Martin Dorn We do see sharks. We do see many different kinds of fish, and it it's still interesting. I've never seen one in Elizabeth River, but to be clear, even in Rudy Inlet down at the oceanfront, many sightings of bulls of bull sharks, which that's notoriously the most dangerous shark on the planet.
Zack Miller Hello. I'm Tim Ryan.
Tim Ryan Hello, Zach Miller. I had to doing a quick check to see what episode number we're on.
Zack Miller Two sixty seven, maybe?
Tim Ryan Yeah. Two sixty seven.
Zack Miller Yep. Here we are. Live and in color.
Tim Ryan These weeks fly by.
Zack Miller Have you changed anything in your background in a while? I don't feel like you have. I feel like we got a lot of fun. I don't care.
Tim Ryan I'm saying Nope.
Zack Miller Maybe I can
Tim Ryan Things are things are moving too fast to focus on backgrounds and all that kind of stuff, man. It's we got a lot a lot of stuff that's going. A lot of things, really moving really fast as you know. Gearing up for the start up World Cup.
Zack Miller Fifty six days away.
Tim Ryan We're gonna be putting Virginia on the the global stage again. So get your applications in. What as you know, we yeah. It's like, man, the the messaging is always so it's really it's a it's been a super interesting exercise. And so a lot of people are like, man, I don't know if I can compete on that kind of a stage, but, gosh, you just just show up.
Right? I mean, like, the number the people that you're going to meet by just attending this event could totally change the trajectory of your business within itself. So just show up. Have a great time. Drink a drink.
Have some food. Meet some people. Support fellow entrepreneurs. It's gonna be awesome. Show up.
We can't wait to see you.
Zack Miller There you go. I got nothing else to say. Thanks for taking my thunder. No. It'll be fun.
It'll be definitely the largest stage, not just like the attendance, but the largest stage that I have ever stepped on. Yeah. Except for maybe, like, in, you know, high school when I was fun. When I was a thespian. I'm joking.
I was not I was not in the drama club. I cannot I was not good at any of that stuff as you guys all know that. But Yeah. Then we got
Tim Ryan TechNite. It's quickly following behind that. Nominations are open for that. So, yeah, I think that one of the one of the nicest things that you can do for a fellow founder, a fellow business is just take two seconds to nominate them to, for an award. We got several awards to choose from, entrepreneur of the year, startup to watch, innovator of the year, CTO, CIO of the year.
Many we have nine different awards to choose from. Take a couple seconds to nominate somebody, and, it's all part of the storytelling aspect of what we're trying to do here. So that'll be fun.
Zack Miller Should see who who wins the w n award. First time for that, probably the most meaningful of all time. It's the first time, I would think. So it'd be interesting to see who gets that. Dubby is you know, I didn't know him well, but the time I had with him there was, like, an impact here.
There's, like, there's an aura around this guy. It's like, oh, man.
Tim Ryan Yeah. I didn't I didn't know him well either. I was super, it was really, really nice to hear how honored the family was that we're making this award in his honor. So
Zack Miller Yeah.
Tim Ryan Rumor is they'll be in attendance for that night.
Zack Miller Oh, cool.
Tim Ryan Same with the same with Dan Bell. Dan was a a tireless champion for the region, and we'll have a an award in his name to honor him as well. So really, really good stuff. I'm excited about that as well, Tech Night. Let's head to our website.
All the info is there.
Zack Miller Alright. I'm excited for today's guest. You know, we we've known him for approximately seventeen minutes. An introduction from Chris Tillett, city of Portsmouth, economic development over there.
Tim Ryan Shout out to to Portsmouth.
Zack Miller Shout out. You know, Martin, I don't know if you know this, but, like, Chris Tillett is, like, the greatest business development dude, like, on the street, like, from an economic development perspective economic development perspective, like, in the history of any place.
Tim Ryan It would yeah. I agree.
Zack Miller He's like if you haven't gone to lunch with him, make him take you to lunch. Right? Like We we walk He just knows every single yeah. We went to some streets place. Down?
Yeah.
Tim Ryan But we were walking down as the three of us. I felt like it was a three person parade because all we were doing was just waving to everybody Oh. Walking down High Street.
Zack Miller And it's not like he's the mayor or anything, but, I mean, you know, people treat him like that. I don't know why. But shout out to mister Christopher Tillett, who's obviously been on the show before. But, Martin, welcome. Thanks for
Martin Dorn Thank you.
Zack Miller Thanks for being here.
Martin Dorn It's unique. So I'm looking forward to
Tim Ryan to diving in, if you will.
