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Tom Mount

Tom Mount M.S., D.Sc., Ph.D., N.D.
Upon discharge from the Navy Tom, was fortunate to find him entering non military diving at a time to become a pioneer in its more technically orientated development. He feels he has had a blessed life having worked at Cape Canaveral (now Cape Kennedy) at a time when the first Aquanaut were paced into space, and at a time when the first submersible missiles (Polaris) were developed suitable for firing from submarines. . In the mid sixties he opens Aquamarine diving services which provided service and equipment for recreational diving and also functioned as a commercial diving company. One of the more exciting projects involved a contract installing submerged communication cables throughout the Atlantic missiles range. This was among other such activities as salvage of ships and recovery of cargos.
During this period of time Tom became an advocate of cave diving, which was even more adventure some at hat time as submersible pressure gauges, BC;s etc did not exist when he first started. His business organized a dive club which Aquamarine Cave Dwellers which later became was renamed Florida Cave NACD original founders were Tom mount, Dave Desautels, Larry Briel and Dale Malloy. Once the incorporation papers were drawn up it expanded to include Hal Watts, Jim Sweeney, Gil Milner MD etc who are all part of the signing of the original incorporation papers of the NACD. In 1968. As part of this process Tom was instrumental in developing skills used in cave diving and acted as training director for the program initially. Some of the early members and instructor brought into and attending IEC's during the first two years Tom conducted included -Frank Martz-, Sheck Exley , Bob Friedman, Jim Watt, Jack Banbury, Zidi Mount, and Jim Kohler - It was also during this period of time Tom first began to become intrigued about energy medicine and started into Meditation practice and pursuing his understanding of intuition more due to various evens that had transpired not only at this stage of his life but since early childhood.
Tom sold his business and in 1968 and moved to Miami Florida to accept the position of diving officer at the Universities\\ of Miami's institute of marine sciences, later renamed University Miami Rosensteil School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. He remained there for almost 10 years which were some of the most enjoyable of his life. During this phase of his life Diving Science made major advances and Tom at UM-RSMAS, Jimmy Stewart at SCRIPPS, and Lee Summers at University Michigan directed the most exciting and technologically university programs of the time-in fact even today few universities have entered such exciting areas. Tom and the UM RSMAS were fortunate to be involved in the Tektite (one of the early scientific projects to use CCR, - GE MK 10 and proto type CCR 1000), Hydrolab saturation diving missions, Tom was the supervisor on the FLARE saturation project, deepwater exploration. Training recompression chamber operators and in fact being the most used treatment facility in South Florida at the time. While at UMRSMAS Tom supervised the treatment of over 120 divers' recreational (non UMRSMAS divers) only two UM RSMAS diver required treatment even with al the ground breaking deeper diving and saturation work being done. While at UMRSMAS tom first develop a Heliox program allowing qualified university divers to dive as deep as 330 fsw (100 msw). This was truly one of the first records of scientific divers using with Open circuit mixed gas on deep dives. Also remarkable at the time is that with an extensive ding program on air to 240 for neither scientist no decompression problems developed nor any other accidents in the dive program.
In 1978 tom took over the responsibilities of training Director at the YMCA program which at that time was located in Key West Florida. He was instrumental in developing multiple levels of more advance recreational diving programs while there as well as the Army corps of engineers diving program along with Dick G-
After leaving the YMCA program Tom pursued consulting and journalism in his diving pursuits and also continued his interest in Martial arts and Energy and alternative health practice. In 1990 Dick Rutkowski convinced Tom to join IAND. This later added the IANTD to. This began yet another exciting pioneering extension of Tom's diving career. Under his guidance not only did IAND/IANTD expand upon Dick's original introduction of Nitrox to the recreational diving community, but as IANTD it developed the first Trimix program hat offered certification. It has also pioneered the filed in Rebreather diving in particular Closed Circuit (CCR) Diving. Having developed programs down to depths as great as 400 fsw - 120 msw IANTD definitely leads the way it also was the first to develop recreational rebreather diving for entry levels into the sport. It was first to introduce multiple levels of trimix diving as well. Tom has been a driving force and author on text that lead the way for divers in all aspects of technical diving.
Tom's efforts have rewarded him with diving's most precious award the NOGI for sports education, Beneath the Sea's Diver of the Year award Rebreather Worlds life Time Achievement Award, awards fro NACD and NSS CDS, and numerous other recognitions from various diving associations and NOAA.
Tom has also equally pursued his other interest in natural health and martial arts and these are covered in detail on his web sites dealing with Ki Survival Health and Ki Survival Martial Arts.
A brief overview includes he is a c Master Past Lives Therapist Clinical Hypnotherapy, a Master Trainer in Qi Gong and a highly accomplished Grand Master in multiple styles Martial arts . His pursuits have included both the martial aspects and the healing aspects based on energy and meridians (pressure points etc). , Tom is a three-time inductee to the United States Martial Arts Association Hall of Fame. He is a member of the USMA Grand Masters Council. He is on the Board of directors of SVCH,
Tom has written numerous books (over 20 to be exact) including NACD's first two text Books and text on technical, commercial and survival diving. His latest is as the primary author with Joe Dituri as co-author and 18 contributing authors to the Exploration and Mixed Gas Diving Encyclopedia the Tao of Survival Underwater. Tom is also certified in numerous healing modalities and as an instructor at all levels of diving and rebreather diving. He is a pilot, has been a Boat Capitan (100 ton), has driven race boats, raced go carts, worked on film productions with Bruno Valletti, John Stoneman, Jock and Phillip Cousteau. Photo journalist and has had numerous papers published. He makes frequent presentations at dive events. And in addition to teaching his normal martial arts classes also shares his skill and knowledge at martial arts training camps.
Most of all Tom feels his greatest asset is the ability to have overcome life threatening events enabling him to learn much about survival. This led to studying survival and then sharing his experiences and knowledge and that of his studies on the art of survival with others. He feels our primary strengths lie in the ability to use intuition and our use of Chi. Once this is incorporated into our lives Tom considers his Three Elements of Survival and Existence to be the key to life these are; 1. "Knowledge is Essential, Survival is Practical" 2. "Always remain in life itself, and not on the problems that exist in the path" 3. "We all die thus; it is the Quality of Life, not quantity that defines having lived,
In closing remember "Warriors taste life they cherish and explore the unknown"
A partial list of diving text by Tom includes;

