Meet the Team at SDI/TDI/ERDI/PFI & First Response Training International
We want to be sure that you feel like you are getting the attention and customer service you deserve. At International Training, it is our job to make sure you not only receive the support but feel that you are a valued member of our team as well.
Please take the time and get to know your team members.
Brian Carney
President/CEO | Brian.Carney@tdisdi.com
The best way to describe what Brian does at International Training is whatever needs to be done, he does it. His passion for the sport of Diving started at a very young age with the fascination of fish. Always loved snorkeling for hours where ever his parents would allow; sometimes that meant a murky river in New England where he grew up. Now Brian feels fortunate enough to be sharing his love for the ocean with Jack, his son who is just as passionate as he was at that age. Enjoying time exploring with Jack and wife Steph are what he likes to do during down time but he is also a little (a lot) addicted to exercise these days, regularly competing in Cross fit competitions when time will allow.
Stephanie Miele
COO | Stephanie.Miele@tdisdi.com
Stephanie has worked in the industry for nearly 20 years and has seen firsthand the explosive growth of International Training. In the beginning, her focus was primarily on international business resulting in broadening the scope of International Training’s worldwide expansion. Nowadays, her focus is closer to home with inside sales working directly with our members. When not at work, Stephanie enjoys spending quality time with her family and an occasional cross-fit competition.
Flemming Elleboe
CTO | Flemming.Elleboe@tdisdi.com
Flemming has 40+ years of business experience and has a bachelor’s degree in Electric Engineering and a MBA in Enterprise Project Management. After coming to the USA from Denmark, he has started companies that developed and delivered IT solutions to several fortune 500 companies. He has also been involved in the Dive Industry and International Training for over 20 years and has been instrumental in bringing new things to the Dive Industry such as Elearning among other things. Anything with IT and Flemming is most likely involved somehow. To help grow people, Flemming spends a lot of time training others and sharing his knowledge, be it Project Management, Business Administration or IT management and skills to name a few. He loves diving and the outdoors and whenever he can, will go diving “somewhere”, mountain biking, cycling, Hiking and take his motorcycles to the mountains.
Kirk Krack
PFI President | Kirk.Krack@performancefreediving.com
A pioneer in the freediving world, Kirk Krack has been on a quest to make the sport as safe as possible for over two decades. He developed the educational philosophy, standards, procedures, and manuals that PFI is built on. To this day, Kirk continues to improve and perfect the PFI system with the newest and most innovative techniques. After training more than 10,000 students, coaching seven athletes to 23 different world records, and setting up world-class events, Kirk shares everything he learns with his students in his never-ending journey for more knowledge. The PFI educational system was the first in North America to offer a complete course that included not only ways to improve in depth and time, but also (and most importantly) the safety aspects of the sport. In Kirk’s program, you learn the theory behind breath-hold diving, practice the techniques in the pool, and perfect the skills in open water. The PFI system of freediver education is one of the most comprehensive freediving educational systems worldwide.
Industry Relations/Education
Sean Harrison
Senior Vice President
As a long-time scuba diver and an avid outdoorsman, Sean enjoys a lot of activities nearly all of which involve being outdoors. At the office, Sean deals with almost everything from training, RSTC, Insurance, and everything else that involves company relations with other agencies, manufacturers and the industry as a whole. During most of his off days when not at the beach with his sons, you can find Sean enjoying kayak fishing, canoeing, cycling and walks through local parks introducing his kids to the outdoors and helping them identify the flora and fauna. “I have been fortunate enough to live and travel around the world and one day will be able to take my sons to some exotic destinations.”
Shipping/Inventory and Accounting
Sally Camm
Sally keeps things running smoothly here at headquarters by maintaining schedules and managing people. Keeping Brian in line is a full time job in itself! Sally’s diving “career” started in Lake Champlain, VT. Outside of diving, Sally enjoys road cycling, strength training, and spending time with her family.
Phil Knight
As a natural born Floridian, Phil has always enjoyed the Florida outdoors despite his fair complexion and red hair. After receiving a degree from the University of Central Florida, he moved to Pennsylvania in 2015 for a change of scenery. After 3 years of experiencing mild summers and battling cold winters and frozen waters, Phil decided to move back to Florida, brave the Sun, and start his career with International Training. Phil has experience in Shipping and Receiving from prior employment at Barnes and Noble, FedEx, and Amazon.
