Here are the some of the bios of our 2024 speakers. We bring together notable talent from across the industry to give engaging presentations. Each speaker has a unique background and a passion for diving. More speakers will be added in the next few days.
Carly Anderson is an underwater photographer, scuba diver, adventurer, writer, and world traveler from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who is obsessed with adding new hobbies and destinations to her global bucket list.
She is an SSI certified tech diver with a Master’s Degree in Finance and Project Management who has worked on over 20 film and television sets and possesses a strong passion for creating visual media. She has traveled to 27 international countries and dived in 11.
She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Visit her website at www.globalseahorse.com and follow her @globalcolorpop on Instagram.
Gretchen M. Ashton, CFT, SFT, SFN, SSC, NBFE, is an advanced scuba diver, nitrox diver, paddler, sailor and fitness professional with more than 70,000 one-to-one and group training sessions. She is registered with the National Board of Fitness Examiners, is an International Sports Sciences Association Preferred Education Provider and Elite Trainer which includes credentials as a personal trainer, specialist in fitness therapy, fitness nutrition, strength and conditioning, arthritis and boxing exercise. As a lifetime drug free strength athlete Gretchen set 21 World and 21 American records and is the second woman inducted into the AAU Power Lifting Hall of Fame. Gretchen is founder of ScubaFit LLC, and developed the ScubaFit®, FitDiver®, DiveFit® and SurfWalking™ exercise programs for divers, instructors and water sports enthusiasts. She co-authored the PADI ScubaFit® Diver Distinctive Specialty, co-designed FitDiver® mobile fitness apps, and publishes FitDiver®Magazine. She shares her fitness message with the diving clubs, is an Expert Speaker for Los Angeles County Scuba Advanced Diver Program and Underwater Instructor Certification Course, at the Scuba Show, U.S. Dive Shows, and dive medicine conferences. Gretchen is a brand ambassador for Mobby’s and a mentor with Water Women, Inc. Her writing includes Fitness Editor or contributor for World’s Best Dives, Unified Team Diving Journal, California and Florida Diver Magazine, X-Ray Mag, Scuba Sport Magazine, Alert Diver United States and Asia-Pacific, Divetime.com, ScubaBoard, Scuba Fitness Examiner at Examiner.com and her ScubaFit® blog. She is recognized by the President’s Council of Physical Fitness and Sports for inspiring and innovative accomplishments in fitness and in the Margaritaville Key West website culinary column.
Jeff is a technical diving instructor and research scientist. He authored the seminal text Mastering Rebreathers. Jeff has participated or lead over 70 worldwide diving expeditions, including several to the northern polar regions and nine to Antarctica. His contributions were recognized with the AAUS Conrad Limbaugh Award for Scientific Diving Leadership and Beneath the Sea Diver of the Year (Science).
Louis Casabianca began diving in 1980, in the days of beavertail wetsuits and horse collar BCs. He has been a Divemaster since 1994, and a Specialty Instructor since 2000. He has also been a Navy Scuba Diver since 1994, a surface-supplied diver/Navy Diving Officer since 1997, and a Mixed-Gas Diver since 2000. A decompression chamber operator since 1997, he has served on multiple diving and salvage missions worldwide. He has a Mechanical Engineering BSE from UC Berkeley, and still learns something new on every dive.
Paul Cater Deaton is an award-winning Writer, Producer, Director and Cinematographer. Based in Galveston, he works all over the world on film, TV, music video and documentary projects.
He is a member of the Television Academy, Explorers Club, Boston Sea Rovers, Historical Diving Society and American Advertising Federation. Credits include The Travel Channel, Discovery Channel, HBO Documentaries and The Amazing Race.
He is a NAUI SCUBA Instructor and TDI Nitrox and Rebreather diver. Certified in Global Shark Biology, Biodiversity and Conservation by Cornell University and the University of Queensland. Certified as a Philippines Specialist by the Philippines Department of Tourism.
