Engineer-Divers
Earn Commercial Dive Certification
It is no secret that BergerABAM provides underwater inspection using engineer-divers and has been providing this service for decades. What you may not be aware of is that six members of the dive team earned commercial dive certification earlier this year, while two others gained credit toward future certification. In the past, qualifications for the engineer-diver were nonexistent. In 2008, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) issued a revision to engineering manual EM385-1-1, which required additional qualifications for engineer-divers working on Department of Defense (DoD) projects like those for the U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, and USACE. In order to stay abreast of those training requirements, 10 members of the BergerABAM dive team received additional training in the summer of 2005. An update to the EM385 regulations is due out later this year and in order to stay current with the changing requirements once again, BergerABAM needed to have commercially certified divers with a professional engineering license. To comply with all commercial diving regulations, the BergerABAM dive team chose to complete training accredited through the Diver Certification Board of Canada (DCBC). The DCBC certification satisfies all agency standards within the federal government. “The certification is not something private sector clients or even the ports require,” said Diving Officer Scott Branlund, “but it enables compliance to work with various branches of the Department of Defense.” However, training an entire group of key personnel for any length of time is hard to schedule for any organization, as well as costly. Finding a program in the local area was key to making it possible. The Divers Institute of Technology (DIT) in Seattle is one of only five schools in the United States accredited by the DCBC. “We were fortunate to be able to train locally,” explained Dive Supervisor Mike Wray. “This cut down on our time away from the office and reduced travel costs significantly.” Mike Wray worked with the DIT staff to develop a customized training course for the BergerABAM team. In September 2012, nine members of the dive team attended the training on such topics as diving physics, safety, equipment, hyperbaric chamber operations, and emergency practices during operational SCUBA and surface-supplied air dives. Newer team members spent the first two weeks in the rigorous training program that included enduring commercial-level diving assessments and emergency practice drills. Experienced divers, Mike Wray, Scott Branlund, and Matt Perry, were able to forego the two-week session by demonstrating a battery of skills and proceeded through the final assessment. To stay certified as a commercial diver, the divers are required to complete various diving scenarios and maintain a minimum log of dive hours each year. They also participate in annual training drills on the latest practices regarding both safety and equipment. USACE is not the only organization with proposed language governing engineer-divers. The American Society of Civil Engineers has been proposing to introduce a standard that would also require commercial certification for all engineer-led dive inspections. The proposed language for this standard has been in the draft stage for a couple of years, but the DCBC commercial-diver certification should meet the requirements of this as well. BergerABAM pioneered the use of engineer-divers in 1980 to meet the increasing demand for high-quality underwater inspection services. Since then, the company’s dive team has grown to a staff of 18, including 11 divers and 7 tenders. Logging approximately 40 dive days per year, the BergerABAM dive team has performed assignments ranging from simple underdock inspections to the intense Tacoma Narrows Bridge inspection. For more than 30 years, BergerABAM engineer-divers have completed successful projects while maintaining an impeccable safety record.
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