Taking the PLUNGE

When the economy collapsed, Quinton Ford lost a Texas oil field job he held for nine years. He returned home to New Mexico at the end of his rope for employment opportunities.

Then he grabbed hold of an umbilical air line, strapped on 200 pounds of wet suit, weight belt, ankle weights and other gear, popped a helmet on his head that looked like a cannonball and snapped shut the seal. He's learning commercial diving, taking the plunge into the murk, carrying a welder or tools to fasten together a dozen or more heavy duty flanges and valves, sometimes working almost by feel.

Oh yeah, it's dangerous.

"One of these valves moving in between another valve could easily take a hand off," said Kim Gissendanner,an International Diving Institute instructor at the former Charleston Navy Base in North Charleston.

But Ford wants in on a business where jobs are waiting and starting pay is $15-$20 per hour. Experienced divers like Gissendanner have made nearly $80 per hour, plus overtime.

Attendance at the school has spiked as the economy has soured. The institute now has 24 students enrolled, and three of every four are looking for a new career, said David Nielsen, recruiter. Staff fields calls every day from interested students and from companies looking to hire, he said.

"I called David one day and two weeks later I was here," Ford said. The first time he snapped the seal on that helmet and went down, he thought, "What am I getting into?" But the romance appealed to him. "It has something about it. They make it as safe as can be, but it's dangerous. Not many people do it."

It is, as Gissendanner said, an adventure career, combining good pay with travel and daring.

"We love it. It's as close to being an astronaut as most people get," he said.

"I wanted to do something I enjoy doing rather than work in a car dealership or something," said student Blake Vaught, of Myrtle Beach. That dream-job appeal has been ratcheted up by the recession for any number of people.

"There's just no work, man," said student Shane Brennan, of Wilmington, N.C.

Well, there's work in the depths. The career has always been pretty stable through economic downtowns -- structures like bridges, piers and oil derricks have to be kept up and repaired.

"Virtually every bridge in America has to be inspected on a regular basis -- power dams, any kind of underwater infrastructure," Gissendanner said.

The deadly 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse raised the alarm for the condition of bridges in any number of states where revenue had dried up to pay for the repair work. Federal stimulus money followed.

"Right now there are more jobs than entry-level divers to fill the need," Nielsen said.

The 16-week course isn't cheap. Tuition is $11,000, equipment another $2,000 and a physical exam nearly $500. The institute has a financing option for tuition, but other costs are up-front. That kind of money alone can be daunting. Then there's climbing into a 20-feet-deep tank as snug as a big pipe and dropping to the bottom, learning to spend hours in a decompression chamber and groping in the blind murk and currents of the Cooper River, because part of the training is to do it by feel in case conditions get too bad even for the lights.

Ford's 6-year-old daughter, Macy, told him to stay away from sharks. His former oil field co-workers told him he was crazy. But more than a few are now asking about the work, worried about layoffs.

Reach Bo Petersen at 937-5744 or bpetersen@postandcourier.com.