Mount, the Cave Diving Manual, NACD Gainesville Florida 1971

  • Mount, UM RSMAS Diving Manual UM RSMAS Miami fl 1972
  • Mount, Ikehara, Practical Diving, University of Miami Press, Miami fl 1975
  • Mount, Safe Cave Diving, NACD Gainesville Fl 1974 and 1977
  • Mount, Ikehara, New Practical Diving University of Miami Press Miami fl. 1978)
  • Mount, Geyer Army Corps of Engineers Training Manual YMCA SCUBA Key West Fl 1979
  • Schaeffer, Mount Under water modeling, Sea mount Publishing, Miami Fl 1984
  • Mount, Greatest Adventure Photography, Sea Mount pub. Miami fl l985
  • Mount, Gilliam Mixed Gas Diving Watersports Publishing San Diego Ca.1993
  • Mount Technical Diver Manual IANTD Miami fl 1991
  • Mount Trimix Manual IANTD Miami Fl 1991
  • Mount Advanced Deep Diving Manual/workbook IANTD Miami fl 1992)
  • Mount Cave Diving Manual IANTD Miami fl 1993
  • Mount Technical Diving Encyclopedia IANTD Miami fl 1993
  • Mount Revised Technical diving Encyclopedia IANTD Miami Fl 2003
  • Mount, Sawatzky,Hess Tek CCR Manual IANTD Miami Fl 2004
  • Mount , Sawatzky, Doolette, Somers Tek Lite Manual IANTD Miami fl 2005
  • Mount Open Water Dive Manual IANTD Miami Fl 2007
  • Mount Dituri Exploration and Mixed Gas Diving Encyclopedia IANTD 2008

 

  
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