Team Elite

Charlie, former operations manager, is a Citadel graduate who ran the dive shop for over 20 years. Although he retired in 2007, Charlie is still called upon as a consultant, expert regulator technician, master gas blender and ambassador of Elite Divers. Much of Elite Divers success can be attributed to his work ethic and ability to manage the entire dive shop operation by himself. We are happy to announce that Charlie is doing very well with his famous quote of “if I would have known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself.

Bob’s diving career began in 1986 and attained his first Professional PADI rating in 1988. Since then, Bob has been certified to teach fourteen PADI Specialty Diver Courses. Bob has also authored three distinctive Specialty Diver courses that have been approved and accepted by PADI. He holds the Emergency First Responder Instructor Trainer rating and is an Instructor Trainer for the Tec Deep, the Tec Tri-Mix, and Gas Blender programs. Bob is also an Instructor for three other training agencies, which include instructing Oxygen First Aid for DAN, Technical Diving for IANTD and TDI. Bob has extensive experience in Northeast wreck diving, as well as many other areas of the world. When Tri-Mix diving first became available, Bob sought out training with Billy Deans of Key West, Florida. That training has provided the opportunity to explore many deep wrecks in the Northeast and Florida. Some of these wrecks are: Andrea Doria, U-869, S.S. Carolina, Winneconne, Texel, Ronald B. Johnson/Corey & Chris. Cave diving in the caves of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico have also found their way into his career. Bob is also certified as an Emergency Medical Technician, was accepted as an Associate Member of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, accepted as a Member Resident of The Explorers Club, and currently holds a United States Coast Guard 100 Ton, Near Coastal, Masters License. Bob can be contacted directly through Ocean Services Dive and Marine Consulting at: Bob@OSDMC.com.

We are very proud to have the one and only Captain Mark “Sharky” Alexander head up our Closed Circuit Rebreather Training at Elite Divers. Sharky brings with him tremendous experience as a world class expedition leader, author, Vice Chair of the membership development committee and member of The Explorers Club and fellow with the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS) out of England. He served this great country as an F16 C/D Aircraft Weapons Systems Specialists in the USAF for 20years (Retired) and currently serves his community as a veteran 25 year Paramedic and Instructor. He holds Instructor level certifications as IANTD and TDI Inspiration Vision CCR & Normoxic Trimix. He is also a PADI Master Instructor and holds instructor level certifications in EFR and DAN. He holds a USCG 100 Ton Master Captain license, is a Hyperbaric Chamber Technician and is a regular visitor to the Andrea Doria & U-869 wrecks when here in NJ. His accomplishments are just too much to list! As an APD Dealer in conjunction with Silent Diving LLC, featuring the Inspiration & Evolution Closed Circuit Rebreather, Sharky is a logical fit to the Elite Divers Instructional Team. For more information on purchasing, training or learning more about his Global Expeditions, please contact the shop or find out more information at http://www.sharkys-ue.com.

I’ve been diving for nearly 30 years now, achieving international recognition exploring the underwater world as the skipper of the now-legendary dive boat “SEEKER”. Seeker was made famous as the backdrop of several extreme diving adventure books including the best seller “Shadow Divers”, and in a 2 hour NOVA special titled “Hitler’s Lost Sub”, which was my fist professional shoot. I’m no longer at the helm, but I’m still heavily immersed in the underwater world as a digital cinematographer and media producer.

I developed my diving skills in the trenches of NYC as a commercial hard-hat diver and as a pioneer of technical scuba diving that I developed from the deck of my former dive boat. As an underwater cinematographer my career began as news crews and TV producers showed up to document our exploits. The underwater DP was always ill suited for the extreme diving conditions we were about to encounter. I offered to take their camera and I guess you could say the rest is history.

Since those days I’ve been actively shooting footage across the globe in some of the most challenging condition imaginable, both in and out of the water.  In early 2000 I was hired as director of underwater photography by Kralyevich Productions, Inc. (KPI) who produced 20 episodes of the History Channel’s “Deep Sea Detectives” . In 2007 I was the field and co-producer for my own limited series for Discovery’s Military Channel titled “Quest for Sunken Warships“.