Jay,
Thanks for the heads up. I did a quick look around their website and it seems not very informative on their overall training philosophy. Can you enlighten me on the background of the owners/training director? How long have they been around doing training? And anything else that I might want to know? Information about them on here while not bad does not seem very plentiful and seems more product focused. Also any issues with dive charters accepting cert cards worldwide?
Thanks,
Don
Hey Don,
Jeff and Andrew started UTD around 2008, based in San Diego and is now worldwide. Andrew was the training director for GUE so there are a lot of similarities between the 2 agencies.
Some of the base tenets are; neutral bouyancy from day 1, no skills on your knees.
Longhose/hogarthian equipment and procedures. These are taught from open water courses so each diver, regardless of training level, can be an effective buddy. They include topics such as "a balanced rig and rock bottom " for their essentials course.
All the training and equipment is compatible and scalable. So all the training serves as a base to the next level. There is no requirement to use "UTD" branded equipment at all, use what makes sense.
It's really a welcoming community of divers that like to have fun and dive.
No problems I've ever heard of, the cert cards are proof of a very high level of skill. There are facilities all over the world.
If you are considering technical diving in the future, I couldn't recommend getting a better base of training than UTD or GUE.
I'm a bit biased as I'm a UTD instructor, also TDI, SDI and PADI. But if you have anymore questions, just ask. Cheers.