Zack Miller No puns. Oh, that's funny. Wow. Look at you and your choice of words there, Tim. What are you what are you alluding towards?
Oh, wait. Wait. What's on this coffee cup? That looks fun.
Martin Dorn It is.
Zack Miller I might I might
Tim Ryan I think that this yeah. I'm looking forward to this show. There I mean, it should be just a chill vibe, like, this whole the whole show.
Martin Dorn Well, what do you have for me?
Tim Ryan Well, yeah, what's what what do you got what do got going on? We we're gonna go underwater and learn about some the diving aspect. I think that we hear a lot about that about the region, shipbuilding community, always yeah. There you hear a lot about it, but we've never had anyone that's under the water and seeing the things. Like, how much how much time a day do you a typical day, how much time is spent underwater?
Martin Dorn A typical day for myself or one of our divers is typically a minimum of three hours and as many as ten depending on what the decompression limits you to. Wow. Physical aspect of it, you know, is that a really labor intensive job that we're performing, which you can imagine that quite a bit of our work is labor intensive.
Zack Miller How does that move? Were you a swimmer in high school, college, or anything like that?
Martin Dorn We where I came from, we did not have a pool. We had ponds, not pools. So there was there was no swimming in high school. I I swam a lot in the summer and, you know, went to the beach like, you know, most anyone else. But to be clear, there was something there was a driving force behind myself.
I like, I I spoke to you earlier. I came from Inland Carolina and knew no divers. There was no deep bodies of water. And this being in the seventies, I think it was Aquaman and too much Jacques Cousteau that drove me to this point. And I knew at 17 that that's what this is what I wanted to do.
I mean, like anyone else of that age, I didn't realize it was gonna take me to this portion of my life, but it has, and it's been good.
Tim Ryan So what do you when you're when you're underwater for three to ten hours, what do you what are you typically doing? What what is the the typical day in the life look like?
Martin Dorn Okay. You could break that down. You mentioned, some of the different, areas of work we may be in, whether it's, let's say, ship's husbandry. I'd be working on ships, construction, offshore oil and gas, wind farm, things of that nature. So if I'm working on a ship, you know, we could be polishing the propeller, actually cleaning the hull, opening up sea chest gratings, and cleaning the piping leading into the vessel that may supply cooling water for generators or the primary propulsion device, things of that nature, doing well repairs on the hull.
Tim Ryan Man, that
Martin Dorn That's just ships, and that's just a snippet of of working on a ship underwater. But, anyway, yes. So the day can be very long, and those jobs can drag into multiple days or weeks depending on the complexity of that job.
Zack Miller Alright. You knew this was gonna go off the rails when you talked about Aquaman and Jakku stuff.
Tim Ryan Of course.
Martin Dorn No. There's many, many, many autorockets to this thing.
Zack Miller I mean
Martin Dorn Develop into.
Zack Miller I have I have no idea what those things are. Can you guys just explain to me, like, what a Jacques Cousteau is? I figured an Aquaman is like a Marvel character or something. Like, I don't know. Like, Turbo Man is something, you know, I I can think about.
You know? Shout out to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the one of the greatest Christmas movies of all time, underrated, I think. But an Aquaman and a Jacques Cousteau what are what are we talking about here?
Martin Dorn Oh, Jacques Cousteau, is probably who made, being underwater more famous than anyone else, help found US divers, Aqua Lung, and traveled the world showing the people of the world what the underwater environment was. I I forget when he was born, but, I mean, he was making devices, I believe, as early as the forties, and that just continued onto his until he passed. He was just a true innovator, and, again, he showed the world what, it was like to be underwater. And that that was just from basics to the environmental aspect later in his life, you know, seeing the impacts of decades of degradation due to pollution and other things. So, anyway, really great human being.
The world is better for him.
Tim Ryan In terms of, like I'll look him up. Yeah. In terms of divers, does this area have a lot of divers per capita compared to other locations? Or
Martin Dorn Commercial divers for sure. Recreational divers, not as much as a place like Florida, but it does have its share. There's there is some diving offshore. It's it's not touched on very much anymore. There's some lakes inland that people go to.
But, commercially, this is a fairly large epicenter for commercial diving because of the shipbuilding and just the in general infrastructure that we have that's water based that needs constant maintenance.
Zack Miller Are you doing this, like, on the Elizabeth River? Are you going out? Like, where, like, where where is majority of this stuff being done?
Martin Dorn Well, you pick a river where you see vessels or you see piers. Anywhere where there's anything onloaded, offloaded onto a vessel, you're gonna have an infrastructure built around that, and it's gonna need to be built and repaired. There is a certainly a lifespan. They're made with wood and steel, and and both of those have their intricacies and their lifespans.
