DM Training question - this doesn't fit here, but ....

[OMyMyOHellYes]

OK - I am all about hypotheticals today...

Suppose I would, sometime in the not-too-distant future, decide I wanted a DM card to include in the deck of cards on hand. No intention of doing instructing (or participating in instructin', no intention really, of doing much in the way of actual dive masterin'..... More of a self-satisfaction accomplishment).

But, if at some point moved off somewhere divey in retirement and decided I wanted to lead dives on a part-time basis just to stay busy a couple days a week, maybe free access to fill tanks with nitrox or tinker on tanks or regs when the shop needs it or some such other diversionary efforts....

If you wanted to hook up with an operator as their fill-in-when-our-super-hero-high-speed-low-drag-tacticaool-DM-gal/guy-is-sick-or-hung-over for leading dives (boat DM or local knowledge dive guide), I imagine they would prefer someone with certification out of the agency they subscribe to, but do they care if your DM comes from somebody else - say you had a RAID or NAUI DM card and they were and SSI shop? Keep in mind, not for teaching students.... Just pointing out cool coral formations or sea horses or frog fish or speckled pecker eels, and making sure everybody on the dive gets back topside safely.

 

[boulderjohn]

Everything varies with location.

A useful employee is a versatile employee. In many cases around the world, the DM leading your dive is actually an instructor. With a dive shop I used to use in South Florida, the DM who did most of their trips was a technical instructor. On one trip I was on a couple months ago, their were three boat captains on board--the actual captain, the DM, and another employee who was instructing a class that day.

I started working as a DM for a shop in Colorado. That meant my job was usually doing a little grunt work and then hanging around behind the instructor during the pool or OW sessions to make sure nothing bad happened. Soon after I started, the shop figured out that things would be a lot better if they had assistant instructors doing that, because the AIs could do more than just watch. SI I became an AI. A year or so after that, I became an instructor. Within a couple years, nearly everyone on staff was an instructor. Sometimes you were assigned to lead the class, and sometimes you were assigned to assist.

Then I moved to a different shop, and there the DMs were all DMs. Period. They had no more advanced certification that that, and it didn't seem to me they wanted anything more than that.

 

[VikingDives]

OK - I am all about hypotheticals today...
I imagine they would prefer someone with certification out of the agency they subscribe to, but do they care if your DM comes from somebody else - say you had a RAID or NAUI DM card and they were and SSI shop? Keep in mind, not for teaching students.... Just pointing out cool coral formations or sea horses or frog fish or speckled pecker eels, and making sure everybody on the dive gets back topside safely.

As a shop, I don't think it matters. I could have a PADI DM guide divers for my shop even though I am not a PADI member any longer...

Thinking about it practically though, I doubt you'd find much work without being affiliated with the primary agency of the shop. Maybe if you found an op that only ran tours, but I'm guessing that in most cases, it wouldn't work out.

All that being said, IIRC, it's a pretty easy cross-over at the DM level for most agencies.