovation primarily from our customers. We look to our customer to tell, tell us what they want, what they would like to have. And that leads us in new product directions. So about 2014, we started to hear more and more, interest in removing plastic from packaging or making a better product. And rather than take it a little bit at a time, we said, can we take one product and start to finish, make it fully sustainable. One of the biggest hurdles we had was neoprene is in itself, a petroleum based product. And, we had a partner that we were starting to work with at the time that was,  working on testing,  a replacement to neoprene, basically a neoprene free insulating foam, that would allow us to eliminate neoprene in a wetsuit.

JOE POLAK:           And over this last five years, we’ve worked very hard to replace that, replace that product. And, about a year ago, we finally got the product to a level where we thought we could start testing it and we began to secretly test it.  Stephen Frink as you know, was one of our, secret testers. We’ve given Stephen the product.  he made assumptions on what it was and it was sad, but he was assuming incorrectly on what he was testing. But,  when he finally found out about it, he was extremely excited about where we’re going.

So, we came out with a new product called Greenprene and Greenprene is made up of it, looks like, feels like and performs just like neoprene, but it’s a fully plant-based sustainable material. That in itself was great, but we wanted to take it a step further. So we laminated it interior and exterior with totally recycled materials that are made from recycled water bottles.

JOE POLAK:           And then we decided to take that a little bit further and say we want the whole packaging process to be fully sustainable. So we worked only with recycled cardboards. We worked with, we work with soy-based printing inks,  all our propaganda, all the hang tags, everything is recycled. And fully stainable. So we were able to build this complete start to finish process. And now our goal is to take pieces of this process and implement it into the rest of our line,  as the consumer begins to,  absorb. And what do you want to say support this concept? Because we know for a fact that I think consumers are all aware that, green products aren’t always as good as the products they replace. We just, it just natural, you take a look at a cleaning product and it’s like, well, it’s good, it’s green, but it doesn’t get the stain off.

JOE POLAK:           I mean, so we didn’t want to have that. We wanted to have something that was actually as good as what it replaced and we believe we’ve got there, but the price is slightly more than what you would pay for a standard wetsuit. But we can take pieces of this perfect situation and begin to lead people into it.  We do, we’ve already seen amazing support for this product in the field. So, we’re already sold into our third order just here at the show. We’re sold out through three orders already and can see, and the consumer has yet to see the product. So we’re really driven, right? We’re really excited about that. And   but what’s still left is the last and most important piece to consumer to be able to support it. But we believe that our dealer base is so excited about this, that they’ll do a great job to make the consumer aware and lead them in this, green direction. And we hope we’ve really started a change in the entire marketplace.

TEC CLARK:           I think you will, you know, I’ve, I’ve handled the product. It is remarkable. I mean remarkable how I’m sitting there touching it and feeling it and saying, this isn’t the neoprene this is so the performance of that I’m sure, like you’re saying, is going to replicate what we’ve had in the past, but without the petroleum byproduct of leaving this behind, once they start to deteriorate over time.

JOE POLAK:           And exactly. I mean a lot of the, some of the questions that sometimes surprise you when you come in, a lot of people ask about the buoyancy. There’s really no buoyancy difference. They ask about the warmth. It’s actually warmer at depth because it does, it doesn’t,  compress as much.  Pardon us, we got interrupted. So, it does not compress as much at depth, so it keeps you warmer at depth.  The buoyancy would be the same as a normal wet suit. And, and I think some of the buoyancy confusion in the market has come by, I would say kind of zealous marketers that are out there now promoting neoprene-free wetsuits. Unfortunately, the wetsuits that they’re promoting never had neoprene in there to begin with their, they don’t have no insulating foam. So it’s easy to promote a product as being neoprene free when it never had insulating foam in it to begin with. But it’s confusing the consumer and the consumer saying, Oh, well, isn’t this neutrally buoyant? Well, what they’re talking about is essentially a dive skin and they’re saying it’s neoprene free, but as we know, dive skin’s never had neoprene to begin with. So that’s where we want to eliminate any confusion in the market.

TEC CLARK:           Sure. Yeah, that’s fantastic. I’m thinking of this, you mentioned the consumer and you mentioned the higher price point.  You know, take for instance, Whole Foods. You’re looking at a chain that has had remarkable success yet there are people that will joke about the whole paycheck or they’ll make comments about the expense of going to that. But what people are getting is they want a superior product. They want something that is done in the fashion that you’re talking about. They want sustainability, they want something that’s better on the environment and when people are that conscious about their, their footprint or whatever you want to call that, when they have a passion for nature and the world and generations behind them and they’re thinking of that, paying a little bit more does not then become the issue.

