Italino “Tony” Pietrantonio, a native of Louisiana, found his passion for diving in 1994 when a friend introduced him to the sport. He then took a break from diving to follow a dream when he joined the U.S. Army in 1995. Tony began his military career as a Combat Engineer serving in this job field until 2001 when he continued his dream of becoming a “Green Beret”. Tony tried out and achieved a spot attending the Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC). After graduating the SFQC, Tony was assigned to 3rd Special Forces Group (SFG) as a Special Forces Engineer Sergeant serving in 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group on ODAs 3213 and 3216 until October 2013. During his time in 3rd SFG, he was responsible for training other team members as well as host nation personnel during deployments on engineer operations and tactics. He has held positions as Junior Engineer, Senior Engineer, Detachment Sniper, Assistant Operations Sergeant, and Instructor. Tony’s final assignment before retiring in May 2017 was as a Sniper Instructor for the 3rd SFG.
Tony began his fire service career in March 2009 when he joined the Flat Branch Volunteer Fire Department as a firefighter rising through the ranks to his current position as Captain. He joined the Harnett County Underwater Search and Recovery Dive Team a short time later where he currently serves as Lieutenant. Tony holds certifications as a certified Firefighter, Hazardous Materials Responder, Technical Rescuer, Technical Water Rescuer, and Fire Services Instructor. Tony has earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Fire Science Management from American Military University.
Tony is an instructor for the North Carolina Community College system training public safety professionals in multiple discipline areas specializing in public safety diving. He has earned various diving certifications spanning multiple areas across the diving industry. Tony is a graduate of the International Diving Institute as certified mixed gas commercial diver with additional training in subsurface hazardous materials response. As an ERDI instructor, Tony believes in the multiple discipline approach of using tools from all variations of diving in developing public safety divers as capable and competent working divers. He has thousands of hours of training as a public servant and public safety diver in public safety environments and black-water situations. He has a diverse diving background in multiple diving environments and locations throughout the world.
Tony is one of two owner / partners in the Public Safety Instructor Group (PSIG) which is a collective of public safety instructors teaching together with the simple mission to help facilitate quality training programs to the public safety professional which are committed and dedicated to providing students with the highest level of professionalism with an emphasis on high quality training programs and safety. PSIG has adopted the Special Forces model of teaching by, with, and through to bring training to teams all over. It is the group’s model of working with local shops that brings these programs where there otherwise is not a public safety professional to teach. They have worked with multiple dive shops between North Carolina and Florida bringing public safety dive training to teams.
