Alert Diver Article
DAN Eyes New Initiatives for the Coming Year
November / December 2006 Issue
By: Dan Orr

As in previous years, members of the DAN staff will travel to the Diving Equipment and Marketing Association (DEMA) trade show this fall. This year it is in Orlando, Fla. Since the event is for dive businesses and dive professionals only, many or most DAN Members have never attended.

I'd like to share with you some information about DEMA, from DAN's perspective. As other dive businesses, DAN participates in DEMA to introduce new products or initiatives, to teach courses, conduct seminars and to learn what's new in the dive industry.

With its multiple constituencies, DAN has lots to say and much to share with others in the industry. This year is no exception.

This fall DAN initiated a new program, "DAN Is My Buddy," to revitalize the Student Membership Program, which benefits student divers. It also introduced the Dive Diving First Aid for Professional Divers Program, which targets divers who work underwater - commercial divers, scientific divers or divers who work at aquariums.

The Student Membership Program is a free program benefit offered to all student, entry-level divers and includes $20,000 of recompression treatment insurance in the unlikely event a student develops decompression illness during training. Student membership is open to all entry-level students, and certified scuba instructors in the DAN America region may enroll their students.

Part of the roll-out of this program includes a "DAN Is My Buddy" DVD and a new interactive website, www.danismybuddy.com , to answer questions and concerns commonly expressed by new divers, to allow students easy access to enrollment and to provide excitement and information just when a new diver wants it most.

By using the Student Membership Program, students take an important first step in integrating dive safety into their diving practices. It also allows DAN to introduce the new divers to Divers Alert Network and its multitude of resources for all divers:

24-Hour Diving Emergency Hotline;

Diving Medical Information Line;

Alert Diver magazine and other DAN publications;

Training and education programs;

Other benefits of full membership; and,

Knowledge gained from DAN's numerous research studies.

The Diving First Aid for Professional Divers Program evolved through an industry need to streamline administrative requirements, ensuring every diver has current training in CPR and first aid, blood-borne pathogens and the DAN Oxygen First Aid for Scuba Diving Injuries course.

This new program includes most of the content and existing elements from the DAN courses, with supplemental information and video shot at the N.C. Aquarium on Roanoke Island, in Manteo, N.C. The video applies the diving information to the workplace. This new program meets American Heart Association Guidelines 2005.

These initiatives are but two things DAN has undertaken recently. They are in keeping with DAN's mission, of divers helping divers.

About the Author
DAN's President and Chief Executive Officer Dan Orr has been diving for 40-plus years and has held membership and leadership positions in many notable diving organizations such as NAUI, PADI, ACUC, YMCA, NASE, IAND, UHMS, NACD, AUAS, the Institute of Diving and the Explorers Club. He is the recipient of numerous awards such as AUAS's NOGI Award for Sports/Education, NAUI's Leonard Greenstone Award for Diving Safety, the Our World-Underwater Award, Beneath the Sea's Diver of the Year, and he was named Chairman of the Board of the Historical Diving Society for 2004.

(c) DAN - Alert Diver November / December 2006