PADI named dive industry pioneer
PADI president Drew Richardson at the DEMA show
(CNS Local Life): The Cayman Islands Department of Tourism has named the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) as a 2017 Pioneer Award recipient for the department’s International Scuba Diving Hall of Fame (ISDHF). The announcement was made at the recent annual Diving Equipment and Marketing Association (DEMA) trade show in Las Vegas.
The Pioneer Award honours innovators in the industry. PADI will be officially inducted for its safety contributions to scuba diving during an awards ceremony set for 29 September 2017 in Grand Cayman.
John Cronin, a scuba equipment salesman for US Divers (now Aqua Lung), and Ralph Erickson, an educator and swimming instructor, founded PADI in 1966. The two men, seeing the need for a formal association dedicated to recreational diving instruction and certification, spent more than two decades building their membership base and introduced the first PADI Open Water Diver certification course in 1972.
Today, PADI is the world’s largest scuba diving training association, having awarded more than 23 million diving certifications and featuring more than 6,200 dive centres internationally.
For more information about the 2017 ISDHF ceremony and inductees, go to the Department of Tourism website
Category: Diving
