Barney, who grew up in Florida, will tell you he spent most of his childhood with his face underwater. He learned to swim underwater before he could swim on the top. He started diving long before he likes to admit it and his first set of equipment cost him $100. He was a double hose regulator user saying, “real men dive with two hoses.” Of course he has been convinced otherwise.
Barney is a professional photographer who attended a number of universities including the New York Institute of Photography, the Florida Institute of Photography and the Aeronautical Institute of Technology, each of which contributed to his career skills in photography. He served in the Military as an aeronautical photographer and retired as the NASA Chairman of the Imaging Working Group for the Space Station Program. NASA still uses a number of his photographs in their promotional literature and training materials. He also owned his own independent photo laboratory and still has a professional video editing operation in his home.
Barney is also a Coast Guard captain and he and his wife Barbara own a beautiful boat that they keep down on Clear Lake. The vessel called Kon Sea Quince, is his retreat and he is looking forward to some additional diving off the Texas Gulf coast. Of course you will also find that Barney is not content with one set of Instructor licenses. He is also a FAA Certified Advanced Ground Instructor and Flight Instructor for Single and Multi-engine planes including sea planes. And let’s not forget he is also a Parachuting Instructor
As a child, Barney wanted to be a diver and that enthralled with the underwater world has never left him and he loves passing on his knowledge to his students.
He has traveled all over the world and has dove in the usual and unusual places. His favorite dive spots include the Florida caves, the wrecks in the Florida keys and the cold water near the Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara. He will tell you that almost any dive site is fun, although he has to cross his fingers when he talks about Alice Springs in Australia.