For the Last 30 years Peter DenHaan has been a full time Technical Diving Instructor Trainer and Course Director in the scuba industry for Open Circuit and multiple Rebreathers. Peter has authored many articles and training curriculums for Technical & Rebreather diving and wrote the Xtek 45 Training Manual for NASE. He has been fortunate to travel and train Technical Instructors in Alaska, Hawaii, Great Lakes, West & East Coast US, Canada, Brazil, Chilean Navy, Bonaire, Grand Cayman, Bahamas, Indonesia and the Netherlands AKA Holland including diving well known wrecks such as the Andrea Doria and Empress of Ireland.
Terry Feinberg had early aspirations of a career in marine science, but it wasn’t to be. He was first certified in 1972, dove for 8 years, including a stint as an urchin diver, before life got in the way. In 2020 he did a giant stride back into diving, starting over with basic open water through rescue, and since then he has over 300 Monterey County shore dives under his weight belt. If he’s not doing a Reef Check or kelp restoration dive, you’ll find him sharing the beauty through his pictures.
Mel Futrell is a PADI-certified open-water diver with additional Nitrox and Buoyancy Control training. As an instrument-rated pilot and aviation instructor who has been flying for 27 years, she also teaches Human Factors at Glendale College in the Pilot Training program. Upon earning her PADI-certification in 2012, Mel began investigating human factors in the diving field, her pursuits eventually leading her thousands of miles away across the pond to the UK and Gareth Lock. Mel also serves as an editor for the academic Journal of Human Performance in Extreme Environments.
Armando Gonzalez has been in the commercial diving industry for over 18 years. He is the host of “The Bottom Dwellers Dive Shack” diving podcast and a senior dive supervisor for Moffat and Nichol Engineers in Long Beach, CA.
He has worked primarily as an inland heavy construction and bridge inspection diver. His work underwater has taken him all across the country working on the Nation’s infrastructure. He is experienced and proficient in most tools and skills underwater such as exothermic burning, welding, non-destructive testing. pile driving, etc.
His show, “The Bottom Dwellers Dive Shack”, hosted alongside John Villarreal, (a 14+ year commercial diver for the Port of Long Beach), has gained the reputation of being a great educational outlet with a fun and honest look into the commercial diving industry. Though sometimes crass and unabashed they have quickly become a good source for diving entertainment worldwide. The show can be found on all podcast platforms, such as Spotify, and on their website at TheBottomDwellers.com.
Karl Huggins has been the Director of the Catalina Hyperbaric Chamber Facility at the USC Wrigley Marine Science Center since 1992. He is noted for his work in decompression theory and models, which resulted in the Michigan Sea Grant (HUGI) tables and his participation in the development of the EDGE dive computer.
Karl is the 1990 recipient of the Leonard Greenstone Diving Safety Award, the DAN/Rolex Diver of the Year for 1993, the 2004 Conrad Limbaugh Memorial Award for Scientific Diving Leadership and the 2008 California Scuba Service Award.
Captain John Kades has been an investigator/deputy coroner for the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office since October 2000. He has been a member of the department’s Special Operations Response Team (SORT) and has specialized in disaster operations, aircraft fatalities, drowning/SCUBA cases, and skeletal/buried body cases. He is currently one of the managers of the operations division that includes 6 lieutenants, 38 investigators, and approximately 30 forensic support staff. He also directly oversees the department’s Notifications Section, searching for and notifying the legal next of kin of the deceased.
As a member of the California State Coroner’s Association (CSCA) Captain Kades serves on the Association’s coroner curriculum development committee that recommends training standards for death investigations. He has a BA in criminal justice from UC Santa Barbara. He has been an active scuba diver since 1981. Kades spent 14 years as a public safety diver for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Underwater Search and Recovery team.
Todd Kortte is an actor and producer in Hollywood with a passion for the ocean. He has appeared in over 150 national commercials, and has brought his Hollywood production expertise to the underwater world of videography. Todd placed 4th in the World Shootout in Germany, becoming the only American to make the top 5 finalists in the World Shootout Video Category. He has film festival awards, several viral videos, several million social media views, he leads video workshops, and has several licensed underwater videos with viral video companies. Todd has documented Giant Manta research efforts in Socorro and cleanup efforts of Ocean Defenders Alliance.
