How was the NACD meeting?

[mgersch]

For those of us who couldn't make it (like me), how was the meeting?
What did you learn?
Was anything new or exciting discussed?

Nice crowd. Good speakers. I set in on nearly all of them.

Here are a few raw photos... I'll upload some later today to the CDF.

http://www.divetraining.net/pictures...nov_17_nacdws/

[sandy]

Ditto what Tom said.

The social on Friday night was well attended, and good food/drink was enjoyed by all. Thank you Richard Dreher for selling the NACD caps because it was COLD!

I attended all the Saturday sessions and enjoyed them all.

Thanks to the NACD for putting this on. For a volunteer organization, they do an amazing job with the seminar.

There were a lot of nice prizes donated by Salvo, Golem, OMS, Dive Rite, Ginnie Springs, Steve Gamble, Eagles Nest Training, NACD, Hammerhead, Adventure Sports in Tampa, and others that I have probably left out. Thank all of you in addition to Splash and ADM. Your customers appreciate it!

[sskasser]

This was my first NACD seminar, and it was fantastic. I sat through all of the presentations, and learned something from each of them. Thanks to all of the speakers, they did a great job. The BOD looked pretty snazzy in their suits, spiffy!

Deb and all the volunteers did a great job putting this event on.

It was also great seeing so many of my friends and dive buddies (both past and future!).

I was diving during most of the CCR seminar today, but I was listening while gearing up and down, and it was excellent as well. It was nice seeing all the different manufacturers there. Quite a crowd!

Shirley

[Gary]

If (like me) one was interested in rebreathers then the convention was amazingly informative. Just an awesome amount of information from a lot of different people. There were some other presentations as well which were all very well done, great speakers, good videos, etc.

Many thanks to the presenters and organizers and especially to all the rebreathers trainers who volunteered their time and units.

Oh and the food was awesome. Burt served up a full thanksgiving style dinner for the Friday night social, The hotel did lunch on Saturday and sandwiches for lunch break at the Sunday CCR Summit. I ate better then if I'd been stayed at home.

Rich, the dive animal, picked up his 1000 cave dive award. Really impressive considering I think I had a several hundred cave dive lead on him just a couple years ago and I'm nowhere close to 1000 now.

[Bill Rotella]

The Workshop was simply Outstanding!

[chimie007]

Great. Sat had a lot of good presentations. I missed some of the RB workshop to go diving on this morning but what I saw of it was very informative. Very well organized.

[WEPIV]

This was my first NACD conference as I was working out of town for others and it was truly a great event to attend. From the campfire talk and fantastic food Friday night to the informative and interesting presentations on Saturday. Also, the various venders at their booths as well as all of the NACD volunteers doing their thing.
I had a great time, learned some new things, saw some new things and very much look forward to the next one. Now let's just hope that I'm not out of town again....

[Mike Edmonston]

I'm sure I'll get shredded for this, but...

Was I the only one that had a real problem with Leon's little speech on sunday?

He didn't say a dam thing about his breather, and spent the entire time slamming other instructors, training agencies, and manufacturers.

It felt very unprofessional and a rather cheap shot at the industry while on his soapbox.

Other than that it was pretty awesome

[Gary]

He didn't say a dam thing about his breather, and spent the entire time slamming other instructors, training agencies, and manufacturers.

Well the discussion was about how each rebreather differed. Most CCRs are basically similar in function and just a few pieces make most units different from the standard.

The point I took from his talk was the difference for his unit was in quality control of the units and instructors. Maybe his unit had some features that were different - if so he didn't mention them.

All the speakers had interesting things to say. Though it would have been nice to have gotten some specifics on the unit I came away better informed either way.

One item of information one of the speakers mentioned was that there were (I think) 36 startup companies showing rebreather units at DEMA this year. Add to that the hundreds of home built units described on the internet and there is just an amazing number of rebreathers out there. I think rebreathers are becoming much more common and the topic of rebreathers at the conference was well timed - as well as amazingly informative.