Working Underwater: The Story of the Commercial Diving Industry

Above: Bolting the company sign down.
GLOBAL DIVING & SALVAGE, INC.
Below: Salvage and wreck operations
involve complex planning and adherence
to strict environmental and insurance
requirements. Every call is unique and the
Global team is quick to respond with a
thorough plan.
Global Diving & Salvage, Inc. is a leading
provider of marine construction and infrastructure
services and an internationally
recognized casualty responder.
Global was founded nearly forty years ago
and the importance of responding quickly to
any challenge is embedded in the company’s
DNA. Once the small group of professional
divers decided to form Global in 1979, events
moved very quickly. The company’s first
president, Greg Harem, was met at a bar at
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport shortly
after touching down from a dive job in
Texas by a group that included John Graham,
Thom Davis, Mark Niccoli, Joe Antonucci and
Norm McCullum. Harem was sworn in over
drinks before he even got to baggage claim.
Tim Beaver soon joined the ranks as well.
The company was founded with the
purpose of providing day-to-day diving,
ship husbandry, marine construction, small
vessel salvage, and spill response services in
the Puget Sound region. The company’s
philosophy was simple: provide tough, smart,
and professional services for the maritime
community, deliver outstanding customer
service, and focus on employee safety.
In the early days, a Global crew would
clean up small oil spills in their Harbor
Island neighborhood, responding in sandals,
shorts, and T-shirts. After the jobs, Jackie
Lewis (office manager AKA “The Queen”)
would walk over with a roll of paper towels
and root beer floats.
The jobs soon got much bigger and the
company grew quickly as it established a
reputation for having crews available any
time of day or night. “We never wanted to tell
a customer that we couldn’t do something
or give them any reason to look elsewhere,”
explains Graham. “When other companies
did that, their customers came looking to
us and we never let them down.”
Global soon earned a reputation as the
company to call on for any marine construction,
emergency response or salvage job.
Today, Global is one of the few full-service
underwater marine contractors that provides
project management, in-house engineering,
marine and upland environmental services,
as well as the full spectrum of commercial
diving services. This is done through Global’s
five core services—marine construction,
marine casualty response, energy support
services, marine and environmental services,
and Global technical services.
Global has been involved in several
high-profile projects over the years. On
December 22, 1988, off the coast of Grays
Harbor, Washington, the towline connecting
the tug Ocean Service to the Nestucca
snapped. While trying to recapture the
drifting barge in severe weather, the port
rudder of the Ocean Service punctured a
cargo tank resulting in a release of 227,000
gallons of fuel into the bay. The spill required
a massive response and Global hired approximately
thirty workers from nearby tribes
to assist.
WORKING UNDERWATER: The Story of the Commercial Diving Industry
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