Ken Kurtis was kicked out of swim class twice by the time he was six (he didn’t like putting his face in the water). Hardly an auspicious start to a diving career. But Ken always loved being around the water, loved looking at fish, and in 1978 while running a radio station in Richmond, VA, was offered a chance to get certified and took advantage of it. Ken then became a NAUI Instructor (Top Candidate at his 1980 ITC) and has logged over 5,000 dives all over the world in such varied places as the Maldives, Indonesia, Yap, Tahiti, Bonaire, Easter Island, Alaska, and, of course, his beloved waters of Southern California. Ken is the owner of Reef Seekers Dive Co., speaks frequently to dive clubs about diving techniques and safety issues, has been chairman of Chamber Day/Eve since the early 90s, served for 10 years as a member of the Statewide Interests Group for the MLPA, and is a volunteer dive team leader at the Aquarium of the Pacific. Ken is an accomplished photographer whose photos & stories can be found in the pages of the California Diving News, Undercurrent, and other scuba publications, along with the monthly Reef Seekers newsletter. Since 2003, Ken has been a Forensic Consultant to the L.A. County Department of Medical-Examiner/Coroner. With all that, he still finds time to maintain an acting career (he was the voice of most of the hockey announcers in the 2015 documentary “Red Army”) and leads most of the local and foreign trips for Reef Seekers. He’s a very good cook, avid Scrabble & Boggle player, chases total solar eclipses, ran five L.A. Marathons, and is kind to animals and small children. Be sure to ask him his mantra about divers.
Lisa Miyake has traveled on 16 liveaboard dive boats over the past five years. Thanks to liveaboard diving, she has visited many bucket-list destinations around the world including Raja Ampat, Komodo, Galapagos, Socorro, Palau, Maldives, Red Sea, PNG, Solomon Islands, Belize, and others.
Lisa is a Rescue-certified diver and frequently speaks on the topic of adventure travel. She has presented for various outdoor and adventure organizations including REI and the Sierra Club.
Andrew Pettit is a project scientist and graduate student with the Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory at the UCSB Marine Science Institute. He leads the Spotting Giant Sea Bass Project seeking to answer important questions regarding the population, spatial patterns, and ecology of the giant sea bass. He is an avid diver and has worked as an AAUS certified scientific diver at UC Santa Barbara since 2020 conducting research along the California coast and Northern Channel Islands.
Jess Rosas is an active County of Los Angeles SCUBA & Skin/Freedive Instructor who has been involved with training and educating SCUBA divers, freedivers and dive leaders in local oceanographic patterns and processes for safe exploration of the coastal and offshore island waters of the Southern California Bight for the past 27 years through emphasis and practice of critical watermanship skills, repetitive acclimation and exposure to the differing seasonal turbulence patterns of the Los Angeles County nearshore coastal environment.
He has been an active volunteer with the County of Los Angeles Department of Parks & Recreation Underwater Unit Programs for the past 27 years as the Course Director and instructor trainer for the Underwater Instructor Certification Course (UICC), program director/lead instructor for the Rocks, Rips & Reefs (“3Rs”) program, and Course Director and lead instructor for the Advanced Diver Program (ADP). Jess is a regular contributor for user feedback for the Scripps Institute of Oceanography Coastal Data Information Program (CDIP) having been invited to do so by CDIP program staff.
His work with the Los Angeles County Underwater Unit programs has been profiled in California Diver and NAUI Sources magazines, and he is also an active speaker to various dive clubs and organizations.
Jess has also served as a Board Member of the Los Angeles County Underwater Instructors Association.
Jess has been recognized for his service to the County of Los Angeles Underwater Unit programs as a recipient of the prestigious Conrad Limbaugh Award, and the “Outstanding Instructor” award, given by the Los Angeles County Instructor Association. Jess is also a NAUI instructor & NAUI Instructor Trainer.
