Harry York

Harry York is a military professional and a passionate scuba diver based in Washington, D.C. He is working towards making scuba diving accessible to people of all ability levels and ages.Currently, he is a member of the military and is in charge of the Strategic Policy Branch for the Director of the Army National Guard in Washington D.C. He holds two Master’s degrees, one in Business Administration from St. Martins University, Olympia Washington and the second in Military Art and Science from the School of Advanced Military Studies. The School of Advanced Military Studies is an incredibly selective school, with an acceptance rate of about 1 percent. He joined active duty military following the events of September 11 and has completed 30 years of military service as a helicopter pilot with three Combat tours to Afghanistan and Iraq.Harry York completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he earned his Bachelor’s degree in Russian & East European Studies. It was during his time here that he first discovered his love for recreational scuba diving. He was always looking for a new adventure to try. He climbed Mount Rainier during his time at school and decided to try out scuba diving. He went to scuba school and attended classes to earn his certification. He bonded with some of his classmates, and they began doing shore dives together. Living in the Pacific Northwest, it was easy to keep your gear in your car and do shore dives after work or class. During this time, he did a lot of diving before life got in the way, and he had to stop.He credits his wife for helping him to rediscover his passion for scuba diving. When planning for his retirement from the military, Harry York wanted to purchase a large sailboat to live on and travel. To try and get his skeptical wife excited about the idea, he chartered a sailboat in the Caribbean and booked a snorkeling trip to try and spark her support. When showing her videos of snorkeling, she became excited about that and decided to get scuba certified. She discovered she loved it and developed a passion for diving. Her love for scuba diving inspired him to change his retirement plan from sailing to scuba. He and his wife decided to become professionals and are going through their Divemaster certification.After finishing his scuba certification, he plans to focus on making diving more accessible to those with disabilities. He wants to partner with organizations that serve the disabled population to create conservation projects that they’re able to work on. As a member of the military, he knows many people who have disabilities and realized that scuba diving is a very inaccessible sport. Water is known to be incredibly therapeutic, and he realized there are only a few puzzle pieces that need to be put together to adapt diving for the elderly and those with disabilities. He has made it his mission to make it so that anyone who wants to go out scuba diving can. Now, he and his wife go diving almost every weekend. Typically, they do two dives on Saturday and two dives on Sunday. Even when he isn’t out diving, he’s in his pool daily either refining his skills or swimming.  Living in Washington, D.C., there aren’t a lot of places nearby where Harry York and his wife can go scuba diving. Instead, they plan out trips around diving spots they want to visit. One of his new favorite spots is in North Carolina. With the cold water from the Atlantic Ocean and the warmer water coming in from Bermuda, there are entirely different ecosystems within ten miles of each other. Another spot they really enjoy diving at is Grenada.