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Tim Andro

Making Waves Across New England - Tim Andro

Tim Andro is the founder, owner, and lead certifying instructor of Northeast Public Safety Divers. He has over 20 years of recreational and technical dive experience, including Advanced Trimix and Closed-Circuit Rebreather with depths over 200’, and has logged over 3,500 dives (including over 800 deco dives).  Tim is also a tenured firefighting with over 22 years of experience, 12 of which he served as a public safety diver! Tim has run dive operations for the FBI, US Coast Guard, NY and NJ Port Authority Police, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Alberta, and numerous other smaller jurisdictions throughout NY & NJ. And in the last several years, he has worked tirelessly to bring his real world experience of firefighting and diving together to the Northeast through his massive initiatives that have helped spark a movement amongst departments.

His expertise is widely recognized in the public safety dive community where he has been a requested speaker at numerous dive conferences and seminars, as well as a requested consultant on emerging dive standards. He has also been involved in the large annual Boston Sea Rovers Public Safety events.


Tim Andro, speaker and instructor at the Boston Sea Rovers Public Safety Workshop.


Tim Andro, public safety diver and firefighter.

Where Tim's Diving World Began

Tim’s passion for diving started in 1991, at the age of 11, when he found myself living in Monterey Bay California. His friend and him would routinely watch the divers gear up on the beach, amazed at their ambition to venture into the world beneath the surface. He was always curious at what their adventures brought them. He would see groups of divers exit the water, they would crawl out of the surface and remove their mask to reveal a smile he would never understand until over a decade later. Tim harassed his parents to dive and one day he was amazed to hear them say “Hey we got you a class to try diving”. This day has remained one of his best moments of his childhood. He remembers walking into the dive shop and smelling the chlorine from the pool mixed with the rubber of the gear, a smell that makes him warm and fuzzy to this day.

His mind was hooked on diving ever since then, but the expenses of diving deterred him from doing anything more with it for years. It wasn’t until 2005 when friends of his asked if him and his girlfriend (now wife) if they wanted to try diving with them during a couples trip to Aruba while they were planning for the trip. It was Tim’s first time out of the country and he couldn’t say yes fast enough. We they went out on the boat and did their first dive, the fish, the environment, the tranquility was all so overwhelming that he wanted more and more. When he returned home after this trip and the dive bug came back home with him, and this time he had a job in the union and could afford to dive more and he just never stopped from there!

Public Safety and Diving

During all that time wreck diving, Tim was also a volunteer fireman (and had been since 1998). It was around 2011 that his diving and firefighting world collided when a friend of his on a FD dive team got hurt on a dive that resulted in OSHA shutting down the dive team. Tim was actually not on a team at that time because he had no interest in recovering people, he was strictly a wreck diver. However, he saw that the team was allowed to start over and rebuild and under OSHA’s watchful eye, the FD dive team began their new start. This was the time Tim got involved and offered to help them through this process. They brought in a local ERI instructor and FDNY Rescue1 diver and trainer, Joel Kanasky, Tim’s found himself helping Joel with the divers. Joel was retiring and he helped push Tim into getting his ERDI instructor. His friend’s dive accident and working with Joel who became a great friend to Tim is what birthed the concept of Northeast Public Safety Divers, that now thrives in New England.

Around the time the team was getting back in service, the county dive association was approached to possibly put a MOU in place since the sheriff was getting rid of its dive team. Tim was elected to be the liaison between the dive teams and the county. After the two-year process ended, they had a Taskforce of 6 teams with financial support from the county. For volunteer dive teams, this was huge. The success of the negotiations forever changed how they operated- they had money to bring in instructors and purchase equipment that allowed them to blossom.

The Beginning of Northeast Public Safety Diving and Dive Codes

In 2012, a public safety diver, on a fire department, entered a quarry searching for a victim. When the safety diver ascended, he sustained a decompression injury and was rushed to a hyperbaric chamber. Tim Andro, had been deep tech diving for years and had logged around 800 dives at that point, most of them in shipwrecks at regular depths of 150’+, and because of his experience, Tim was asked to consult on the incident. Tim found a team that lacked firm operational plans and operated with poorly-serviced gear. He saw that there was no advanced training and no training that mirrored how divers should respond at an incident. He ended up getting the opportunity to lead and rebuild that team and he committed himself to advancing the entire public safety diving team- with safety and efficiency at the core of their tasks.

