Michael Menduno has been invited to join the RTC as an individual Observer Member in recognition of his special expertise in the field of technical diving.

Diving since 1976, Menduno is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of InDepth and an award-winning reporter and technologist, who has written about diving and diving technology for more than 30 years. He originally coined the term “technical diving,” and was a member of the instructor team at Key West Diver, the world’s first technical training center. 

His magazine aquaCORPS: The Journal for Technical Diving (1990-1996), helped usher tech diving into mainstream sports diving. Menduno also co-organized the Enriched Air Nitrox workshop in 1992, and produced the first Tek.Conference (1993), EUROTek (1994), and ASIATek (1995) conferences in the nineties. 

Menduno has been reporting on rebreather technology for nearly thirty years. He organized and co-chaired (with rebreather developer Tracy Robinette) Rebreather Forums 1.0, held in Key West, FL in 1994 and Rebreather Forum 2.0 held in Redondo beach, CA in 1996, and was a presenter at Rebreather Forum 3, held in Orlando, FL in 2012. He was also the editor of the Proceedings of Rebreather Forum 2 (RF2) with Karl Shreeves. He also attended the first RESA meeting held at DEMA. He was certified through BSAC on AP Diving’s Evolution, and is in the process of completing a Divesoft Liberty course.  

In addition to his role at InDepth, Menduno is an editor and reporter for DAN Europe’s Alert Diver magazine and blog, a contributing editor for X-Ray mag, and writes for DeeperBlue.com. He is also on the board of the Historical Diving Society (USA).