– By Matt Skoufalos –
For the past five years, Richard Hollis has donned a 7m wetsuit, buoyancy control device, mask, snorkel, and fins, and taken to the cool waters of the Pacific Ocean with a group of high-schoolers in tow.
Hollis, president of Preferred Diagnostic Equipment Service Inc., is a volunteer dive master with the L.A. County Sheriff’s SHARK Program (an acronym for Sheriff’s High Adventure for Responsible Kids). The program offers at-risk California teens the chance to sign a contract with some big incentives for increasing their grade point averages and classroom attendance.
“They’re trying to take these kids and let them work with the sheriff’s deputies; let them get to know these deputies, that they’re not just the guy who comes when something bad happens,” Hollis said.
Among the rewards is the opportunity to attend a weeklong dive school, which culminates in an experience off the waters of Laguna Beach or the shores of the Channel Islands.
“Some of these kids live in L.A. and have never seen the ocean,” Hollis said. “We take them on a weeklong diving experience, take them out in the ocean, and let them dive and see what’s under the water.”
The majority of SHARK staffers are volunteers, including Hollis, who’s been with the program for a half-decade. The owner of Preferred Diagnostic Imaging of Corona, California, he’s a service engineer by trade, but a diver by avocation.
A Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) certified dive master, Hollis assists the SHARK program dive instructors as a volunteer. He sees his role as an opportunity to give back to the community; to help “people who maybe aren’t given the same fair chance that you were given as a child,” he said.
For Hollis, diving is also a way to combat his own claustrophobia, which he said had contributed to a lifelong fear of scuba diving. It wasn’t until seven years ago, when he participated in an introductory PADI program, Discover Scuba, that things started to change for him.
“You do some classwork and dive with a tank of air in a swimming pool,” Hollis said. “I started diving and I haven’t stopped. I got certified seven years ago.”
The SHARK program offers an expanded version of that experience over the course of a week. Starting on a Sunday, participants take about four hours of classroom training on different types of diving equipment, including breathing instructions, water safety, a swim test and gear assignments. Then, Tuesday and Wednesday nights bring three-hour swimming pool sessions in which students practice important skills like finding lost regulators, clearing masks and adjusting equipment underwater, “so if something happens, they don’t panic,” Hollis said.
“Before we get them on the ocean, we get about six hours with them in the pool,” he said. “Then we get on a dive boat Thursday night.”
In the middle of the night, the boat then heads out to its destination – typically, one of the Channel Islands off Laguna Beach, California – where the group participates in two or three dives.
“We show them sea life,” Hollis said. “We’ll see octopus, lobsters, sharks, if we’re lucky. Pretty much in SoCal, we see leopard sharks or horn sharks. They’re really afraid of people, and it’s hard to want to be around us.”
There are lots of seals as well – or as Hollis calls them, “sea puppies” – who come up and play with divers, mimicking their activities, spinning and blowing bubbles.
“They’re extremely fun to swim with; difficult to fish with,” he said. “You can go to the aquarium; it’s not the same as swimming along with them.”
In addition to moments like those, in which divers and teens get to interact with aquatic life, Hollis said there are also opportunities to help their young charges develop some resilience as well. He recollected a time when one student, Danielle, was sent to retrieve diving tanks from the car and didn’t come back. When he went to check on her, Hollis found the young woman sitting in her car, tears streaming down her face.
“I can’t do this,” Danielle said. “I’m scared.”
“We’re all scared,” he told her. “I’ll hold your hand, and we’ll get through it.”
Danielle “freaked out the first time, but she made it,” Hollis said. He held her hand through four subsequent dives, and as she progressed to the advanced diving course, Danielle found the courage to complete the dive on her own. In May 2020, she graduated with a degree in marine biology.
“That’s why you do this,” Hollis said. “You’re helping people do things and see things that they would never see before. That’s a satisfaction you’ll never get in the imaging industry.”
Hollis has dove in a number of environments across the country, from shipwrecks in Florida and San Diego to the Channel Islands and Laguna Beach. The native Louisianian said he’d like to go back for some diving in the Gulf of Mexico someday, but in the meantime, he’s happy just getting into the water and out of his day-to-day worries.
“It’s very peaceful,” Hollis said. “You’re weightless. Wherever we travel, we try to dive. We want to see the difference in the marine life; in the different types of fish. That’s what changes around the world when you dive.”
His advice for those who’ve never taken the plunge?
“Try to do it if you get the chance,” Hollis said. “It’s rewarding. It’s a whole different world.”
