Tom Mount

Tom Mount (March 1939 – January 2022) was a pioneering cave diver and technical diver. By 1967 he had made more cave dives than anyone else in the world, according to fellow caver Sheck Exley. In 1970-1 he was diving the Bahamian blue holes on Andros Island and helping Jacques Cousteau make the film The Secret of the Sunken Caves there. By 1972 he was experienced enough to lead a team of cave divers in a recovery operation. He was a founding member of the National Association for Cave Diving, the first cave diver training organization in the United States. He was the author of one of the first American cave diving texts, The Cave Diving Manual, three years after Sheck Exley's 1969 Dixie Cavern Kings Cave Diving Manual. The two collaborated with Rory Dickens and others on 1973's Safe Cave Diving. At the University of Miami's School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Mount served as diving officer from 1969-1976, developing training curricula as well as procedures for mixed gas diving, considered exotic at the time. He supervised the FLARE (FLorida Aquanaut Research Expedition) and participated in Hydrolab. Mount's contribution to recreation scuba diving was acknowledged with the award of a SSI Platinum Pro 5000 Diver card in 1993. and a NOGI Award for 'Sports/Education' in 2000.