Who Is PADI Course Director Chris Owen?
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Chris is a British national who started diving in the cold waters of England, but who has had the pleasure of living and diving in Asia for the last 16 years. In 1992 Chris arrived in Thailand and spent a year on the islands of Ko Samui and Ko Tao before migrating south to the east coast of Malaysia and Tioman Island. After half a year working and diving there he returned to Thailand and moved up into the Gulf of Siam where he worked out of Pattaya, a coastal resort two hours south of Bangkok, for the next 6 years, before selling his shares of his Dive Centre there and relocating to Phuket to focus solely on Instructor Development. Chris has worked as a Divemaster and trip leader, filling tanks, loading boats, acting as a dive guide all the way through to being a manager of several PADI dive centres before becoming a partner and manager of a successful PADI 5* IDC centre in Pattaya and is familiar with most aspects of the business of diving. Chris has worked extensively in both in the resort “tourist” environment and the “city orientated” environments of Bangkok and Pattaya and is familiar with the benefits and drawbacks of both. Knowledge drawn from almost 20 years of working in these fields adds a lot of valuable information to the various business and marketing presentations during the IDC and various career education programs offered by Chris. Chris has now taught over 90 IDCs, more than 80 as The Course Director, and certified over 1000 PADI Instructors to varying levels. Chris has received a number of Certificates of Recognition of Excellence from PADI, most recently for his IDC programs and customer service and also four “Certificates in Recognition of Outstanding performance and support conducting Instructor Development programs” Apart from being a:
Chris is also a qualified Dive Medic Technician on call with the local Hyperbaric Chamber in Phuket. Chris is also an American Nitrox Divers International (ANDI) level 2 Instructor, Gas Blender and Service Technician. Currently Chris is working on his Cavern Diver Instructor Trainer rating and is looking forward to teaching this soon, the only problem Chris is having is finding the time to GO DIVE !!!!
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