Tim Ryan Man, I I I it's just something that I haven't really thought about in terms of
Martin Dorn Most people most people don't.
Tim Ryan Yeah. Because but we're surrounded by so obviously, we talk about all the time. We're surrounded by so much water.
Martin Dorn Drive over a bridge. What is holding that bridge up? That foundation will degrade to a point to where it has to be repaired or it's impassable. You you're going you're going to have failure. You will have failure.
Oh, wow. So every I mean, every bridge you pass over. Everyone.
Tim Ryan Well yeah. And that so you look at how long, like, the James River Bridge is, the the Monitor Merrimack, the HRBT, Chesapeake Bay Bridge, or just the power lines going across the James River.
Martin Dorn Yes. You may you may have seen it mentioning that. They did some major repairs on the abutments for them a couple years ago. Those transmission lines that run across. Yeah.
Yeah. Yep. So it it is a truly interesting field, and you can go in so many directions. There's just so much to be done, the engineering, the equipment that it takes. It's a vast group of really dedicated and intelligent individuals that really keep all of this going.
Tim Ryan Well, and you I would imagine from a bravery standpoint, one to be underwater, not claustrophobic, and having like, you have to I think I would think you have to have a little crazy in you to to to
Martin Dorn You nailed it. You started off maybe a little off base with the heroic side of it. I think the crazy may supersede all of that. But, yes, to your point, it it take it does take a unique person to do something that would make most people wanna hide in the closet. So, yeah, it's it's it there's an interesting group of people that make up this industry, and, yeah, it's fun.
That that that's part of the fun.
Zack Miller Alright. Well, wow. I mean, the heroics are probably because of Aquaman. You know, you're you're
Tim Ryan Well, I I mean, it's just like I I don't wanna I would imagine the military I mean, if the navy would provide a lot of the people that you hire, I would think.
Martin Dorn They used to. That's where I began my career in, 1988. Got out in '93, and I I haven't stopped being in the water.
Tim Ryan So because yeah. I mean, like, just like EOD, the the explore for the I'm trying to think. Explosive Ordans disposal. Mhmm. People for you know, like, that's just a tight knit community.
And I would imagine all the underwater divers and the underwater welders, I they would all have, like, a super, you know, tight bond with one another. I would
Martin Dorn Very much so. We, yeah, yep, we have industry parties, not even necessarily, like, company, you know, gatherings. We have industry gatherings specifically for that, and, you know, some of those aren't suit and tie kinds of events. Okay.
Zack Miller So you get out of the military. You decide that, hey. Like, I I wanna do this diving thing. I wanna create a business. Is it anything like that?
Like, how did all of that come
Martin Dorn So that was a big failure initially. I'd I'd started a small, like, coal cleaning business. And when I say coal cleaning, mean, like, for private vessels, smaller vessels. And I had another business venture, some batting cages at the oceanfront that kinda went high and right. And so I I needed a a real job working for someone else with some guaranteed income.
And so I went to this company, Chesapeake Bay Diving, and, worked for this company for quite a few years. And then the owner gave myself and two other, at the time, young men, the opportunity to purchase the business. And, that's where we came in. That was in the early two thousands when when we took over the business.
Zack Miller Was that a big, like, change for you? Because you had just been the guy kind of doing the work, and now you're gonna have to be the guy that kind of oversees
Martin Dorn Well, like I said, I had already dabbled in business. I I in I think it was '94, '95. I actually with the help of a friend, I submitted plans to put up a small building on Pacific Avenue right across from where the the dome is now, the the new park. 40 something foot building for concessions for the the batting cages. So I had a little bit of experience early on in dealing with the government and, you know, evaluating budgets and just doing the I mean, I was really young and not very good at any of that, but it was a it's certainly a stepping stone.
Zack Miller Yeah. No. That stuff is fun.
Tim Ryan Fast forwarding today, I'm sure I know the answer. More fun to be underwater or more fun to be the business owner and and and
Martin Dorn I'd much rather be underwater. I I don't get to do it very often. Last couple of weeks, we've been so busy that I had to supplement some dive teams, and I take zero leadership role. None whatsoever. If I go on a dive team, the the men that are being paid to supervise, that's what they do, and I just dive.
Tim Ryan I think that's super important, though. That's a really, really big lesson that, you know, there is a time to lead, and there's a time to follow, and you have to you as owner, you have to know that, and your team members need to know that, hey. You've got authority to tell me and what to do and
Martin Dorn I will not interject. I a a customer that doesn't know me, I won't even I won't even they will have they will just assume that I'm just, you know, a member of the dive team, which I am. But, yeah, I don't even the supervisor has control of the entire operation, and I'm simply there to do what needs to be done. And I like it.
