14th January 1952 – 3rd October 2025
On the 3rd October 2025, Michael Menduno – one of modern diving’s most enigmatic personalities – died following a stroke. Despite a public persona as the person whose name will, forever, be synonymous with the advent of ‘Technical Diving’ (as a distinct category of diving) Michael was a complex character whose personal, and family life were known to very few. Including myself.
The Michael, whom I knew, was a person who, if not bordering on genius, was remarkably close to doing so, and who – in my eyes – frequently crossed backwards and forwards between that narrow dividing line.
A drop-out from High-School with – in his own words – “a weird school history”, Michael was an unashamed latter-day ‘hippie’, a fallen angel who, had he been born thirty-years earlier, would have risen to equal prominence alongside the likes of Mailer, Kerouac, and the poets and writers of the ‘beat’ generation.
Always a keen swimmer, he was accepted as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois, where he spent two-years before transferring to Stanford University Graduate school for four years. With MS degrees in Engineering Economic Systems and Mathematics already under his belt, he went on to become a PhD candidate working on Mathematics and Algebraic Topology.
Having worked at the, Hopkins Marine Station (a division of Stanford University at Monterey Bay, in California) as a science diver, Michael discovered, in his words, his, “first ‘tek’ thingie”. And then came the intervening years, working, initially, for the US Senator for Alaska, Senator Ted Stevens, and the Office of Technology Assessment.
Later, working in California’s, Silicon Valley (in marketing, strategic planning, financial planning & analysis) he spread his wings and, having established a consultancy business focussed on High-Tech start-ups, became a writer with early stories about his diving experiences in Cozumel and Mexico.
With an abiding interest in Technology and the human spirit the eventual outcome was, in 1990, the launch of a magazine that was to mark a milestone event in diving’s rich history; ‘aquaCORP’.
A publication whose major investor, Rod Stanley, was an Australian Commercial Diving Executive, ‘aquaCORP’ had a mixed history. Michael, as the Editor-in-Chief, had (and never lost) an overwhelming interest in diving technology, and the people who encouraged underwater exploration and discovery.
Sadly, the magazine’s frequency fell short of subscriber’s expectations and, eventually, led to the magazine’s closure. Michael’s interest in diving, however, did not. Broadening his scope as an extremely talented investigative reporter, he continued to report, and comment on, developments in diving for publications like, ‘Scientific American’ , ‘Wired’, and more.
His comments on many of the organisations (and personalities) that he subsequently supported, – like the WKPP – being less than complimentary.
Although knowing of him as the editor/publisher of, ‘aquaCORPS Magazine’, my first meeting with Michael,came in April, 1995, when, on the eve of the opening of Singapore’s very first ADEC Show, we were both invited to a dinner in a private dining room atop the Pan Pacific Hotel. Hosted by the publisher of Asian Diver Magazine and organiser of ADEC, Rainer Sigel, his guest list was limited to just four speakers, Jean-Michel Coustau, Michael Menduno, wreck salvor, Dorian Ball, and myself. Michael and I immediately bonded, communicated regularly, and were both involved in the following year’s, ASIA.tek Conference, running in conjunction with that year’s ADEC Show.
Following the collapse of, ‘aquaCORP’ in that same year (1996) Michael disappeared from the diving scene. And while we did meet up again over dinner with Wings and Ani Stocks in Santa Cruz, on a stop-over by Sylvia and myself on our way to Mexico in 1999, Michael was always reluctant to again involve himself in the diving industry.
Having continued to remain in contact with him, and attempted – on numerous earlier occasions – to lure him back into diving as a speaker at Australia’s biennial OZTeK Conference, Michael eventually relented and (with the added post-event inducement of a liveaboard trip to dive the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea if he attended OZTeK 2011) agreed to fly to Sydney and attend the Show.
Encouraged by the reception that he received in Sydney and, having organised the two original preceding Rebreather Forums, laying the groundwork for Rebreather Forum 3, Michael’s parting words to me on our way to the airport and his return home were, “I’ve just had the best two weeks of my life.” It marked his return back to diving. And while, undoubtedly, he later enjoyed far more enjoyable times, his passing has left a huge hole in the hearts of everyone privileged to know him.
At a personal level, the saddest aspect of Michael’s passing is his constant good humour, unfailing support of everyone with whom he came into contact … and the fact that we’d agreed that he would be the one to write my own epitaph.
—ENDS—
Categories: General
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