National Association of Underwater Instructors

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The National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) is a United States-based SCUBA diver training organization concerned with promoting dive safety through education.

NAUI was founded by Albert Tillman and Neal Hess in 1959. In August 1960, NAUI’s first Instructor Certification Course was held at the Houston’s Shamrock Hilton Hotel that August with 72 candidates. A little over a year later, in October 1961, NAUI was incorporated in the State of California as a non-profit educational organization. Al Tillman was the first President and Neal Hess, the Executive Secretary. Other original board members included John C. Jones of the Red Cross and Garry Howland of the United States Air Force. NAUI Worldwide remains the oldest international not-for-profit membership training agency organized solely to support and promote dive safety through education. Throughout its existence, NAUI has continually maintained a position in the forefront of diving education. NAUI sanctioned Nitrox training in 1992 - the first recreational training agency to do so - continuing to innovate in support of its members and in the interest of diving safety. In early 1997, in keeping with NAUI’s founding principles, NAUI published standards for teaching technical diving, a practice that had been growing among NAUI members for several years.

Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the inventor of the aqualung, was on the board of advisors of NAUI. Lloyd Bridges, who, as character "Mike Nelson" on the Ziv TV series "Sea Hunt", popularized scuba diving on a mass basis in America for the first time, was the first honorary NAUI instructor member. Buster Crabbe, the famous Olympic swimmer and movie star, was a NAUI instructor. Other celebrities who are certified NAUI divers include Kevin Costner, Lou Gossett Jr., and Cameron Diaz; Tiger Woods is a NAUI divemaster member. Most of the top universities, colleges and institutes of technology in the United States certify their students through NAUI, including the US Navy Seal Teams, Special Forces, and NASA astronauts.

NAUI Worldwide offers a full range of training programs from Skin Diver through Instructor Course Director, with dozens of specialty courses including nitrox and technical diving. Thousands of member Instructors, affiliated stores, resorts, and service centers are located in countries throughout the world.

The NAUI Technical Diving Division was started in 1997 with the goal of creating a higher standard of training worldwide by codifying technical community training practices.

NAUI offers a large number of courses at all levels of diving experience. Below is a sampling of the most popular courses.