Tim was adamant that no public safety diver should ever have to spend time in a chamber or die in the line of duty from inadequate training and gear. In 2016, Northeast Public Safety Divers was officially born. Now to this day, in addition to training opportunities, they volunteer their services to many different agencies including the public, they perform inspections and prop clearing for the US Coast Guard, preservation work on USCGC Lilac and the USS LING. They also work with several historical societies, and a couple private ship preservation groups.

New England

  • In 2023, they partnered with non-profit for veterans, TRP (MA), for training programs
  • In 2024 and 2025, they joined Boston Sea Rovers annual Public Safety event at the BSR Annual Symposium (MA)
  • In June 2025, Join them for a 3-day intensive public safety diving event, Advanced Body Recovery Specialist Weekend (June 27 – 29TH, 2025) Multi-agency training with certifications issued accordingly from Global Underwater Explorers, UCI, PADI Public Safety, and ERDI – Public Safety Diving. (CT) They enjoy helping when they can and it also keeps our staff’s skills dialed in. If you have questions about anything you see please don't hesitate to ask.

Recognition

  • Tim received the ERDI “Outstanding Instructor Award” for 2016, 2017, 2018 and was the 2023 AND 2024 ERDI Ambassador!
  • Tim was awarded The Medal Of Valor in 2011 by the Northwest Bergen Mutual Aid Association for rescuing two victims from the Ramapo River during Hurricane Irene.


Tim's work could not be done without thee support of his parters and team.

Learn more about Northeast Public Safety Diving:
northeastpsd.com

Dive Codes- Public Safety Dive Team Reporting, Tracking, And Personnel Records At Your Fingertips:
divecodes.com

More about Tim's early boat crewing and wreck diving

Hooking a Diver

They met some amazing people at that shop who introduced them to northeast wreck diving. His first dive was on what is called “120 wreck” and to say it was different from Aruba was an understatement. He started getting invited onto different boats and meeting people we had read about in books.

One of his favorite encounters that changed his diving career forever was the first day he went on with the legend Capt. Zero who owned the John Jack out of Staten Island NY at the time. When he was 10 min away a major bridge was closed that caused his group to be delayed and the dive boat left without them. His group decided to see where the boat normally docks. His group saw some fisherman and asked where they could find the slip, they say “hey, are you guys looking for Zero he just left we can get him”. His wife and him plead saying "NO, let them go we don’t want to stop them", but it was too late. This guy turns and sees the John Jack crossing the dock and starts yelling, the boat turns, and their friends see them and before they knew it the boat was turning and coming back for them. The word embarrassed and shamed was not the word and they start throwing gear on a boat with all these badass wreck divers pissed they stopped boat and rightfully so. They threw their gear on the deck and felt disheveled. They were newer to diving and felt overwhelmed as they began gearing up.bOne of our friends was trying to calm them down and they finally got settled. They arrived and the divers tie into the wreck, and we heard “pools open”. As they were getting ready Captain Zero stops them and says “stop getting ready and take your stuff off” his stomach dropped as he did what the Captain said. He did not like how their gear was set up and instead of them diving, the captain spent the next 45 min showing them some new ways to rig our kit - techniques that he’s kept to this day. This day changed his life forever, Capt Zero took them into his family, made them crew, and always made them feel at home, He could go on for hours about the people they met and the things they did but the best think that came from that boat was the friendship that are now more like family to this day. Because of Zero, Tim always tries to help new divers and some of that was what got him into to the teaching he does now.


Tim wreck diving the northeast


A shot at rebreathers

When Captain Zero passed it left a hole in his heart. He wanted to continue working on boats and passing on what we learned. His diving led him to meet Captain Hank Garvin. Another legend in the Northeast and again he got lucky- Hank took him in as his family. Tim and his wife worked on his boat and he could go on for hours again about the great people and stories we had on the boat. One story that sticks out is the wreck hunting trips where they would spend hours running searches with sonar, hoping to find something. One day they found a ‘bump’ in the ocean floor. His wife and him went down first and they land on a big ship covered in netting that made it look like a ghost. It was a small vessel with cargo holds that they found pile bottlers in that they recovered. The wreck was nothing crazy but showed no signs of ever being dived. The feeling of adventure and thrill was indescribable and was addicting.

Just like most of his diving progressed, it was followed by a short time on a rebreather. Tim tried two rebreathers and went through all the training on both units. He learned no matter how much training he did, rebreather diving was not for him. All of his dives are now on open circuit.

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