Gareth Lock is a retired Royal Air Force senior officer Navigator of 25 years, who was both a senior supervisor and a tactical flight instructor on an operational C-130 flying squadron. He has a MSc in Aerospace Systems from Kingston University and spent his last 5 years in the RAF as a Requirements Manager for Defensive Aids Systems working across all levels of industry, research and the military from front-line user to very senior officers, both in the UK and in the US, often at highly classified levels.
Gareth is an Open Circuit advanced trimix diver (Technical Diver Level 2 with Global Underwater Explorers) and normoxic trimix CCR diver (JJ-CCR with TDI) with around 800 dives over 12 years of diving. He is also an accomplished underwater photographer with a deep interest in cold, green water wreck diving.
Shortly after leaving the RAF in 2014, he delivered eight months of Well Operations Crew Resource Management (WOCRM) training and coaching to oil workers in an offshore environment, the results of which were presented by Gareth and Phil Smith (Managing Director of Critical Team Performance) at the oil and gas industry's international (IADC Human Factors) conference in Houston. In June 2015, Gareth completed the TOP-SET three-day Senior Investigator root cause analysis course, considered an industry standard in Oil & Gas, heavy industry, and rail incident and accident investigation.
In 2012, Gareth started his PhD, examining the role of human factors in scuba diving incidents. He is published in a number of magazines and journals, has presented at nine international diving conferences on Human Factors in diving, and manages the Diving Incident and Safety Management System incident database.
He has recently been appointed Global Underwater Explorer's Director for Risk Management, responsible for developing the performance of instructors and instructor trainers and building a Just Culture within this learning-cultured organisation.
In 2016, he developed and launched the Human Factors Skills in Diving high performance development programmes to improve the knowledge, skills and safety of all divers. These consist of an online programme suitable for all divers and a classroom-based class aimed at instructors, instructor trainers and those undertaking higher risk diving such as technical divers and cave divers.
“Simply and effortlessly took the group in and out our comfort levels to reveal areas each of us can hone in on for improvement on an individual level and role within a team. This course really allowed me to take a step out of my own skin to look at the way I think and handle challenging scenarios from an outside perspective. As a result, some things will remain but I will work to improve those remaining as I go forward”
~ Lauren Kieran
“I was very impressed with the team building qualities of the Gemasim programme. There was a noticeable improvement in teamwork as the exercises progressed. You have obviously done a tremendous amount of work researching and developing your HF product. I noticed that my students quickly adopted the roles and behaviours necessary for an excellent team performance. It was encouraging how readily they set aside egos in order to achieve the best team performance””
~ Denis Campbell. Ex-British Airways 747 Captain, CRM Instructor Trainer, Director Attrainability
“A comprehensive and thorough course which was a real eye opener for human behaviour which could affect somebody in the diving environment. I have learned many lessons, and hope to use these in my future teaching.”
~ Steve Millard, AIDA free-diving coach and competition judge.
“Insightful, reinforced the need to flatten hierarchy at work, where I naturally slip into the leadership role.”
~ Tamas Szakmany, Consultant, ABUHB ICU Team
“You gave me the skills to articulate from System 1 thinking which didn't challenge, to System 2 thinking where I could break the problem down, challenge the team especially supervisors, and get to a good answer using all the information available to the team”
~ Judson, Driller, Al Jassra Jack-up Drilling Rig
