Steve Barsky started diving in 1965 in Los Angeles County, and became a diving instructor in 1970. His first employment in the industry was with a dive store in Los Angeles and he went on to work for almost 10 years in the retail dive store environment.
Steve attended the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he earned a Masters Degree in 1976 in Human Factors Engineering. This has greatly helped in his thorough understanding of diving equipment design and use. His master’s thesis was one of the first to deal with the use of underwater video systems in commercial diving. His work was a pioneering effort at the time (1976) and was used by the Navy in developing applications for underwater video systems.
His background includes being a commercial diver, working in the offshore oil industry in the North Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and South America. He worked as both an air diving supervisor and a mixed gas saturation diver, making working dives down to 580’.
In 1978, Barsky joined the staff of the Florida PADI College in Jacksonville, Florida. As Training Director, Barsky was responsible for open water training and screening applicants for admission into the College. This program was one of the first private extended instructor training programs in the country, after which all current programs of this type are modeled.
Barsky was marketing manager for Viking America, Inc., an international manufacturer of dry suits. He also served in a similar position at Diving Systems International (DSI), the world’s leading manufacturer of commercial diving helmets. At DSI, Barsky worked very closely with Bev Morgan, a diving pioneer.
Steve is an accomplished underwater photographer. His photos have been used in numerous magazine articles, catalogs, advertising, training programs, and textbooks.
A prolific writer, Barsky’s work has been published in Sea Technology, Underwater USA, Skindiver, Offshore Magazine, Emergency, Fire Engineering, Dive Training Magazine, Searchlines, Sources, Undersea Biomedical Reports, Santa Barbara Magazine, Selling Scuba, Scuba Times, Underwater Magazine, and many other publications. He is the author of the Dry Suit Diving Manual, Diving in High Risk Environments, Spearfishing for Skin and Scuba Divers, Small Boat Diving, Diving with the EXO-26 Full Face Mask, Diving with the Divator MK II Full Face Mask, and a joint author with Dick Long and Bob Stinton of Dry Suit Diving: A Guide to Diving Dry. Steve has taught numerous workshops on contaminated water diving, dry suits, small boat diving, spearfishing, and other diving topics. Investigating Recreational and Commercial Diving Accidents was written by Steve and Dr. Tom Neuman.
In 1989 Steve formed Marine Marketing and Consulting, based in Santa Barbara, California. The company provides market research, marketing plans, consulting, newsletters, promotional articles, technical manuals, and other services for the diving and ocean industry. He has consulted to Dräger, AquaLung/U.S. Divers Co., Inc, Zeagle Systems, Inc., Diving Unlimited Intnl., Diving Systems Intnl, DAN, NAUI, and numerous other companies. He also investigates diving accidents and serves as an expert witness in dive accident litigation.
In 1999, Steve and his wife Kristine formed Hammerhead Press to publish high quality diving books. Hammerhead Press is a subsidiary of the Carcharodon Corporation. In 2001 they formed Hammerhead Video to produce underwater films.
Steve is an instructor with NAUI and PADI, as well as TDI and SDI.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
