Unified Team Diving
| Unified Team Diving | |
|---|---|
| Abbreviation | UTD |
| Headquarters |
San Diego, CA,  United States |
| Region served | International |
| Website | http://www.unifiedteamdiving.com, http://www.utdequipment.com, http://www.zubadiving.com |
Unified Team Diving (UTD) is a underwater diving training organization and diving equipment manufacturer that was founded in 2009 to incorporate DIR/Hogarthian principles into SCUBA education and equipment manufacturing at all levels.
History
Unified Team Diving (UTD International LLC) is a global company providing education, equipment and community to like-minded scuba divers. UTD is both a training agency and equipment manufacturer, based in California, USA, that focuses on providing UTD/DIR/Hogarthian divers with up-to-date teaching methodologies and high standards. UTD supports its philosophy of diving by producing signature series equipment that enables divers to implement the "mixed team" diving concept.
Unified Team Diving was formed in 2009 by Andrew Georgitsis and Jeff Seckendorf. Its roots lie in DIR/Hogarthian diving principles derived originally from the cave diving community. Prior to 2009, Georgitsis had been teaching many of the same concepts within other organizations, including NAUI and Global Underwater Explorers (GUE). UTD has the additional goals of solidifying team diving concepts and creating a "thinking diver". UTD currently has a presence worldwide including Europe, US, Mexico, Russia, South America, Africa, Australia and throughout Asia Pacific including China.
Founder and CEO Andrew Georgitsis has a long history in diving, including technical diving, Cave, Wreck and Rebreather diving. He was formerly the training director at Global Underwater Explorers and a founder of Dive Xtras Inc.
The roots of Unified Team Diving's philosophy and principles can be found in the Hogarthian/DIR equipment configuration and its covenants. Hogarthian was a minimalist approach to a gear configuration in the early 1990s but those that adhered to it, still kept an diving ideology of "each diver" should configure their own way. DIR built upon the Hogarthian configuration by adding an element of standardization (late 1990s till now) - mainly because of a large scale projects such as Wakulla. However, this rigid standardization in itself lead to a narrowing of the available "tool set" as it was only designed for open-circuit back-mounted double tanks with stage bottles and deco bottles. Any deviation from that configuration such as a single tank, side-mount or rebreather, was either excluded or "cobbled" together.
In 2007, UTD decided to build upon its founders' roots for the previous 13 years in Hogarthian and DIR, and evolve the system to the next generation - unification. UTD wanted to keep its standardization and minimalist approach with the "tool" of open-circuit back-mount (DIR) but increase the "tool set", venturing into side-mount and closed circuit rebreathers. The goal was to unify these three configurations into one system while remaining consistent, scalable and interchangeable. The intention was to drive the industry forward, by being inclusive and not exclusive. UTD describes these as the core elements in the UTD 10 covenants.
The approach of combining the systems allows for seamless mixed team diving and is supported by the UTD global community, progressive education system, and dedicated equipment.
Declared Mission/Purpose/Ethos
UTD declares its mission to be the training of divers at all levels, including instructors, in the UTD/DIR team approach to diving. UTD delivers all its educational academic content online with an emphasis on the social nature of its web site and the building of a community of like-minded divers. Its online presence extends to Facebook, Twitter and other forums. UTD also allows access to all of its educational materials to instructors from other agencies to assist them in conducting their own courses. It declares itself to be 'inclusive' as opposed to the traditional view of DIR diving as 'exclusive'. UTD promotes a uniform equipment configuration, uniform methods of dive planning and execution, and uniform skill sets at all training levels.
Educational Philosophy
UTD uses a building block approach to education, layering each new topic on top of previous topics both in the classroom and in the water. All of UTD's academic course content is delivered online, there are no printed materials. UTD requires significantly more in-water work than the bulk of other dive training agencies in the granting of certifications.[citation needed]
Classes Offered
- Extreme Scuba Makeover (ESM]
- Recreational 1
- Recreational 2
- Recreational 3
- Nitrox
- Rescue
- Essentials
- Ratio Deco
- CCR Ratio Deco
- Intro to Tech
- Tech 1
- Tech 2
- Trimix 1
- Trimix 2
- mCCR 1 and 2
- pSCR 1 and 2
- Scooter/DPV 1
- Scooter /DPV 2
- Overhead Protocols
- Cave 1
- Cave 2
- Cave 3
- Wreck 1
- Wreck 2
- Wreck 3
- Zuba Supervised
- Zuba Jr. Openwater
- Zuba Openwater
Projects
UTD members are actively engaged in numerous 'projects' around the world including the first diver exploration of the German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin. European members are currently engaged in various submerged cave explorations including the PIT PROJECT in Mexico.
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