2026 marks 60 years since John Cronin and Ralph Erickson set out to make diving more professional and founded PADI. To say that the PADI organization has changed diving – and increasingly the world – for the better in the six decades that followed would be an understatement. The video below is a small reminder of, and tribute to, what you have done and continue to do daily.
It’s beyond debate that PADI not only changed how people learn to dive, but continues that change by infusing ocean preservation and restoration into both training and dive culture. Through PADI, millions transform their lives – there are dive centers that have each introduced 100,000-300,000 people to diving. And, transformation is not just about learning to dive, but about learning to dive with purpose; it’s a combination that is accelerating our influence as ocean advocates heard by government, business and society. What we do makes a difference.
And it is all thanks to you. Thanks to the loyalty, hard work and positive aspirations of you and your fellow PADI Members, PADI evolved into the biggest, most-trusted diver-training organization by far. In your skilled hands applying the PADI System, PADI Divers receive the best training and learn established safety protocols, enabling confident and comfortable diving. Thanks to you PADI became, and still is, the way the world learns to dive – 75 out of every 100 new divers are PADI Divers. Yet together, we’re much more than that. With initiatives like PADI AWARE®, Ocean Torchbearer™, Adopt the Blue™ and local ones you enact, we’re a movement of diving’s most influential ocean conservancy voice driving local and global change. And beyond this, you use diving’s healing power to reshape individual lives for the better – something we all need.
Mentoring PADI Divers and Ocean Torchbearers demands positivity, energy, professionalism and resolve, yet it is world changing and essential. No other group teaches more people, in more places and with more social influence. PADI’s first 60 years have been impressive thanks to you, but what we do together in the next 60 will be even more so.
Thank you for your support and for all you do.
Sincerely,
Drew Richardson
President & CEO
