Eugene Vezzani, J.D., PH.D.

:: Eugene Vezzani, J.D., PH.D. - Science - 1960

Dr. Eugene Vezzani, J.D., PH.D., is a diving pioneer, photographer, author, inventor and a guiding force in diving in the state of Georgia.

In 1949, Eugene Vezzani was in the U.S. Air Force stationed Mentone, France and was a member of the USAF swimming team. Vezzani lent money to a U.S. Naval officer and received collateral in the form of scuba diving equipment, which including a new single stage aqualung. Vezzani could not get the tank filled anywhere and the aqualung brochure was in French. At the beginning of the Korean War, Vezzani, who by then had traveled through 7 countries, stashed the aqualung in a locker at the Westover Field USAF base in California. He started college with the USAF Institute University of Maryland and later attended Columbia University, George Washington University and finally enrolled at the John Marshall Law School in Atlanta, Georgia, where he later became an Adjunct Professor of Contract Law and Criminal Law.

In 1953, Vezzani joined a skin diving club at the Atlanta YMCA where he met Freddie Lanuoge, who had a duplicate of Vezzani's regulator and the two

became lifelong friends. They met Jordan Klein, who operated the largest scuba store in Miami, chartered out his boat and went skin and scuba diving throughout 6 Bahama Islands. Vezzani became hooked on scuba and when he returned home to Georgia, he and friend George Kasle started the first scuba store in Georgia. Vezzani became one of the first scuba instructors and instructor examiners in the state. He and his partners started scuba clubs in 4 adjoining states and then founded the Georgia State Skin Divers Association. Vezzani also started the first Georgia State Marine Rescue and Salvage Patrol. He also leased/purchased a 36 foot sailing ketch captained by Jack Faver and advertised diving trips. In 5 years, they visited 28 islands and nine countries, including a sail through the Panama Canal twice heading for the South Pacific on a 3 and 1/3 month diving trip taking in Tahiti, Samoa, and Pitcairn Island. Vezzani wrote on his favorite subject, diving, for various magazines and periodicals. On one of his expeditions, Vezzani located one of the first confederate submarines at Fort McCalister in Savannah, Georgia.

In 1958, Vezzani, as the leader of the Georgia State Marine Rescue Patrol, was called to assist in recovering the bodies of two U.S. Air Force men from an underwater cave in Morrison Springs, Florida. He and Jack Faver spent hours in the cave at 290 feet, after which they were rushed to the U.S. Naval base in Panama City for decompression. Months afterwards, they learned that their mission at 290 had set a new world depth record.

In the late 1960's Vezzani received a U.S government grant to explore the Orinoco, a tributary of the Amazon River, to study piranha. Thereafter, Vezzani wrote the criteria in Georgia, Florida and the U.S. that prohibits the taking of piranha without a federal permit. Vezzani also brought back to Georgia some 36 pairs of this species for a study that proved that this species could procreate in the warm waters of Florida and Georgia.

In the late 1950s, a diving buddy of Vezzani, Jay Albenese of Louisiana, who conceived the NOGI statuette and the NOGI Award, asked Vezzani to establish the legal criteria and award format to establish these awards for various underwater categories in diving to be awarded by and sanctioned by the Underwater Society of America (USOA). Vezzani completed this task in three days and in 1960, the USOA presented four NOGI Awards in Arts, Science, Sports and Education and Distinguished Service.

In 1993, Vezzani met with Harry Shanks, Mel Lillis, and Carl Hauber about creating an organization to honor outstanding divers of the world, not only USOA. Vezzani coined the name The Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences (AUAS) and had it legally registered.