NACD 45th Annual World Seminar speaker information

We are pleased to announce that Eric Hutcheson and Kristi Bernot will talk about recent work at Silver Glen Springs. For those of you who attended the 2011 NACD seminar, you may remember Eric discussing his early cartography work. Additionally, he dazzled us with maps that were 3 to 4 feet by 12 to 15 feet. Also, most of you have seen Kristi’s photography work on the forums and various dive publications.

Eric has mapped more than 50 caves throughout Florida, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, and Mexico including Nohoch Nah Chich and Silver Springs, He was the original explorer and cartographer of Silver Glen Springs more than 20 years ago. After a 10 plus year absence from cave diving, Eric is now leading the team who is using their expertise to further explore, map, photograph and document Silver Glen Springs.

Kristi has been busy since her recent move to Florida. She was selected as the staff photographer for the Silver Glen project. Also, she has had her work published in the NACD Journal as well as Underwater Speleology.

In addition to Eric and Kristi, we have some other great speakers who will be announced shortly. We look forward to seeing you in Gainesville on October 12.

Safe diving,

Sandy Robinson
[email protected]

We are delighted to announce that Douglas Ebersole, MD, will be speaking at the upcoming NACD Seminar on October 12, 2013. Doug is a cardiologist at Watson Clinic LLP in Lakeland, Florida specializing in coronary and structural heart interventions. He is also an avid technical diver, a cave diver. a CCR trimix instructor, and a cardiology consultant for the Divers Alert Network. His medical background and diving experience gives him a unique perspective on diving physiology.

Several years ago, Doug gave us a presentation titled Cardiac Concerns in Cave Diving - PFOs & Coronary Heart Disease and answered a number of questions from the audience. This year he plans to give us an update on PFOs and Decompression Sickness. Join us at the seminar to get Doug's most up to date information.

As with our other speakers, we are appreciative that Doug can share his time with us. See you in Gainesville in a few months.

Safe diving,

Sandy Robinson
[email protected]

We are thrilled to announce that Brian Kakuk, Founder/Director of the Bahamas Caves Research Foundation and co-owner/operator of Bahamas Underground Technical Diving Facility, will be speaking at the upcoming NACD seminar.

Brian is a former U.S. Navy Diver with 30 years of professional diving experience. His work has taken him beneath nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers, to jumping from helicopters into 10 foot seas, to record penetrations of underwater cave systems around the world. His research diving work as Diving Consultant for the National Museum of the Bahamas and various governmental and scientific institutions has revealed new species of cave adapted marine life and new species of extinct terrestrial animal fossils that are now repainting the picture of the Bahamas past environment. His expertise in diving safety has been used widely in the feature film industry as a Diving Safety Officer and underwater stuntman. With more than 3000 exploration cave dives, Brian is considered one of the leading authorities on the underwater/underground environments of the Bahamas and is a veteran of multiple high profile underwater cave expeditions in the Bahamas, Mexico, Belize, and the U.S.

Join us on October 12 in Gainesville for Brian's presentation. Remember too that Brian will be joined by Eric Hutcheson, Kristi Bernot, and Doug Ebersole.

Safe diving,

Sandy Robinson
[email protected]

Pete Murray is probably better known as Netdoc from Scubaboard. As the owner of Scubaboard, Pete will tell us how to get the most out of the new NACD members’ forum and provide us with additional forum information. He has been diving since 1969 and has traveled all over the world, usually as part of what has been come to be known as the Scubaboard Invasions. Pete is also a cave diver, technical diver, rebreather diver, and a long time instructor. He has also been trained to dive the Revo and KISS GEM rebreathers. Pete resides in Key Largo with his family and cats where he also volunteers his time toward reef conservation. In addition to diving the beautiful Key Largo reefs in his back yard, Pete enjoys diving the caves whenever he gets the chance to head to north Florida.

Join us in Gainesville to listen to Pete and a number of other speakers. Information on additional speakers is yet to come. You can register at www.nacdmembers.com

Safe diving,

Sandy Robinson
[email protected]

Join us at the NACD seminar and listen to David Dewberry talk about the Cozumel Project. David started diving in 1996. He quickly became addicted to diving and soon after, in 1999, became an instructor with the YMCA. A few years later he crossed over to NAUI. In 2008 he became the director of the academic dive program at Troy University in Troy, Alabama and has been leading that program ever since. During the last couple of decades he’s been diving all along the Florida and North Carolina coasts. He has also spent time diving the Caribbean waters of several islands including Cozumel.

A few years ago he was finding himself bored with diving and decided to venture into a new area. After a weekend of cavern diving, David was hooked and the addiction resurfaced. David began diving sidemount and quickly progressed through his cave training. David is currently cave and trimix certified and regularly dives the caves of Merritt’s Mill Pond in Marianna, FL, the caves of the Chipola River, and other panhandle river caves. He is also involved in some local exploration and survey projects in some of these caves.