Zack Miller Okay. But you you you swim a little growing up. But now
Martin Dorn Oh, absolutely. Yes. Every every single opportunity I was given and took by went on someone's property just to go swimming in their pond, maybe without permission. But so I would get some water time, go swimming.
Zack Miller Okay. So how like, what do you think your 50 freestyle time would be these days?
Martin Dorn Oh my goodness. I have no idea. The last time I got time was in the navy, and I think my 500 was,
Tim Ryan I
Martin Dorn think, nine to five or something like that.
Zack Miller Okay. Okay. Last night.
Martin Dorn Skinny. Still am. But yeah.
Zack Miller Nine minutes? You have some all day, and you can only do nine minutes? Come on, man. You can be faster than that.
Martin Dorn For five five hundred five hundred meters.
Zack Miller Okay.
Martin Dorn Yes. Yeah.
Zack Miller So what's the craziest thing you've seen in the waters here?
Tim Ryan So that yeah. I've been waiting for that question too.
Zack Miller Hoping for it. I'm I'm hoping it's like a mermaid.
Tim Ryan Well, I mean
Zack Miller Something something ridiculous.
Tim Ryan Thinking about how much of the underwater is unexplored and undocumented.
Martin Dorn Yeah. So crazy stuff. It would be I mean, inanimate objects would be just random UXO unexploded ordinance. But, honestly, I think an Atlantic sunfish up up close in person is probably one of my favorites. I've seen sharks and all kinds of crazy fish and things driven in by the Gulf Stream with a a a southeast wind.
But, yeah, I think the Atlantic zone fish is probably one of my favorites for being in near shore activities.
Tim Ryan How big how just for reference, how big how big is the Atlantic sunfish?
Martin Dorn Man, that's a big fish.
Tim Ryan I Is it?
Martin Dorn I I don't wanna exaggerate, but I I think the thing was probably I don't know. If you've seen them, it's a really odd looking creature, but I think it was six or seven feet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Look that thing up. That is a crazy
Zack Miller Wow.
Martin Dorn They're massive. They're big fish. I have no idea how they survived evolutionary.
Zack Miller Atlantic sunfish. That's what you said?
Martin Dorn Yes.
Zack Miller It almost I mean, when you guys see this, you're gonna believe me when I say this, but it looks prehistoric.
Martin Dorn It does. You would think it could swim fast enough to have survived, again, evolution. It does. It can move out pretty quickly.
Zack Miller That is a gnarly looking little sucker. Mhmm. You know Jaws just said fifty years?
Martin Dorn I did. I saw that the other day. I saw that deal. I can't believe it.
Zack Miller What a just one of them? Or are they swimming in
Martin Dorn Yeah. I just saw one. Just saw one. Oh, and you know what? Another thing in the same place, this would be at the down in Duck.
Zack Miller Holy moly. Look at
Martin Dorn that. Right. This is you. I didn't wanna That's
Zack Miller Martin right there.
Martin Dorn Mess up. Oh my. Large creatures. Migrating stingrays. Like, just a football field of stingrays.
And fun fact, they won't swim through a pier. They will actually all go around the entire pier. The whole whatever
Tim Ryan you want.
Martin Dorn Whatever they're multiple.
Tim Ryan That's why
Zack Miller Is there a reason for that?
Martin Dorn I don't know. I don't know whether they kinda visualize the whole thing as a solid. You know what I mean? The piles, I don't know if if that's their perception.
Zack Miller That makes sense.
Martin Dorn Yeah. But, anyway, yeah, that's fun. Honestly, not there's not too many crazy things down there. Just the normal we we do see sharks. We do see many different kinds of fish.
And it it's But, like, sharks in
Zack Miller Elizabeth River type of thing?
Martin Dorn I've never seen one in Elizabeth River, but to be clear, even at Rudy Inlet down at the oceanfront, many sightings of bulls of bull sharks, which that's notoriously the most dangerous shark on the planet. Yep. You can check that out. Statistically, that is the most famous the most fearsome and dangerous shark you get.
Tim Ryan Wow. Yeah.
Martin Dorn But I've had a really close-up encounter with one while spearfishing, and it was a actually, a pleasant and interesting encounter. It you could just tell that the animal wasn't being aggressive at the moment. I've seen aggressive sharks, and and this particular one wasn't. So it was a it was a neat experience.
Zack Miller Did you guys exchange phone numbers?
Martin Dorn No. We certainly exchanged glances, though. Yeah. It was swimming straight. We were swimming towards each other, and it just, like, boxed around me and went back in the same direction it was heading.