Jessica Brown
Jessica is a transplant from South Carolina who always found a way to be in the water. She graduated with a degree in accounting, but her love of water brought her into the diving world. Now she spends every free weekend in or under the water. Jessica is interested in getting her open water dive instructor certification. In her spare time from work and diving she enjoys hanging out with her dog Bandit, reading, getting outside and enjoying nature.
Product & Web Development
James Councill
Vice President of Product Development
A North Carolina native, James graduated from Walker College of Business at Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. With a passion for travel, he studied international entrepreneurship at The University of Alicante in Spain and lived as a ski bum in Steamboat Springs, CO for a brief period of time. James started in the Marketing Department before moving over to manage the Product & Web Development Department.
Rob Goodenow
Initially hired as a customer service representative in 2004, when the office was located in Maine, Rob quickly proved his value beyond customer service, displaying an ability to transform data and build systems to help streamline processes throughout the company. Rob created the first in-store system for printing c-cards and continues to work on refining and optimizing all our web systems today. Rob still lives with his favorite companions in Maine (Wife and pets), where he enjoys cooking delicious food, landscaping the yard and all manner of technical toys and distractions.
Richard Carlson
Describing Rick as creative would be an understatement.
This is why he prides himself of being International Training’s Multimedia Artist. With responsibilities ranging from photography, advertisement design, brand enforcement, and educational material layout, Rick has the opportunity to work on almost any task. It looks like all those years of “Art School” jokes finally paid off! Outside of the office, when he’s not painting, carving, sculpting, or building, Rick can be found with his wife. Together they explore Florida’s outdoors through hiking or diving and enjoy taking care of and spending time with their pets.
John Bentley
John worked as an instructor at a small mountain dive shop in VA and shared his love of diving with the community through teaching as an Instructor Trainer, running trips, and equipping divers. He now projects this passion by working for International Training. His favorite class to teach is still SDI Open Water, helping to introduce people to the underwater world for the first time. In his spare time John loves diving in North Florida caves and Florida Keys shipwrecks.
Austin Overton
In Memory… 10/06/1989-09/09/2017
Austin was one of the web developers at International Training. Programming was a long time passion and hobby of his and he spent a good bit of time outside of work learning new tech and coding side projects. When he wasn’t programming he enjoyed SCUBA diving with the office crew and spending time with family. While his work was flawless his addition to the team will always be remembered for an ability to unify and his contagious laugh. Along with the skill to unite, Austin kept the office on its toes with quick and clever comebacks. Never making any mistakes, blame for coincidences and random errors were always, and are still, attributed to Austin. Austin routinely stopped his whole world to put others first with his genuine ability to listen and give out the best advice. Always remembered, loved, and part of our family.
Business Development
Paul Montgomery
Vice President Global Development
Hailing from Maine, Paul started diving recreationally while a Firefighter/EMT-I and then became an instructor as well as owning and operating a retail dive center. “Like many of my generation, we were influenced and driven to explore the oceans by Cousteau and his teams as well as the television show, Sea Hunt.” Paul is responsible for our 24 global regional offices that serve our members and divers in over 100 countries and territories as well as new business development. “While I enjoyed my time as a dive center owner and instructor, working with our global partners is truly rewarding”. During downtime, Paul enjoys the beauty of Maine with activities that include camping, hiking, and kayaking.
Cris Merz
Vice President Business Development
Cris joined International Training in 2006 and currently conducts the team of Regional Managers in North America dedicated to ensuring our members are kept up to date, introduced to our new products, changes and advances with the company and expanding new business. While not managing the sales team, Cris’ department overviews business development in the Caribbean, Central and most of South America. Cris still gets underwater as much as he can now that the office moved to Florida and splits his time cycling when he is not diving around the coast of Florida or wherever life takes him.
