{"id":246268,"date":"2013-06-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-21T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/diving-with-a-good-name\/"},"modified":"2013-06-21T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-21T07:00:00","slug":"diving-with-a-good-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/diving-with-a-good-name\/","title":{"rendered":"Diving with a good name"},"content":{"rendered":"

Longtime Uptown business keeps divers warm and dry in chilly waters<\/p>\n

By Bonnie Nicholls | SDUN Reporter<\/p>\n

When local Coast Guard rescue swimmers plunge into the frigid ocean to save people in distress, they\u2019re wearing drysuits manufactured by a family-run business in Golden Hill.<\/p>\n

\"Diving<\/a>
Diving Unlimited International CEO Susan Long (Courtesy Susan Long)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Diving Unlimited International (DUI) has been making drysuits for the past 50 years from an unassuming building near the east end of C Street, where Interstate 15 meets Highway 94. And it has done so despite a tough business climate and invitations to move operations out of California.<\/p>\n

What does it take to survive? \u201cHaving a good group of people,\u201d said CEO Susan Long, \u201c[and] people who believe in the same thing that you do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike wetsuits, which keep you warm through neoprene insulation, drysuits are watertight and allow you to wear fluffy, full-body undergarments that trap air against your body, like the insulation in your house. They are ideal for extremely cold water, and required by the Coast Guard rescue swimmers for water temperatures below 55 degrees Fahrenheit.<\/p>\n

DUI\u2019s military customers include not only Coast Guard rescue swimmers, for which DUI is the exclusive provider, but also Navy SEALs and Army combat divers. It also makes suits for commercial, public safety and scientific divers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bulk of the market is serious recreational divers,\u201d Long said. \u201cNorth America is our biggest market.\u201d<\/p>\n

DUI employs 75 people, most of them assembling the product one suit at a time. A tour of the facilities reveals a small room with a few sales people and two large warehouses for manufacturing. DUI makes about 5,000 drysuits a year, plus military waterproof bags for weapons, radios and other equipment.<\/p>\n

Over the years, the company has improved on the product, reconfiguring zippers, offering heated undergarments and creating patented seals that work like Ziplock mechanisms on plastic bags. All suits go through rigorous testing and have a seven-year warranty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people here know that the customers who buy our equipment are putting their lives in our hands,\u201d Long said.<\/p>\n

The company was founded by Long\u2019s father, Dick, who at 76, still works for DUI, managing the demo tours to dive shops across the country to market their suits.<\/p>\n

\"web<\/a>\u201cMy dad always smelled of neoprene,\u201d Long said, who grew up around the business. \u201cHe always had a \u2018farmer John\u2019 tan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long, however, didn\u2019t immediately take to the business. She didn\u2019t even like diving. Instead, she made her own career as director of catering for various Marriott Hotels. Then, a vacation break on Roat\u00e1n, an island off the Caribbean coast of Honduras, turned into a 14-month stay where she ran a resort and fell in love with diving.<\/p>\n

In 1995, she moved back to San Diego to temporarily <\/i>help with the business, she said. Eventually, she and her dad made a plan to transition running the business to her, and she\u2019s been heading DUI for the past 10 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew I could never fill his fins,\u201d Long said, so she found her own way of doing things, including streamlining operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to get better and better if we want to be here five years from now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Long implemented a new scheduling process with the existing manufacturing staff and cut down the time it takes to make a drysuit from six weeks to three. She brought in a cutting machine programmed with DUI-specific software that uses a customer\u2019s measurements to select a pattern, make changes to that pattern and lay out the fabric. \u00a0She added new overlay materials that customers can choose from to personalize their black suits.<\/p>\n

And just this year, after three years of development, DUI rolled out BlueHeat, battery-powered heated undergarments.<\/p>\n

Still, DUI has had its share of choppy waters. \u201cDiving is stagnant, it\u2019s not growing,\u201d Long said. And San Diego has stringent rules and regulations for manufacturing. \u201cThey really don\u2019t want you here,\u201d she said, adding that the majority of successful businesses are in biotech and restaurants. \u201cRunning a factory in San Diego is challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n

Companies outside of San Diego \u2013\u00a0as well as the U.S. \u2013 have come calling. \u201cWe\u2019ve had countless companies from China come here to ask us how to make the dry suits and they\u2019ll make them for us,\u201d Long said.<\/p>\n

But DUI is not going anywhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things I find so rewarding is making something,\u201d Long said. As she walked through the warehouse at 1148 Delevan Drive, she addressed every employee by name. She beamed as she showed the innovations her employees have come up with in testing, research and development.<\/p>\n

In the larger scheme of things, she said, DUI is \u201cvery small: a niche within a niche business. In the diving world, we have a great name.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on DUI, visit dui-online.com<\/a> or call 619-236-1203.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Longtime Uptown business keeps divers warm and dry in chilly waters By Bonnie Nicholls | SDUN Reporter When local Coast Guard rescue swimmers plunge into the frigid ocean to save people in distress, they\u2019re wearing drysuits manufactured by a family-run business in Golden Hill.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":246269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Diving with a good name","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}