DIRECTOR OF QUALITY CONTROL

Brad Beskin is an attorney licensed in Texas, Oklahoma, and D.C. He represents injured parties across the country in civil litigation against insurance companies who handle claims in bad faith, manufacturers of defective consumer and medical products, pharmaceutical conglomerates, opioid manufacturers, etc. He also represents whistleblowers who uncover fraud against the federal and/or state governments in the healthcare, defense, housing, and banking industries. He is not GUE’s attorney.

Brad has been diving actively for approximately twenty-seven years. He hails from Virginia Beach, Virginia, where he grew up working for his local dive shop. Brad cannot count the tanks filled, liters of gas blended, decks swabbed, heads fixed, students refreshed, or regulators sold over the years. He first became involved with GUE by taking Fundamentals in approximately 2002, and then Cave 1 with Tamara Kendal in approximately 2003. He is now a proud GUE DPV Cave diver and is looking forward to undertaking the GUE technical curriculum. He presently serves as the Chair of GUE’s Quality Control Board.

Brad lives in Austin, Texas, with his husband, Garrett, and two crazy German Shorthaired Pointers (@sirdukeandmissdaisygsp). You can reach Brad at Brad@GUE.com.

QUALITY ASSURANCE TEAM

Dorota has been involved in the dive industry since 1999, when she first became a scuba instructor. What started as a mere fascination developed into a profession when, in 2001, she decided to quit teaching at a university and start teaching diving in Egypt. Over the next 10 years, she not only gained the experience of several thousand dives but also developed into a skilled dive educator and dive operations manager. Her constant striving for excellence brought her to GUE in 2005, and since then has been committed to the development of the organization and its training at the highest level. Within GUE, Dorota is a member of the BOD, Instructor Evaluator, Recreational and Technical instructor; she holds a Master's degree in Political and Social Sciences, as well as a degree in Journalism.

QUALITY ASSURANCE TEAM

Rich has a background in the physics of blood flow, in which he holds a PhD. Since 2007, he has devoted himself to teaching the GUE curriculum full-time. He teaches the Recreational, Fundamentals, Tech 1, Tech 2 and CCR programs and is an Instructor Evaluator for courses to the Tech 2 level. Rich is active in projects ranging from French cave exploration to wreck documentation projects in the English Channel and archaeological work on Mars in the Baltic Sea. He has worked on many aspects of GUE infrastructure, including materials development and managing the European Underwater Federation's recognition and concomitant ISO approval of the GUE training curriculum.

DESIGNATED TRUSTEE, STANDARDS & PROCEDURES

Mark Devoldere is a GUE Cave 2 and Tech 1 diver, as well as a Fundamentals and Rec 1 Instructor. He lives in Belgium, where he actively teaches GUE classes and promotes GUE philosophy within the regional diving community. As co-founder and current member of GUE-BE, he also contributes to the expansion and the consolidation of the local GUE community. Having participated in projects such as Project Morpheus, Project Baseline, and Ecoduikers, Mark is always on the look-out for new opportunities to expand his experience and involvement in global underwater exploration and conservation initiatives. Professionally, Mark is a logistics officer in the Belgian Army, currently employed as Quality, Risk, Prevention, and Environmental Manager of the Logistic Distribution Center of Belgian Defense.

QC BOARD MEMBER

Peter Brandt is an R&D manager in the telecom industry and started diving with CMAS in 1999. He joined GUE and got into cave & wreck diving in 2004/2005. He became Belgium's first GUE Instructor and is co-owner of the Diveolution dive center. Peter is also the initiator and co-founder of GUE-Belgium, a non-profit organization created to build the local GUE community. His main passion is exploring and documenting the underwater world. Together with friends, he set up the 2009 GUE Jutland expedition and has joined many other cave and wreck diving projects and expeditions over the years, all over Europe. Over the last few years, Peter has been very active in Italy (Sardinia, Lampedusa, Sicily) on several documentation and exploration efforts, mainly on rarely-dived wrecks, ranging from Roman- to WWIII-era. More recently, he developed a great interest in underwater 3D modeling and photogrammetry. Peter loves sailing as well.