Last year David went to Cozumel with a small group of cave divers to do some exploration and survey work in a couple of the local caves. During that trip David explored his first virgin cave passage. He has been back to Cozumel since and to date has been part of a team that has explored and surveyed over a mile of passage in Dos Coronas, bringing the total length of the system to almost 8000’. David currently lives in Goshen, AL with his dog and cats. To hear more about the Dos Coronas system, register for the seminar at www.nacdmembers.com.

Safe diving,

Sandy Robinson
[email protected]

Please welcome Michael Angelo Gagliardi as a speaker to the 45th annual NACD Annual Seminar. Michael Angelo sold his first painting in the St. Marks Bar in NYC’s Greenwich Village at the age of 17. Had they checked his ID, he may have chosen a different career. At the age of 35 he began scuba diving. Now at 50, he holds over 22 certifications, and paints a wetworld for us to enjoy.

MichaelAngelo has used his artistic skills in many different diving areas – from open water to overhead, warm to cold water, shallow to deep, and local to international. Some of his accomplishments include being the expedition artist on the USS Monitor 2002 GunTurret Expedition, the lead in the 2009 Cow Springs Restoration Project, the Expedition Artist for the Cozumel Cenote Mapping and Exploration Expeditions 2011, and a volunteer diver for the North Florida Springs Bio-diversity Project as well as for various Great Lake Shipwreck surveys. He is a recipient of the Abe Davis Award,Wakulla Award, 2007 NACD Conservation Award, 2009 NSSCDS Conservation Award, Diver of the Year – ICSSD 2009 and 2012 and various NSS Speloart awards. He is a frequent attendee and speaker at various cave and scuba related seminars and workshops and has shown across the USA and is collected worldwide. The NACD is fortunate to also have himas our Conservation Chair.

Come listen to Michael Angelo discuss gas analysis. For more information on the seminar, go to www.nacdmembers.com. See you in October.

Safe Diving,

Sandy Robinson
[email protected]

Rob Neto is rounding out our list of speakers at the the seminar and will discuss rebreather bailout. Rob is an experienced scuba diver and instructor who has been diving for more than ten years and has been a dive instructor for eight years. He is the President and CEO of Chipola Divers, LLC and currently teaches a variety of scuba diving courses for NACD, NSS-CDS, IANTD, TDI, SDI, and PADI. Prior to teaching scuba diving, he taught English, Economics, and Business courses for Cochise College, Rio Salado College, and Pima Community College for over 10 years while in Arizona. Rob also taught CPR, First Aid, and EFR for the American Red Cross and has worked in the healthcare field for over 20 years with 14 years as a Registered Nurse in Emergency/Trauma as well as Critical Care.

Rob has volunteered in a variety of capacities for a multitude of dive related organizations including the NACD, NSS-CDS, NFSA, Wilson Elementary Scuba Club, The American Red Cross, and PADI Project AWARE. Rob is currently on the Board of Directors for the NACD, and is the International Training Director and the International Safety Officer for the organization. He has invited instructors from around the world onto the NACD Training Committee and is currently working with them to update the NACD Training Standards. He has also revitalized the NACD International Safety Program and is working to make it more proactive.

He recently brought almost 3000’ of gold line to Cozumel and was part of a team that replaced deteriorating dangerous line in one of the local systems. In addition to devoting hundreds of volunteer hours annually, Rob enjoys non-training cave and wreck exploration. He mentors divers as they transition from recreational to technical diving and helps them with issues involving gear configuration and trim. Rob assisted with an exploration and survey project in Cozumel a couple years ago and has returned several times since then to continue to explore the Dos Coronas cave system. Rob has most recently explored and surveyed over a mile of passage in Dos Coronas, expanding the system to a total length of almost 8000’. Rob is involved in several exploration and survey projects in Florida and Mexico.

He currently lives in Greenwood, Florida with his wife, six dogs, and two kitties. He looks forward to an early retirement from healthcare so that he can focus his time and efforts on animal rescue when he’s not diving or volunteering his time to the dive community.

To hear Rob, register at www.nacdmembers.com. See you the weekend of October 11 thru 13th.
Safe diving,

Sandy Robinson
[email protected]

We have an update on Brian Kakuk's topic at the upcoming NACD seminar on October 12. His presentation will be Solo vs Team Diving Concepts. Brian will compare solo and team diving for both exploration and recreational cave diving. With Brian's experience in the Bahamian caves as a guide and an explorer, this will be a fantastic presentation. For more information on Brian, visit www.bahamasunderground.com.

To register, visit the online store at www.nacdmembers.com.

Safe diving,

Sandy Robinson
[email protected]