Almost every industrial nation has its own brand of air pressure regulators:
Cousteau-Gagnan in France, Draeger in Germany, U.S Divers in this country, AGA
in Sweden, Nemrod in Spain, Davis in England and Pirelli in Italy are the more basic
types.
In 1946, La Spirotechnique was formed to produce the first regulators in
Europe. The "Aqua-Lung" regulator became a reality.
The First non-military scuba system arrived in the U.S. in 1949. Within
months, a small group of divers emerged from among geology, oceanography and
biology students at Scripps Institute of Oceanography, La Jolla, California
A few years later, there was a Frenchman, Rene Bussoz (Rene's Sporting
Goods in Los Angeles,) living in the U.S. He went back to France on a visit. He
was walking down the streets of Paris and saw a little store. They had an
underwater breathing device in the window, which was the Cousteau-Gagnan
regulator. He stepped in and inquired about it. He was told the whole story of the
equipment and also that he should go to a company called La Spirotechnique and
talk to the inventor himself. His name is Cousteau. So he went to the company and
got permission to start a distributorship in the United States. They, (La
Spirotechnique,) thought that Rene Bussoz would only sell a dozen regulators at the
most. After all, the war was over, and who needed these things. He came back to
the United States and Started selling them like crazy.
Both Popular Mechanics and Popular Science, had articles back in early
1950's on "How to build it yourself" two hose regulator. One of the designers, Kent
Markham now lives in Florida and still receives mail
regarding the article. A lot of people, built the regulators. With some disastrous
results, one might add. They had to get some airplane parts, some hoses and old
gas masks and so forth. Technically there was nothing wrong with it at all, but
some of the implementations left a lot to be desired.
The U.S. Navy, which had been dealing directly with Air Liquid France, came
in with a contract for $250,000.00 worth of regulators and this newly formed
company took off. Cousteau came over to this country and bought the distribution
company back from Rene Bussoz for several million dollars. Bussoz took the money
and moved back to France where he built a golf course and became a golf course
entrepreneur. I do not know if he is still alive today, but nevertheless. That was the
start of U.S. Divers.
Now how did the government get involved. When Cousteau took over, he
called the company U.S. Divers. Many thought that this was a U.S. Navy company.
The Navy is not in any business, but everybody thought it was. Some people today
might even think that it is affiliated with the U.S. government.
