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Directors
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Brett Hemphill
President
Brett Hemphill has been married over 13 years and is the father of 4 children. He currently resides
in Zephyrhills, Florida and is the general manager for a high-rise building services company. Brett
has been cave diving since 1990 and has assisted with exploration in underwater caves in Florida,
Missouri, Bahamas, and Mexico during much of that time.
During the early nineties, many cave divers believed virgin cave exploration was all but a thing of
the past in Florida. Using redundant no-mount and side-mount techniques Brett began to probe and
explore every small spring hole within a fifty mile radius of his home in Zephyrhills. After assisting
in the discovery of four significant underwater caves within one hour of his residence, Brett began to
realize small openings don't particularly mean small caves.
Side-mount soon became his weapon of choice. After using pre-existing designs from long time
side-mount divers such as Woody Jasper, Wes Skiles, Lamar Hires, and Mark Long, he designed a very
holistic side-mount configuration named the Armadillo. During this period, Brett began to shoot and
produce short under water cave documentaries which included the National Association of Cave
Diving's the Need for Training. In the mid to late nineties, Brett joined several teams in the
exploration of multiple underwater cave systems consisting of some of longest and largest underwater
caves in Florida.
While clear blue visibility beckoned most cave divers, Brett's only desire was visibility good enough
to see and read the cave that was directly in front of him. Although many discoveries have come in the
form of new cave systems, some very intriguing finds have been made in systems, previously to be
believed completely explored.
In 2004, Brett joined Karst Underwater Research (KUR) in order to assist with the further exploration
of the Twin D's cave system in central Florida. As severe drought continued, diving activity at Twin
D's halted and KUR began to turn their interest toward topography spring research and reconnaissance
in the Chassahowitzka reserve, Weeki Wachee reserve and the Green Swamp. Since his CCR training in
late 2005, Brett has recently assisted in the exploration of over 4 new cave systems. In late 2006,
Brett began working as technical consultant for KISS Rebreathers and is very involved with furthering
safety protocols and equipment configurations for cave diving with rebreathers.
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