Who is ConciergeScuba?

"I started so long ago, we didn't even have metal tanks, ours were made from tightly-woven straw and some mud!"

Okay… not quite.

But I was certified almost 30 years ago, back in 1996, when my wife and I were living in San Diego for a year-long assignment. Coming from Colorado, I had visited the ocean plenty of times, but living next to it was something new, and irresistible. Pretty much the moment we arrived, I thought, “We should get scuba certified!” We did. And we never looked back.

Since then, my wife and I have been diving together all over the world, collecting memories, lifelong friendships, and a deep appreciation for the underwater world.

There’s a lot to love, but two moments always stand out for me:

First breaths underwater.

Watching a new diver take that first breath or air underwater, wide-eyed, calm, amazed, is something I’ll never get tired of. It’s the moment everything changes for them.

The accomplishment grin.

At the end of a long weekend of learning, when I tell students, “You have met all the performance requirements to become PADI Open Water Scuba Divers,” the reaction is pure joy. That smile is universal, contagious, and absolutely earned.

I also enjoy teaching more advanced courses like Advanced Open Water and various PADI Specialties. Those are the moments when students transition from getting the basics right to realizing, “Hey…I’m actually good at this.”

Watching confidence bloom underwater is one of the great privileges of this job.

Well, I'm recently retired from my career of the last 18 years, which was creating and small digital forensics company.  We sold the company a few years back, so now I'm retired.  But any entrepreneur will tell you, entrepreneurs never really retire, we just kind of move on to the next thing!

I don't want anyone to get the wrong impression; I like teaching at my local scuba shop.  They are doing the best they can under very difficult constraints. And those circumstances force them to teach scuba in less time to bigger and bigger classes for less and less money all the time! That model is fine for many divers, but it leaves out a significant segment of people who want something different:

ConciergeScuba was created to fix that!

“A true concierge-level scuba certification experience, built entirely around each client’s needs, delivered personally, professionally, and wherever in the world they may be.” - rk

My introduction to diving began early in life. In 1989, at just 14 years old, my father, a dedicated PADI Divemaster, brought me into the underwater world off the coast of Southern California. Those formative years exploring the cooler waters and dramatic kelp forests of the northern Channel Islands left a lasting impression. There truly is nothing else like it anywhere in the world.

After a long hiatus, I rediscovered diving in 2016 with a renewed sense of purpose. The ocean drew me back with more pull than ever before. I earned my Divemaster certification in early 2018, followed by my instructor rating in 2021, and I’ve been expanding my knowledge and professional training ever since. My passion today is deeper and more intentional than it has ever been.

Teaching scuba allows me to watch people transform, sometimes in a single weekend. Seeing students gain confidence with every new skill, every controlled descent, every first breath underwater, is incredibly rewarding. Whether I’m guiding someone through their very first Open Water course or mentoring divers on their journey toward becoming professionals, I love being part of that growth.

I’m especially committed to continuing education. Diving is a lifelong learning experience, and helping divers advance from Advanced Open Water to Rescue Diver, Divemaster, and beyond is one of the most meaningful aspects of my work. There is always more to learn, and always a new horizon waiting underwater.

Rescue Diver is, without question, one of my favorite courses to teach. It challenges divers in new ways, builds strong situational awareness, and creates the kind of confidence that changes their entire diving experience.

Among specialties, I particularly enjoy teaching Deep, Wreck, DPV, Drysuit, Underwater Navigation, and Search & Recovery. Each course opens a new door for divers to explore the underwater world with added skill, safety, and excitement.

As with several of life’s deliciously reckless turning points, Robert Kelso led me down the SCUBA path a wee bit too soon—and long before my bank account was prepared to support such an obsession. Still, once the idea took hold, there was simply no turning back.

I remember flipping through an extraordinary book of photographs Robert had created after a dive trip to Kuala Lumpur. Each page whispered of distant reefs, cobalt depths, and impossible beauty. Not long after, fate intervened in the most modern of ways: a Groupon appeared—$80 for my first Open Water certification. At the time, that was a week’s worth of groceries, a small fortune, and yet… it felt like destiny.

In 2013, I completed my five Open Water dives in what would soon become my beloved and go-to sanctuary beneath the sea: Cozumel. From the moment I descended, the world above dissolved. In its place, a cathedral of color and life unfolded all around me.

For me, diving is a key… one that unlocks an invisible door to another realm where spectacle, wonder, and reverence exist in every crevice, behind every coral fan, and beneath every wavering ray of light. It is a meditation, a liberation, a return to something ancient and wordless.

Since that first plunge into the blue, I have collected a boatload of specialty certifications along the way, culminating in my Master Scuba certification, and I have been privileged to dive in waters all around the world — each descent another love letter written between myself and the sea.