Bill Barada

:: Bill Barada - Arts - 1967

Bill Barada was not just a diving pioneer but one of our sport's Renaissance men, someone who had not one talent but many, who had not one career but several. He was an inventor, writer, photographer, businessman, fireman and salesman - among other things. He was also a dive travel pioneer.

Bill was born in St. Joseph, MO, and grew up in Santa Monica, CA. He started free diving in 1935, when the sport was called "goggle fishing." In 1940 he formed the Los Angeles Neptunes, one of the first skin diving clubs in America. (It is still going strong today.)

In 1950, skin diving was threatened with restrictive legislation. To combat it, Barada founded the California Council of Diving Clubs, the first of its kind in the nation and probably the world. He also served as one of its presidents.

Bill was on the Board of Governors of the Underwater Society of America during its formative stages. He was active in legislation, conservation and safety issues throughout the country in scuba diving's early years and that interest never waned.

Since little equipment was available for early divers, Bill designed his own, forming The Bel-Aqua Water Sports Company to produce and market it. His designs included the Bel-Aqua drysuit, an all-rubber snorkel and a CO2 speargun. He owned and managed Bel-Aqua for seven years.
Bill was a fireman with the Los Angeles Fire Department from 1940 until his retirement in 1962; then he served as advertising and promotion manager of U.S. Divers (now known as Aqua-Lung). He joined the staff of Skin Diver as sales promotion manager in 1963. He became marketing manager not long after, then "retired" - again - in 1968.

Among Bill's accomplishments at Skin Diver was the hiring of a new eastern manager/associate editor. The young photographer/writer he chose for the job - Paul Tzimoulis - would be with the magazine for 34 years. Before, during and for many years after he was a Skin Diver staffer, Bill wrote articles on a variety of subjects. He teamed up with Dewey Bergman, founder of the first dive travel agency, Sea & See. The two were responsible for popularizing dive travel to Mexico and Tahiti.
In the spring of 1968, Bill left his full time position with Skin Diver to become its Special Assignments Editor. He and his first wife, Harriet, set out on a 20,000 mile journey in their Dodge station wagon, pulling a 24 foot Fireball tandem-wheeled house trailer. They traveled from California to Canada and eventually ended up in Florida. Along the way, Bill explored America's popular diving areas and visited with local dive shops, clubs and councils. He wrote articles about his experiences for Skin Diver. Readers could track his progress through the country by reading his monthly reports in 1968-69.

Bills first book, Underwater, was published by Skin Diver's owner, Petersen Publishing, in 1955. He wrote several other books, including Mask and Flippers, an as- told-to-book featuring Lloyd Bridges. He wrote many TV scripts for Sea Hunt and a chapter in a National Geographic book, World Beneath the Sea. He was still writing articles in 1981 but when he stopped smoking the articles stopped coming in. It seems Bill could only write when he smoked.

Besides his 1967 NOGI Award for the Arts, Bill received the Florida Governor's Award for Conservation and Communication in 1976. He lived with his second wife, Ellen, in Kissimmee, FL, until her death in 1997, when he moved to Orlando. He had three children: Barbara Webber (now deceased), Robert Barada and Richard Barada, and was stepfather to Ellen's daughter, Sonja Otto.
After Bill died on October 1, 1998, his ashes were brought to California and scattered off Pt. Fermin. He is once again among the creatures and the sea he loved so well and fought so hard to protect.