It’s about making wise and sensible choices. I think that this is going to be a tremendous success because think about all the folks that love the underwater world, so they’re in all over the underwater environment. They want that connection. They understand that the fragile, the fragility of it, is that a word? And so, you know, when I think that when they’re faced with making a choice and when it’s articulated what neoprene is and what it does, and here is this new product. I think that in a heartbeat, you’re going to get tons of consumers that make this choice as a wise decision.

JOE POLAK:           Well, we’re, we’re counting on that. Yeah. We, we, we have a, we’re all in on that.  and, and actually when I say that it’s, it’s, it’s more expensive. It’s slightly more expensive, but it’s not out of the reach of, of a, a general recreational diver. It’s actually less expensive than our best wetsuits. So we’re, we feel that the price is where it needs to be in the market, but obviously it is not the cheapest wetsuit, but then you’re paying for quality and you’re paying to make a statement. You’re, you’re paying to show that I care.  And that helps us do more and allow us to bring more products like this into the marketplace as we move forward.

TEC CLARK:           Right. And you know, I think also when we’re looking about cross promotion, so many of the training agencies that are retail savvy are building in purchase and retail opportunities into their presentations. And that might be open water level or it might be even in specialties that are environmental specialties. I think this is a great product that would be able to be inserted into those eco-friendly lectures that, that an instructor is talking about or a divemaster even. And how cool would it be if divemasters and instructors are in this and they’re making the statement, but they’re also using it as an educational tool. They’re using it as a functional prop to say, “Oh, and by the way, this is what I’m wearing and this is why I wear it. “

JOE POLAK:           Absolutely. And we’re seeing that already. We have a, a great new partnership, that we just formed with Rainbow divers in Key Largo. Sure.  Rainbow, was one of the first to jump on. And the reason they were one of the first is we happen to be filming our promotional videos for green preen in Key Largo. And, they were interested in what we were doing. So we shared a little bit with them ahead of time.  And they, they thought that they need to have their staff in this product.  We’re working with the coral restoration foundation, which was also in Key Largo and just in that small area, we saw such amazing support for the product right off the bat. So we’re, we’re excited and we think what you’re saying is absolutely going to happen and we want to encourage it and we certainly want to encourage it and we’re going to do everything we can to make that happen.

TEC CLARK:           That’s fantastic. How can our dive professionals that are listening to this episode, how can they connect with you and learn more about this?

JOE POLAK:           Well, they, if they, if they’re involved with a Henderson dealer, they can speak to that through their Henderson dealer directly to us.  They can go online to Hendersonusa.com.  Where, basically the, the homepage of our website now is the full introduction into Greenprene.  The video I just spoke about will be there that they can see, they can call us, they can request materials. And actually one thing that I think is really important to point out, and I, and I did miss this.

There’s a strong hypoallergenic,  story behind this product. If you were originally allergic to neoprene, there’s a very good chance that the Greenprene, you may not have that same allergy to. So by calling Henderson or speaking to a Henderson dealer that sells Greenprene, they can get a test swatch,  that they can wear and they can see if they’re a, and it may be a solution for people for years and years and years that either had to wear undergarments or couldn’t wear neoprene altogether to be allowed them to get back into a, a thermal protection. Yeah.

TEC CLARK:           That’s fantastic. Yeah, I didn’t even think about that.

JOE POLAK:           And I would say it’s a story that kind of gets forgotten, but it’s an important one. It’s important.

TEC CLARK:           It’s an important one. And it’s significant. I can’t tell you how many I’ve come across in my dive career that have said “no. I’m, I’m, I have an,  an allergy to neoprene.” Wow. And sometimes we find that out a little late too.

JOE POLAK:           And we’re also on active on Facebook and Instagram under Henderson wetsuits.

TEC CLARK:           Perfect. So, well, Joe, I am truly, truly blown away at the product. I think this is revolutionary and I think this is the future and that’s why I wanted to have you on. I think that our pros need to know about this and support this fully because it’s that important. I wish you all the best of luck and success not only here at the show, but into 2020 as this product emerges and everything.

JOE POLAK:           Well, I’m glad you saw our product and our statement as important and happy to share it with you.

TEC CLARK:           Great. Thanks so much.

So how about that? Both of these new products can literally change the customer experience in your dive center. Thanks Mark. Thanks Joe. Remember to learn more at scubadiverdestinations.com and hendersonusa.com. I’ll put both of those links on the show notes page. As you know, episodes of this podcast come out every Wednesday and next Wednesday is Christmas day. I’ll be enjoying it with my family and friends and I hope you do too. So we will skip next week’s episode and I’ll see you the following week in the roaring twenties, New Year’s Day 2020!

Thanks for Listening!

That’s it for today, everyone. Thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes, Google Play or Stitcher. That way you’ll be notified of new episodes as soon as they go live and please leave a rating. Items talked about in this episode can be found on the show notes page at scubaguru.com and there you can also click the microphone and leave us a comment. Thanks again. We’ll see you in the next episode. Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Safe diving and take good care of my friends.

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