Board Member
Jim is the owner/manager of The Dive Shop in Richmond, VA. His dive shop, a PADI 5-Star Instructor Development Center, is the oldest in Richmond. Jim has been a certified scuba instructor since 1973. He started his teaching career with the YMCA, eventually becoming a master scuba instructor with that agency. In 1982, he crossed-over to the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) and opened The Dive Shop that same year.
Jim has certified over 6,000 scuba divers and has enjoyed scuba diving as a recreational diver since 1961. In addition to the classes Jim teaches at The Dive Shop, he also teaches scuba diving at both Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of William & Mary. Jim not only teaches what he loves to do, but loves to teach and share his passion for our underwater world.
Jim has led dive travel groups around the world from destinations such as the Bahamas, Galapagos, Cocos, Palau, Truk Lagoon, Cayman Islands, Bonaire, Roatan and Utila Honduras, Belize, Cozumel, Fiji, Hawaii, Florida (Panhandle, Springs, Palm Beach and the Keys), to destinations closer to home including the Louisiana oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, shipwrecks and artificial reefs off of the coast of North Carolina and Virginia, as well as the Chesapeake Bay and most of it’s tributary rivers., Virginia.
Jim’s academic background includes a B.S. degree in Biology from Tulane University and an M.S. degree in Biology from Virginia Commonwealth University. Prior to devoting his full time to The Dive Shop, Jim worked for the Virginia State Water Control Board as an Ecologist, Water Pollution Biologist and Ichthyologist. He was a certified Fisheries Scientist with the American Fisheries Society from 1973 to 1984. His passion as a Biologist was finding the sources of toxic discharges, particularly those that resulted in fish kills.
Jim is a member and contributor to the Divers Alert Network (DAN) at Duke University Medical Center in Raleigh, NC.
Jim’s lifelong devotion to diving and his extensive background in the dive business, coupled with his Biologist/Ichthyologist experience brings a unique resource and perspective to Lake Rawlings’ Board of Directors.