About Steven M. Barsky

Steven M. Barsky started diving in 1965 in Los Angeles County, and became a NAUI 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. His master's thesis was one of the first to deal with the use of underwater video systems in commercial diving. His work was used by the U.S. Navy in developing applications for underwater video systems. Steve also graduated from the two year program in commercial diving at Santa Barbara City College.

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. This program was the first private extended instructor training program in the world, 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 H2Ops, Sea Technology, Skin Diver, Offshore Magazine, Emergency, Fire Engineering, Dive Training Magazine, Searchlines, Sources, Undersea Biomedical Reports, Santa Barbara Magazine, Underwater Magazine, and many other publications. He is the author or co-author of eighteen books. Steve has taught numerous workshops on contaminated water diving, dry suits, small boat diving, spearfishing, underwater video, and other diving topics.

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, Inc, Zeagle Systems, Inc., Diving Unlimited Intnl., Kirby Morgan, DAN, NAUI, and numerous other companies. He also investigates diving accidents and serves as an expert witness in dive accident litigation.

Steve was also a partner in Scubatraining.net, the first company to bring on-line academic training to the diving industry, with real time testing of student knowledge. Scubatraining.net provided on-line training for SDI and SSI, and continues to do so for several diving equipment manufacturers.

In 1999 Steve and Kristine formed Hammerhead Press to publish a wide variety of unique diving books. In 2001 Steve and Kristine formed Hammerhead Video to produce high quality underwater videos for the sport and commercial diving markets.

Steve is active in service to the diving community and has served on the Board of Directors of the Friends of Channel Islands National Park, the Historical Diving Society USA, and the Scuba Diving Resource Group. He also works as a volunteer at the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber. Currently, he is on the Board of Directors of Ships to Reefs International and is an Advisory Board member to the Marine Diving Technology program at Santa Barbara Community College.

Aside from his affiliation with NAUI, Steve was also certified with PADI. He also served as a staff member on many NAUI instructor courses. Today he is affiliated with TDI and SDI.

Steve worked as a commercial diver in the North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and on the east coast of the U.S. This photo was taken in 1982 aboard a drill rig off Chile.