QC BOARD MEMBER

Maren Isigkeit is an IT specialist, working and living in Northern Germany. In 1991 she completed her first scuba dive in the Baltic Sea and realized that with a background as a competitive swimmer and water polo player, diving was just a logical addition to her love of being in the water. As a GUE Instructor, she teaches the Foundational and Recreational curriculums and is an addicted cave diver. Before these water-filled beauties attracted her attention, she had already fallen in love with the most elegant and pristine way of diving: free diving. She is currently involved in cave projects in France (The hidden river project – Reseau de l’Ouysse) and GUE Project Nuttlar in Germany (Slatemine), but also loves projects focusing on the protection of marine habitats.

QC BOARD MEMBER

Terry Koritz began diving at age 16, progressing to Open Water Instructor prior to completing Full Cave training in 1993. Cave diving continues to be his primary diving interest. He is an active RB80 diver with the Woodville Karst Plain Project, and also serves on the WKPP Board of Directors. In his non-diving life, Terry is an executive in the ophthalmic medical device industry. Terry lives in Orange County, California with wife Nancy and three daughters.

QC BOARD MEMBER

David Rhea is an underwater enthusiast and his life is a testament to that fact. The love of scuba diving has taken David around the world as a videographer, photographer, researcher and explorer. For over 35 years David invested in thousands of students as they sought to further their diving education - the majority of that tenure focused on teaching cave diving. He served on the Board of Directors for Global Underwater Explorers for many years and has been active in several other diving organizations. David has been an active member of the Woodville Karst Plain Project project since 1998 and currently serves as the Training Coordinator. Continuing exploration projects around the world are an important part of his personal and professional diving.

QC BOARD MEMBER

Jason Wright started diving in 2001. After several years of recreational diving he took GUE Fundamentals in 2007 and is now a Tech 2/Cave 2 diver in addition to teaching GUE Fundamentals, Rec 3, and DPV 1. Jason is a member of the Ozark Cave Diving Alliance (OCDA) and South Central Underwater Explorers (SCUE). Jason currently lives in Texas and works in the Aerodynamics group at Bell Helicopter, where he specializes in ice protection technology.

QC BOARD MEMBER

Walter Zagzebski is an attorney licensed in California. He has spend over 20 years focusing primarily on business and commercial litigation matters, insurance coverage and bad faith claims, intellectual property, real estate, professional liability and eminent domain. He has also represented non-profit entities in connection with various goverance and business-related issues. He is not GUE's attorney. 

Walter wishes he discovered diving at an earlier age, but quickly found it an all-consuming passion, having done hundreds of dives in less than five years. He took Fundamentals in early 2019 and followed up with Tech 1 in late 2020 and CCR 1 in 2021. He is hoping to catch up on cave training and CCR 2 in this coming year. 

Walter is hoping that being involved in assisting GUE operations will allow him to bring his experiences outside the diving world to help create positive changes and unique ideas for GUE moving forward. He will also candidly admit that making friends and relationships with far superior divers than he might rub off in a positive way. As they say, you are the company you keep. 

Walter lives in Redondoa Beach California. He has a wife, Lauri, aslo a diver, as well as two wonderful rescue dogs, both of whom regularly give curious looks at his tanks and dive gear and cannot seem to grasp the purpose of it all despite repeated attempts to educate them. You can reach Walter at walter@gue.com.

DIRECTOR OF RISK MANAGEMENT

Gareth Lock is passionate about improving diver safety. In 2011, he formed a research company whose aim was to transfer established safety management system practices from aviation to sport diving, cognizant that a straight path would not be possible given the nature of sport diving. In 2012, he started his Ph.D. to examine the role of human factors in scuba diving accidents and incidents. He has presented at a number of national and international diving conferences, promoting a “just culture” and reporting in the sport diving community with a view to breaking down barriers, thereby making diving safer. He has recently been appointed as Director for Risk Management for GUE to strengthen the organization and further develop a “Just Culture” within GUE. He has also launched a number of online and classroom-based courses to improve divers’ personal and team performance.

DIRECTOR OF QUALITY CONTROL

Dr. Panos Alexakos has been involved with GUE since its formation and has represented the agency in a number of capacities. Today, he is GUE’s Director of Quality Control and Managing Editor of its magazine, Quest. An active cave diver since 1996, Panos also holds a Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University and has been an active university educator since 1982.