Alan Cale
Territory manager for Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific
Alan is a graduate of Western Illinois University with a bachelor’s degree in general studies, a minor in Scuba Diving, and a master’s degree in Recreation, Park, and Tourism Administration. He became a Divemaster through the WIU Scuba program and has assisted many students learning to dive and how to improve on skills as they progressed through the program. Alan has been diving since 2007 and started diving for the McDonough County Sheriff’s Department Dive Rescue Team shortly after completing his Open Water Certification. The team would later reform as the Western Illinois Dive Rescue and Underwater Recovery Team and Alan would become one of the Assistant Commanders for the team before relocating to Florida. Alan holds instructor certifications from SDI, TDI, ERDI, and First Response programs, and now teaches and dives for Code 3 Divers and Training. Alan served as a Military Police Officer from 2005 to 2019. With a deployment to Afghanistan and disaster relief missions to Puerto Rico & the Mississippi River.
Mark Powell
Director of Global Business Development
Mark had his first experience of diving at the age of 10 when he did a try-dive in a local pool. He was hooked from that point onwards. He learnt to dive in 1987 and has been diving ever since. He has dived all around the world, however he is most at home in the waters around the UK and Europe where there is some of the best wreck diving in the world. Mark became an instructor in 1994 and has been actively instructing since then. He is an SDI/TDI Instructor Trainer and is a regular contributor to a number of diving magazines as well as being a regular speaker at Diving conferences around the world.
In 2008 Mark published Deco for Divers, a widely acclaimed overview of the theory and physiology of decompression. In 2010 Deco for divers was awarded “Publication of the Conference” at the EuroTEK.10 technical diving conference and in 2014 it won the Media Award at TekDive USA. Mark’s passion is wreck diving and spends all his spare time diving the wrecks around the coastline of the UK and abroad and has led expeditions to a wide range of locations around the world.
Jesse Iacono
Territory Manager for North America, South America and the Caribbean
Jesse comes from Rhode Island, spending the majority of his diving career in the waters of the Northeast. After his involvement with the University of Rhode Island Scuba Program, he spent a year instructing for United Divers Inc in Somerville, MA before moving to Florida to join the International Training family. Jesse spends his weekdays working in membership services to provide our customers with the unparalleled customer service relationships they have come to know and love from International Training. When outside of the office, he tries to spend as much time as possible in the aquatic world enjoying the beauty of the local dive sites, instructing students, or training for new personal certifications.
Joey Brown
Southeast Regional Representative
Joey represents the Florida / South East / Mid-Atlantic Regions. Joey has been fortunate enough to grow up around the dive business his whole life and has been active in the water since he can remember. He is an SDI instructor and enjoys teaching but also likes to spear or catch his dinner when he is in the ocean. Joey has been representing water sport companies since 2007 and is always looking for new opportunities to grow the industry and help his dealers. His favorite places to dive are the Cay Sal Banks and Dominica.
Ed Moggio
Southeast Regional Representative
Ed began his professional diving career circa 1979 as the Owner, Operations Manager and head Sanitation Engineer of Choo-Choo Dive Center in Chattanooga, Tn. During the next ten years grew and expanded the business thru the training of new divers, implementing an extensive dive travel program and successful retail sales growth each year.
Dillon Waters
Southeast Regional Representative
Dillon’s dive career started in North Carolina where he discovered his passion for wreck diving, spearfishing, and eventually teaching. Dillon crewed on boats and taught scuba with the local university while managing one of the area’s most successful dive centers. His passion lead him to Florida where he enjoys wrecks and caves while servicing the dive industry. You can find Dillon on his paddleboard, playing with his dog Jameson or at a beach cleanup if not diving.
Darrin Davis
South Central Regional Representative
Caring for the South Central territory, Darrin comes with over 20 years of public safety experience with cross training as paramedic fire-fighter for 17 of those years. While still being active in public safety and as an emergency responder, Darrin became a Dive Master and fell in love with scuba focusing on wrecks and spear fishing. He currently volunteers for his local dive team when he’s not out free-diving.
Joe Stellini
Northeast Regional Representative
In 2006, Joe left Dive Retail and moved from the Midwest to take a position as Northeast Representative working with Dive Equipment Manufacturers. By 2011 he and Mike Williams partnered to expand business and were offered the position from International Training. In addition to Sales and Consulting, Joe is an Instructor Trainer and working to expand into technical diving instructor as well. Of course scuba diving is a passion, but on top of that Joe spends time hiking the outdoors and traveling as much as the world as possible.
Shawn Harrison
Midwest Regional Representative
In his early industry career years Shawn Harrison has worked in retail dive facilities in the greater Seattle region where his experience included retail sales, repair, dive training and store management. In early 2003 took a position with SDI/TDI/ERDI for Midwest Regional Sales Representative and over the years has progressed within the agency working in various positions including overseeing ERDI. When on his free time Shawn enjoys spending time with his wife and two sons, shooting and of course scuba diving.
