SDI was created in 1999 and grew out of the success of its sister company TDI, which specializes in the more advanced disciplines of dive training.
Both students and instructors have embraced the no nonsense approach that the SDI training system offers. We have streamlined the course materials to let students study the essential academics with an emphasis on practical diving skills learned in both the pool and open water environments. SDI is the only agency to require student to be taught with modern dive computers from the onset of training.
SDI course materials are state-of-the-art; the materials are lavishly illustrated with photography and graphics. Diving is constantly changing. SDI staff is always looking forward and striving to be the innovators in scuba diving education. The focus of SDI is to make the experience of diving one that is enjoyed by every family member.
Year after year SDI makes diving enjoyable by setting the highest industry standards for dive training, safety and customer service.
Bret Gilliam founded Technical Diving International in 1994 after he had served in earlier positions starting up IANTD and as Chairman of the Board of Directors for NAUI. TDI grew to be the largest technical certification agency in the world. He is a 33 year veteran of the diving industry with a long track record in resort operation, dive vessels, manufacturing, publishing and legal consulting.
TDI is the largest technical certification agency in the world. As one of the first agencies to provide training in mixed gas diving and rebreathers, TDI is seen as an innovator of new diving techniques and programs which previously were not available to the general public. Training with TDI has provided divers with the opportunity to see such wrecks as the Andrea Doria, Luisitania, Brittanic, Empress of Ireland, and the Prince of Wales. TDI divers have explored underwater caves in Spain, Australia, Florida, and Mexico and assisted as support divers on world record freedives done in the Red Sea.
TDIs professionals are held to the highest standard to ensure quality training throughout the world. This means that as a diver taking a TDI course, your instructor will have documented his experience and knowledge prior to achieving that rating. As an instructor candidate taking a TDI course, your TDI instructor trainer will have gone through the paces to achieve the highest level of training that TDI offers.
TDI is committed to offering the highest quality training supported by the latest materials with the most up to date information and techniques. TDIs materials are written by authors that acutely conduct the type of diving they are writing about. Those same materials are update as technology and equipment change.
ERDI is the Public Safety diving (PSD) agency that trains Police, Fire and other public safety organizations in Search and Rescue techniques in just about every submerged environment known.
ERDI trains departments on how to make and maintain their own PSD teams along with being the only Public Safety diving training agency that has their own insurance that endorses its own standards. All the programs are OSHA and NFPA compliant. Some of the most successful ERDI teams are the Chicago Fire Department, Chicago Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Helping Public Safety Professionals, into ----and out, of the water!
We are the UKs leading dive club and the sports National Governing Body, providing an internationally-recognised diver training and development programme via a network of clubs and centres across the country and overseas. So whether you're a qualified diver or only just started, tried it on holiday or would like to learn - if you want the highest standards of training and great diving in good company, then BSAC is for you.