Steve Thomas has been diving since 2011 when he took his first NAUI basic scuba diver class at Western Michigan University which was taught by Rick Sass and Rob Knolle. He attended the Wednesday night dives to gain more experience diving the local inland lakes and meet others with the same passion for the sport. This included a dive in Gull Lake on January 1, 2013. The water that day was 36 degree
s – but he did it for the FREE t-shirt. In 2014 Steve became a member of the Kalamazoo County Water Safety and Recovery Association. He enjoys volunteering his time to give back to his community through scuba as a recovery diver. He continued his scuba education in an effort to improve his diving skills which would eventually lead to becoming a NAUI instructor in 2015. As an instructor Steve looks forward to passing on his love of diving to the next generation of NAUI divers. Steve worked with Sub Aquatic Sports teaching scuba part-time throughout SW Michigan. In 2019 he and his wife, Laura retired from Western Michigan University and began exploring what retirement should look like. In 2020 they moved to Florida and sunshine. Steve now lives in Ocala, Florida with his wife Laura. They have two adult children who are NAUI certified divers. A dive highlight for Steve was being able to enjoy their first dive after open waters on a Cozumel 80 foot drift dive during a family vacation. In addition to Cozumel, Steve has added several of the midwest quarries along with Bermuda, Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, Cabo San Lucas, the ABCs (Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao), and various Florida sites to the growing list of his dive locations. He is looking forward to continuing NAUI scuba instruction in Central Florida along with diving the various springs in the area.
