Dive education company moves headquarters to Riverview

The ripple in the rooftop is the first hint.

The wave wall just inside the lobby sporting a scuba diver swimming toward a trophy shelf is the dead giveaway.

The National Association of Underwater Instructors, the world's oldest scuba diving certification program, has a new headquarters building in Riverview, just off U.S. 301 and Camden Field Parkway.

The 17,000 square-foot state-of-the-art building is step one for every NAUI student awaiting a treasure trove of information on one of the many dive classes the non-profit organization offers worldwide. It all ships out through Riverview, said Marketing Director Elizabeth Travis.

Membership services and all marketing for the company also is done through the Riverview office.
"We got the idea for the rippled roofline from a dive boat," said NAUI President Jim Bram. The outside windows are done in blue glass and the wave wall inside sports the NAUI logo with the scuba diver.

NAUI has certified thousands of divers since 1960 to dive using specific safety guidelines. The company moved its headquarters to the Tampa Bay region in 1997 and has been leasing a building off Broadway and Falkenburg since then.

The 25-member staff moved to the new building in early February.

"We used a lot of green building techniques in construction," Bram said. The roof is LEED certified." LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is considered the gold standard for environmentally friendly construction techniques.

This year, NAUI is celebrating its 50th year of existence with parties throughout the world.

"We're celebrating all year long with sponsor parties here, in Kuwait, the Red Sea, Malaysia and South Africa," Bram said. "We like to say we're the second largest and the most respected" certification program in the world.

"To this day, we are non-profit and focused on safety and the value of the underwater environment," he said.

NAUI certifies instructors, who, in turn, certify individual divers. Many of their programs are set up in universities because of the emphasis on safety, Travis said. NAUI is also the preferred dive training agency for the Walt Disney Company, Bram said.