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Lieutenant Commander Richard “Soapy” Watson has been appointed as Global Training Manager for National Hyperbaric Centre (NHC).

During 2014, the centre drove forwards development within its successful training department. New courses were added to the NHC portfolio including Subsea Isolations and ROV System Auditing & Assurance.

Further investment was made by opening a new training and consulting office in Singapore, which is now running courses on a regular basis and experiencing positive results.

Watson, or as he has been known for the past 31 years, “Soapy” (Watson being the name of the soap used in the Royal Navy during the early 20th Century), brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the Centre.

Watson started his career in the Royal Navy as a diver in 1984, performing tasks such as underwater engineering and bomb disposal duties, working his way through the ranks. In 2000, he was promoted to Officer, where he became one of the select few Deep Specialist Officers working in diving and underwater seabed operations. Working his way up through various positions led him to become Head of Diving Training for all Royal Navy Diving and Operations Manager of all Diving Units based in UK (around 190 divers). Finally, Watson was the Client Representative/Diving Standards Officer on behalf of the Ministry of Defence for Royal Navy and Royal Marines which is the UK’s largest single employer of divers.

Alongside his new role, Watson continues his service as a reservist in the Royal Navy Reserves (RNR) where he is Officer in Command of Reserves Diving Unit 2, which supplies operators and supervisors to the NATO Submarine Rescue System.

Lieutenant Commander Watson commented: “I am truly delighted to be joining the NHC in these very exciting times and hope to bring my knowledge and experience of diving/underwater operations and management to the competitive arena of training to make NHC the best training organisation in our specialist field.”