Scott Evans
South Florida Regional Representative
Scott Evans began diving in 1982 and literally grew up in the dive business. Scott started in the in the family’s dive store and eventually took over and built it up to become one of the largest dive centers in the mid-Atlantic area. After selling the business he shifted his focus to the training side of the industry. Over the last 13 years, Scott has been active in all levels of professional instructor development and also served in both leadership and consulting roles for several training agencies.
Currently, Scott is an industry representative in the southeast and works closely with retailers to help them grow and succeed.
Craig Willemsen
Northwest Regional Representative
Managing the Northwest and Southwest regions, Craig comes from a long history on the retail side of the Dive Industry, having earned his first Instructor rating in the late ‘70’s, and as a dive store owner since the late ‘80’s. In the late ‘90’s, Craig got involved with rebreathers, and continues with this passion to this day. Craig spends as much of his spare time as he can with his wife and two kids, hiking and (of course) diving.
David Jensen
Southwest and Hawaii Regional Representative
David first thought about SCUBA at a young age as he grew up watching James Bond films. His Certification Dive was done at Blue Lake on the Utah/Nevada border. This is a geothermal lake that stays relatively warm year-round. He recalls that it was snowing when he was beginning his last dive. “It was cool getting into geothermal waters; the cold air and snow on your face and the warm water on the rest of your body.”
Certified in 1992, David has loved diving and learning everything possible to make him a better Instructor. He also enjoys rock climbing, skydiving, photography, the outdoors, and traveling.
David worked for several dive operations since becoming an Instructor in 2002. In 2012 David became a manufacturer sales representative in 2012, for various SCUBA brands and is excited with his position as the Regional Sales Manager for the Southwest and Hawaii.
Alejandra Iniguez
Mexico and Central America Regional Representative
Ale is from Guadalajara, Mexico where she qualified as a public accountant. As a sportswoman since a young age and high performance tennis player Ale looked for something new and started in the world of diving in 2007 and quickly acquired a special taste for caverns, caves and rebreathers. In 2012 she started her own distribution company for different brands of sport/recreational and technical diving equipment in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. When she is not working, she is with her children, her family or finding the time to do any diving, even participating occasionally in some tennis tournaments.
In 2017 she joined the SDI / TDI / ERDI team as representative of Mexico and Central America.
Mike Ehly
Canada Regional Representative
A Canadian from the Vancouver area, Mike has been diving the waters of the Pacific Northwest for over 25 years.
For the past 10 years Mike has served as an independent sales representative in Western Canada for several diving brands. Mike also works as a Paramedic for the British Columbia Ambulance Service, and in his spare time enjoys traveling, and training for triathlons.
Rick Kirkham
Regional Representative for Asia Pacific
Growing up in the London suburbs I had one dream, to travel around the world and be the next Jacques Cousteau. A diver now for 42 years I made my dream come true and have lived on the beach as full-time time instructor since 1990 in Japan, Australia and the Philippines.
A dive center owner and an SDI-TDI IT, I am never happier than when getting wet and introducing people to the underwater world; just as happy teaching Intro to Scuba, as Advanced Trimix.
My passion is wreck diving and exploring the WW2 wrecks in the Philippines and can often be found deep inside the USS New York with twins or side mount.
I also volunteer as an officer of the Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary primarily focusing on search, rescue and recovery. When not diving I am family man and love photography and videography
Buddy Brown
In Memory… 11/23/1951-3/31/2017
Southeast/South Florida Regional Representative
Buddy was the territory manager for the Southeast and Florida region. Buddy loved all things “water”. Needless to say, he loved diving, spear fishing, fishing, and most any kind of boating. Years ago, Buddy, along with his wife and daughter, lived and cruised on a 35 foot ketch rigged Morgan sailboat for an extended time. He was in the business of SCUBA ever since. Buddy was an avid reader and enjoyed jogging and biking, and of course, spending time with grandkids. Buddy developed many friendships with his customers over the years, and received great satisfaction from helping them be successful in their businesses. He was very proud to have his son, Joey, and daughter, Jennifer working with him in this business.
