SPEAKERS

Martin Parker

Managing Director and owner of Ambient Pressure Diving, (manufacturers of the Inspiration and Evolution rebreathers) and A P Valves, (manufacturers of the Buddy range of buoyancy compensators) Martin Parker developed the Buddy range of jackets as well as some of the associated valving, and was the money and drive behind the development of the Inspiration CCR, now in it's 11th year of manufacture and the first CCR to reach the masses.

In 2005, the simple "control the oxygen only" electronics of the Inspiration evolved in to the Vision electronics that, yet again, established the new "cross-bar". Featuring simple fibre optic head up displays and the first working system for monitoring scrubber life, a system which automatically compensates for work rate, water temperature, depth, different scrubber materials, part-used scrubber materials and still gives warnings in advance of CO2 breakthrough.

Martin learned to dive in 1974, taking the technical route in 1994. He was the first diver to use the Inspiration CCR on Trimix and now very rarely uses any other form of diving equipment.

He represents the UK at the European diving equipment standard meetings and has been involved in the EN250 Regulator Standard right through to the latest EN14143 Rebreather Standard - acknowledged by equipment manufacturers as being one of the toughest Standards.

A very keen underwater photographer who has managed to win the Humorous Section of "On the day" competitions, (achieving First Place for four years, and Second Place winner twice) he admits that he simply has the idea, but then has to ask a real photographer what settings to use on the camera! "I always feel embarrassed when they ask me what settings I used on the camera as the reply is virtually always the same - "Program mode, auto focus then I played around with the flash settings and took lots of photos!"