Simon Talbot's Topic:
Scientific Diving Update
Discover the changes in Scientific Diving Standards - Simon talks you through the new training sections around:
- Training of scientific Dive Coordinators (may be relevant at the moment re the NSW Workcover stance on all recreational instructors/DMs needing to become General Divers!)
- HP and LP SSBA training
Simon Talbot
Diving Officer at Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania
Simon Talbot was born and raised in Papua New Guinea, where learning to snorkel at a very early age instilled a lifelong love of the ocean!
Simon spent ten years as a technical staff member for the Tasmanian Department of Sea Fisheries, primarily working on abalone research, and has worked as Diving Officer for the University of Tasmania since 1998.
He has been a recreational diver since 1984, a commercial diver since 1986, and has been teaching diving since 1991. He currently holds instructor ratings with TDI, SSI & ADAS, and in addition to logging a few thousand recreational dives since he started diving, he has logged over 5000 scientific and commercial dives across a wide range of diving modes - including both ‘hookah’ and high pressure panel supplied surface supply, and open and closed circuit SCUBA.
In 2003 Simon worked with Paul Butler from the Australian Diver Accreditation Scheme (ADAS) to build a scientific diving course that met the requirements of the AS2299.2 scientific diving standard, and registered UTAS as an ‘educational’ ADAS Training Establishment (ATE). He ran the first ADAS scientific diving course through UTAS in 2004 and has run between one to three courses per year since then. Simon has assisted with implementation and management of ADAS courses through other Australian universities, and has taught on scientific diving courses run by international colleagues on several occasions as well.
Simon has been a member of the Standards Australia SF17 Occupational Diving Committee since 2002, helping to design fit-for-purpose occupational diving standards in Australasia, and is also the Australian delegate to an International Standards Organisation (ISO) committee which is currently developing ISO standards for scientific diving.
He is extremely passionate about improving linkages between scientific diving agencies both nationally and internationally, as well as building meaningful standards for scientific diver training that allow for reciprocity worldwide.
