Meet Our Team
Thien Do
PADI Course Director
Born in the former South Viet Nam, Thien grew up in California where he had lived for 20 years. A graduate of University of California at Santa Barbara, his professional life has been as a Stores Manager for Gap Inc. and a Business Development Manager for the team that launched E-greetings Network Inc. in 1999. Prior to making Scuba Diving his daily lifestyle, Thien’s hobbies included mountain trekking, running marathons, stumbling through triathlons, and had fallen off his skis and mountain bike quite often while searching for the ultimate “downhill adrenaline rush”.
Between the IDCs, Thien loves to go diving with his students, customers and friends to local and liveaboard dive sites. He also enjoys teaching all levels of PADI courses from beginner level to advanced level. To keep himself discipline at logging his dives, Thien logs his dives and trip comments on the web, at http://thiendivelog.blogspot.com . When he's not diving, he spends some time trying to catch up with his other business, traveling or chilling with his friends.
- Achieved "Platinum Course Director" status for 2006 and 2009
- Achieved "Gold Course Director" status for 2007 and 2008
- Received PADI Recognition for his participation in the inaugural PADI Instructor Examination for India (Andaman Islands, Nov 2009)
- Conducted Cambodia's 1st IDC - 7 candidates including the first Cambodian Khmer candidate to be PADI OWSI (Sihanoukville, Oct 2008)
- Conducted Bakersfield's first 3 IDC's (Kern County -California, 2005, 2006 & 2007)
- Graduated from PADI Headquarters in California in 2004
- The first and only Vietnamese-American Course Director
- Specialty Instructor Trainer: Deep, DUP, DPV, Emergency O2 Provider, Gas Blender, Naturalist, Navigation, Night, NITROX, Search & Recovery, Wreck
- EFR Instructor Trainer
- DAN USA Instructor Trainer
- Have trained 600+ instructor level students
- Have certified 1,300+ PADI divers
- Business owner of three companies in Phuket & US
- Language: English & Vietnamese
Ian Holt
PADI IDC Staff Instructor
Ian became a PADI instructor in 2004. He has been teaching diving part-time to fuel his passion for diving trips since. Ian took the plunge and completed his IDC Staff Instructor Course with Thien in 2006. He joined Gillmanoids KL as one of the founders in 2007. You may find him teaching & staffing our GoPro programs in 2010 , as his work schedule allowed.
- Specialty Instructor (you name it and he has it ... almost)
- EFR Instructor Trainer
- Partner of Gillmanoids, Kuala Lumpur
- Language: English
Thomas Koh
PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer
Not so long after becoming a PADI instructor, Thomas started his own dive center in Singapore. His center has grown one of the most reliable & successful dive centers in the area. Not only to staff IDCs, he enjoys traveling between Singapore, Malaysia and Phuket to take his customers to diving (and search for biiig fishes!)
- Specialty Instructor
- EFR Instructor
- Have trained and worked with 30+ professional level students
- Owns and operates Sunny Cove in Singapore
- Language: English and Chinese
Dennis Kaandorp
PADI IDC Staff Instructor
Thanks for all the fish photos for our websites!
We can't recall how Dennis & Thien met. He was kind of there one day and then was helping Thien's business diving & teaching. Then he was in Thien's IDC Staff Course. Now he has made all the way to Maldives, managing a successful dive center at a luxury resort and occasionally pops in Thailand, Japan and quite a few places in Europe.
- Specialty Instructor
- EFR Instructor
- Managing a dive center, teaching & guiding in Maldives
- Language: English & Dutch
Sandris Grantins
PADI IDC Staff Instructor
Sandris met Thien years ago during his IDC and then return to Thailand for his IDC Staff Instructor course with Thien. Then he return again to staff Thien's IDC and again with 30 Latvians to charter 2 liveaboards for 2007 new year!
- Specialty Instructor (going for his MI rating)
- EFR Instructor
- Business owner in Latvia
- Own a dive club & teaches PADI courses in Latvia
- Language: Latvian, German and English
Remar Holt
PADI IDC Staff Instructor
Remar became a PADI instructor at the same time as Ian, then became an IDC Staff Instructor in January 2009. Since then (or even before!?) she is know as "card collector", which made her 10+ PADI specialties intructor. Also, as a founding member of Gillmanoids, she takes care of not only the divers but details a proper dive center needs to deal with... accounting, reservations etc.
- Specialty Instructor
- EFR Instructor
- Partner of Gillmanoids, Kuala Lumpur
- Language: English & Tagalog (but everybody talks to her in Chinese, Thai and even Malay!)
Mattew Jay
PADI IDC Staff Instructor
Thien was an IDC Staff Instructor when MJ was doing his IDC in Thailand some years back. According to the source, Thien dragged him out of a classroom and make him work on his theories. And MJ passed the IE. After almost 5 years, he returned to Thailand to do his MSDT & IDC Staff course with Thien and he really helped out those new IDC (nervous) candidates to get through the IDC and IE.
- Specialty Instructor
- EFR Instructor
- Current job title: Rugby fanatic
- Language: English & some of African languages
Danny Philling
PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer
Danny joined GoPro Thailand in September of 2008, assist Thien in training Divemasters and specialty courses. Graduated in April 2008, Danny's aspire to become a better instructor in both recreational and professional rank. Look to see more of Danny in 2009 as part of the GoPro Team.
- Specialty Instructor
- EFR Instructor
- Spends time teaching & guiding in Phuket and also in the Similans
- Owner of a Nursery Pre School in Phuket
- Language: English
Chris Stout
PADI Specialty Instructor
When Chris was introduced by Thien's old good Thai friend - Sonporn and the first thing he said to Thien was "I would like to sign-up for the Open Water Diver Course and ALL THE WAY TO THE INSTRUCTOR LEVEL!" Yes, he did it all with us, the zero to hero and now he is one of our main instructors.
- Specialty Instructor
- EFR Instructor
- Spends time teaching & guiding in Phuket and also in the Similans
- Language: English
In Memoriam - Dave Purkeypile
PADI Master Instructor
It is with deep sadness that the team at Rumblefish Adventure and GoPro Thailand announces the passing of our friend and collegue, 'Big Dave.' He succumbed to pancreatitis, which led to failure of his liver and kidneys. Dave passed away on the evening of the 10th September, 2009. We will remember him for his wicked laughs, hearty smiles, and generosity to all those in our dive communities of Kata Beach, Phuket and Bakersfield, California.
