If you had a chance to sit in on casual conversation with a group of dive industry executives, you might hear someone comment about how the diving business is run by hobbyists. By that, they mean people who fell in love with diving and found a way to make a living at it. The conversation usually winds up with the group wondering how much farther along diving would be if it was run instead by a solid collection of business school grads.
They stop short of lamenting the ‘hobbyist’ issue because most of them — most of us – come from the same place. So the 
debate hangs on the question; is it a good thing or not that the industry revolves around people who started a business because of a passion for what they do?
I think the answer to the “good thing or not” question is simple. You can see it by observing the upcoming Scuba Show, which is a perfect microcosm of our industry. Consider that a thousand individuals who own and represent every segment of the scuba industry will come together to share what they do with you. The different business segments of the diving industry, with all of those hobbyists by the way, include diving’s retailers, instructors, certifying agencies, dive travel wholesalers, charter boats, dive resorts and live aboards around the world, and of course the people who make your dive equipment. I almost forgot dive media. That’s a lot of disciplines run by passion.