Andy Sallmon and Allison Vitsky Sallmon are a photography/writing team that has been working together since 2010. Individually and together, their work has been recognized in dozens of international underwater and nature photography competitions, graced the walls of aquariums and museums, including the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Smithsonian Institute, and extensively published in magazines and books on diving, nature, and photography. Additionally, Allison is the founder and president of Dive into the Pink, a nonprofit organization that mobilizes the diving community to join the fight against cancer, and she is a proud member of the Women Divers Hall of Fame.
Justin began his professional diving journey back in 2012 while residing in Croatia and has been a full-time instructor ever since. He enjoys exploring different dive sites globally, especially those that are not commonly visited. His team has been on an exciting journey for the past five years exploring an underwater tomb in Sudan and the first archaeological dive site in the Dead Sea. He has been featured on three National Geographic TV shows, an issue of National Geographic Magazine, and featured in two episodes of Discovery Channel’s Expedition Unknown.
Charlotte Seid, PhD, is a museum scientist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego. She manages the Benthic Invertebrate Collection, a repository of preserved seafloor specimens used for research and education around the world. Charlotte has been diving since 2003 including AAUS Scientific Diver Certification, although much of her work explores deep-sea habitats far beyond scuba depths. She has spent more than 150 days at sea on research ships photographing, documenting, and preserving marine specimens.
Dale Sheckler has been actively diving California since 1973, Kim since 1982. The couple founded California Diving News in 1984 and published and edited the magazine until December of 2011. They are now contributing writers for the publication. They also founded the Scuba Show in 1987 and produced it successfully until 2011. Kim and Dale have authored many books including Southern California’s Best Beach Dives and Diving and Snorkeling Guide to the Channel Islands. In 2012 they were presented with the California Scuba Service Award for their many years of tremendous service to the California diving community.
An inductee into DEMA’s SCUBA diving Hall of Fame, Marty Snyderman is a proud recipient of DEMA’s 2008 Reaching Out Award. He is also an EMMY Award winning cinematographer, still photographer, author and speaker specializing in the marine environment. Marty is being honored by the Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences in the field of the Arts as the 2018 NOGI recipient. As he has been for many years, Marty serves as the Marine Life Editor and columnist for Dive Training magazine and as the Senior Editor and columnist for California Diving News.
The Stayers, Explorer Club Fellows and Boston Sea Rovers Associate Members, are well-known underwater filmmakers dedicated to sharing shipwrecks, animal behavior, and remote dive destinations around the world. Jim & Pat have discovered several historic shipwrecks, co-authored 3 books, produced hundreds of multimedia presentations, and their footage has appeared on numerous major networks worldwide. They have directed several evening film festivals and are popular presenters across North America. The couple has been diving for 47 years and ran a charter boat on the Great Lakes. Jim is a USCG Captain and Pat is in the Women Divers Hall of Fame. Together they have led an amazing life of adventure.
Bruce Sudweeks lives and dives in the Monterey Bay area and his passion is underwater photography. If the ocean conditions are not suitable for diving, you might find him snorkeling in the creek that flows past his home in the redwood forest. His closest and dearest neighbors are the steelhead trout in the creek. His first dive computer was a NAUI dive table. You can read his monthly Central California diving article in the California Diving News. Bruce has published five ocean-based children’s books complete with original poetry.
Gil Zeimer is a PADI-certified Open Water diver, scuba storyteller, travel writer, blogger, and journalist. He has dived in three oceans and prefers warm water. As a cruise industry expert, he has managed a major cruise line’s advertising, as well as been a passenger aboard ships to Mexico’s West Coast, the Western Caribbean, Alaska’s Inside Passage, and the Mediterranean.
He has published more than 2,600 blogs. Over 1,600 of them have been about travel, food, wine, shopping, including more than 200 scuba-related articles, blogs, and websites. His stories have appeared in California Diving News, Scuba Times, Alert Diver, Adventure Journal, Sport Diver Interactive, Dive Travel, Dive Pacific, Asian Diver, Scuba Diver Life, Local Getaways, Scuba Radio, S.F. Chronicle, L.A. Times, and Marin Independent Journal.