From: Local454Diver

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Hello Everyone:

Commercial Dive Training. What is it, what do you teach, who needs it, when does it stop, when does it start, to what standard do you teach, etc.? These are all questions that are now becoming more and more difficult to ignore, and in short order these questions will be all but impossible to ignore. There is one physical fact that we all have to accept, if there is a systematic deficiency a void will be created and that void will be filled by someone or something, we all know that nature hates a vacuum. The question is, who do we want to fill that void, reasonable people like ourselves, contractors who have their own interests at heart, dive schools, the government? I myself don’t trust any of the aforementioned to act in our best interests, for one, we already know they don’t do that now, and I doubt they will act in our best interest in the future.

Therefore I plan start to develop a more formalized training program that seeks to establish some minimum performance goals in order to enhance our industry in general for my members and our signatory contractors who we work with as partners.

Commercial Diver training is the determinative factor as to how successful and or productive any one diver and or dive team activity will be. In the past most training was carried out on the job, but as our industry evolves the concept of “on the job training” has to be updated to enhance the following desired outcomes:

1.Safety
2.Production
3.Cost
4.Efficiency
5.Team Cohesion
6.Work Environment Quality
7.Consistency in work approach

Training is fundamental to all of these dive job related issues and more, because training is the foundation by which the work is going to proceed. As individuals we are going to act in accordance with what we have been taught, and also in equal and opposite manner by what we have not been taught. The level of training or lack thereof will lead to success and the failure that we all experience and are subjected to on the job.

The commercial diving industry that I and my fellow members work in throughout the North East has, up until very recently, had virtually no formal training provided to new members, and or older ones. This is due to three basic reasons, one, the commercial diving industry that our members worked in was one that was not formally recognized by anyone in our organizations administration, two, older divers weren't too enthusiastic about teaching anyone how they did their job out of fear of losing it, and three, there was no place to formally provide such training. In short, if no one knows how to do your job, then you can't be replaced as an individual and or as a group. For over hundred years this has been the area standard practice for those of us who provide commercial diving services in our area. This practice worked then, but it is now coming to the end of its useful life.

Here's how we intend to start the development of a commercial dive training program, the issues we intend to address, and what we intend to achieve:

1.Create a place wherein in which formal dive training can be carried out and provided to apprentice members and journeyman. We at L.U. 454 in Philadelphia, L.U. 56, in Boston, and the UBC, acting on behalf of entire national organization, have dive training facilities in operation now, and under development. These training facilities consist of large dive tanks that are housed indoors wherein a member can be certified in under water welding, hazmat diving, coatings applications, NDT work, pile jacket application, dive theory etc.

2.Create a code of Conduct that defines what a professional diver needs as a minimum to know, do, have, and how to conduct him or herself in order to be considered a professional diver. We intend to end the practice of individuals defining themselves as "divers" as this leads to all the obvious problems of people who misrepresent their skills and abilities.

3.Create a basic dive training theory for our industry which is limited to shallow water No D, Air Diving. This theory will be based on an outline that can be used to create new dive theory's for say, mixed gas diving, or saturation diving. We won’t cover those other dive modes in any great detail as we don't utilize those modes with any regularity.

4.Create a list of goals that we intend to reach through each element of a new and formalized training program. Success cannot be achieved unless it is defined prior to starting any activity or endeavor. Our goals at this point are pretty simple, define what a commercial diver is, provide formal and basic training that enables all of our members who are divers to perform any task to a minimum level of proficiency, enhance safety, and improve the work environment by reducing individual competition and converting diving from an individual endeavor into a team sport. All too often the work environment can be poisoned by excessive individual competition, the client doesn't care who did more, and neither should we, it’s the team that succeeded or failed. This team approach will redirect energy wasted on individual b******* onto the task at hand, instead of dealing with the he said she said incidents the team will be advancing the work. A team that can work like Ants can achieve much greater results time and again, where as an individual can’t do much of anything when working exclusively on their own.

5.Develop a Team approach to uniform job planning. This can’t be overstated. All too often job progress is limited by the fact that the same type of work is approached as if it were different from the last time. A common example for us is the installation of Pile Jackets. A pile jacket is pretty basic, the only thing that really changes from job to job is the location of the work, all else is basically the same. But when you get on the job in too many cases you find guys reinventing the wheel, doing what should be the same thing every time in a different way. So the development of a system of unified “team job planning” is critical to identifying the common mistakes in job planning that will slow production, reduce safety, and create a s***ty place to work. This system need not be more complicated than the system of X’s and O’s used in American style football to communicate what the “play” is to everyone on the team. An example would be as follows: Here is the barge, the pier or the platform, this is the material to be installed, fixed, found, or removed, these are the tenders and what they will do when and how, here are the divers who will do what, when, step by step, the operators will “operate” the following equipment as directed. This system is used in sports because winning is much more likely if everyone on the team knows everything that must happen, what their responsibilities are, and what their other team members responsibilities are as well.

6.Incorporate contractor input into our training program. Each of our contractors is different from the next; they serve different clients, use different equipment, and work in different environments. These contractors are our employers and working with them to develop training that better meets their needs will help them win more work, reduce accidents, lower their overhead, and make more money, which will benefit us, the employees exponentially.

We are just starting out in this process, I'll keep everyone you posted on our development of a training program, a definition of a professional diver, and the other concepts mentioned above.

Local454Diver