About Us
History
History of Commercial Diving Academy
Gulf Coast Commercial Diving Academy was established in 1995, in Orange Beach, Alabama, in order to provide training and employable skills in the profession of commercial diving.
The School was established by Ray Black in answer to the need for trained commercial divers and the rare-existence of schools of this type. The School is the realization of his dream of sharing his 15 years of experience and training with others. Ray Black was born in Alabama and dedicated his life to working with the industry for almost two decades. He has been associated with worldwide commercial diving companies.
In 2001, David Weisman, a maritime business owner, partnered with Ray Black and they moved the Academy to Jacksonville, Florida. They changed the name of the School to Commercial Diving Academy and began the process of building both the facility and the program into the world’s premiere dive training institution. Together they created a master plan for dive training education. This included a unique training schedule, delivered in a contained campus that encompassed housing, meals, open water diving and state of the art training tanks to support instruction in underwater construction techniques. In 2007 they acquired the exclusive rights to a deepwater training site in central Florida and in 2009 CDA became the only school in the nation to offer deepwater training accredited by the Divers Certification Board of Canada, The Association of Commercial Diving Educators and recognized by the International Marine Contractors Association. Future plans include closed bell/saturation diving training and the development of our maritime welding program.
