History Makers – Northwest Diving History Association

Diving History Makers

Throughout our region there are a few diving legends. These are people that you know, or have heard about in the diving industry. There are also many diving pioneers that have not gained notoriety in the industry, however their contributions to the diving community have been invaluable. We’ll publish the stories and achievements of the Legends and the many other diving pioneers as well.

Below are some of the diving history makers of the Pacific Northwest. Learn about diving from their perspective - what training and equipment they used, and the adventures they had in the early days of diving!

Tory Van Dyke

Tory Van Dyke began SCUBA diving at the early age of 17. His dad, Kenny van Dyke, had a small dive shop operation that he ran out of his Mountain Shop ski shop in Portland, Oregon, during the summer months.
Click to learn more.

Spence Campbell

Since the late 1950’s, Spence has served the diving community as an instructor, commercial diver, commercial diving supervisor, scientific diver, diving physiology researcher, research diver, diving educator, and past president of Washington’s Council of Skindiving clubs. Click to learn more.

Jim Larson

My first dive experience was as Boy Scout in the local high school pool with a two hose regulator and a steel tank with a homemade backpack. The whole experience was less than 5 minutes but left a desire to do more. Click to learn more.

Brent Buddon

Brent Buddon began his diving career just out of grammar school, when a friend asked him to help him dive for sunken logs at an old sawmill. Click to learn more.

John Reseck

John Resect, Jr. reflects on a lifetime of diving which began in Southern California in 1945 when he was just 10 years old. He’s logged more than 5,000 hours as a commercial diver and 10,000 as a recreational scuba diver. Click to learn more.

Chris Betcher

Chris shares some interesting pieces of dive gear from the early days of diving, and reflects on how he became interested in becoming a scuba diver. He later became a NAUI Instructor. Click to learn more.

Tom Hemphill

Tom Hemphill was attracted to the water and the underwater world as a very young boy. His father was a research biologist at Hanford, Washington where he conducted studies of the animals that lived near and in the Columbia River around the nuclear reactor reservation. Click to learn more.

Jim Willoughby

1949 at age 19, at the Central California coastal community, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Jim began his diving adventure with homemade diving equipment, no training, but lots of enthusiasm and a genuine sense of curiosity. Click to learn more.

Becky Witty & Darlene Iskra

Becky Witty and Darlene Iskra recently recounted their experiences as two of the few women diving in the 1970’s. Becky became a dive instructor in the Caribbean, while Darlene worked for the military. Click to learn more.