Zack Miller I always think people are kind of, like, loony for being like, oh, the shark, you know, attacks someone. It's like, well, you are in their backyard. Shark, this is their house.
Martin Dorn Yes.
Zack Miller Maybe like, why are you so surprised?
Martin Dorn Yeah. That's very it's it's it doesn't happen very often. We had a job in the Gulf Of Mexico that we were on for quite a few years. And, I think there were four separate sites that we were operating in about eighty eighty miles offshore. Two of those sites had an incredible amount of I think they were blacktips, smallish sharks, but agro all the time.
No one got bit, but everyone was constantly trying to defend themselves.
Tim Ryan Wow.
Martin Dorn Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was that was the only experience where I was kind of over being around sharks. Barracudas, that job, actually, we had a large barracuda that would just watch us all day long, and it was pretty neat.
Yeah. Yeah. We'd just sit there, hang out just a couple feet from you, and this is probably a six foot barracuda, you know, on the biggest side. And yeah. So you're sitting there burning.
We're cutting with underwater torches, and that animal's just sitting right behind you all day.
Zack Miller Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you you know, they were streaming, like, on Netflix.
Martin Dorn It happens they were watching you guys. Show. But, yeah, that's the that's the that's oh, I have friends, though, that have had some significant experiences with whale sharks and giant mantas out in the Gulf Of Mexico.
Tim Ryan Yeah. We was our family, we took a trip a few years ago to Cancun just to do the experience, the whale shark swimming.
Martin Dorn And Oh, you're
Tim Ryan lucky. That was that was wild. I mean, that
Martin Dorn was That's a cool experience. Oh,
Zack Miller yeah. Was that off off, like, you get on the boat and go, like, several miles out type of thing?
Tim Ryan Yeah. We were on that. That thing was, like, two engines wide open for, like, forty five minutes to get then until they spot them. And then next thing you know, they're telling you to jump off the boat. And, gosh, our kids were smaller back then.
We're like, what are we doing? Here, we're off the coast of Mexico to throwing our kids off the ship to go swim with whale sharks. But it was
Martin Dorn A couple of guys who just
Zack Miller legit swam with them?
Tim Ryan Yeah. I I mean, because they're just kinda just moseying along moseying doing the doing what they're doing and yeah. It was because they're like the size of a school bus. I mean, it's
Martin Dorn just I've I've always wanted those and the giant mantas. I've I've never seen them up close, and that's certainly I I will have to go vacation apparently to go see that. I think I've missed the boat with with in my career of seeing that. But, yeah, it's good for you, man. That's funny, though.
You're down in Mexico. You just met the two dudes on this potentially piece of crap boat you're getting ready to get into with your kids. And and We're
Tim Ryan just we're just chucking them
Martin Dorn off. I know. Yeah. I know what you're talking about. It's yeah.
I've had experiences on vessels like that in other places. Yeah. You know, these people, it's a complete piece of crap, and you're going out in the ocean.
Zack Miller Yeah. So maybe a crazy question, but is this industry of what you do, is is our location, like, really prime for that?
Martin Dorn Oh, like Yes. Going back to, a, just this very expansive, highly populated region living on the water. You again, you've got all the, you've got the tunnels. You've got
Tim Ryan the
Martin Dorn bridges. And then we now we will include, the shipping industry. So not just the fact that the vessels are coming in at the port, but the fact that they've got to be made and repaired. We don't make that many vessels here, but we do repair quite a few whether they're they might even have to be dry dock. You know, we would do the repairs pier side.
Or there are no underwater repairs to be done, and they're all internal repairs. So those two items create a lot of work for us.
Tim Ryan I'm just I'm try I I I feel so ignorant, but I, you know, I have so many questions. Like like, is like, the tunnels, for example, like, how much work has to be done on these tunnels? You know, is, like, there an acceptable level of water that is allowed to go in the tunnel before they call you out to
Martin Dorn So we honestly, I've never I've never even set up seen a proposal or or request for proposal to do any underwater repairs to the tunnels. I did like the old ones. They would be created out of pipe, let's say, up in, Maryland. Was it Bethesda? No.
No. It's not Bethesda. Sparrows Point. And I bet there was a big steel mill there, and, they would make the pipe, tie them together, create a tunnel, float it over here, and then sink it in place. I'm sure there's cathodic protection, built into the system.
I don't know what kind of monitoring devices they have. But, yeah, the original tunnels, they were simply made out of steel. The new ones, you know, they're boring them. There's really nothing that we could possibly do.
Tim Ryan Mhmm. Well, that's good to know.
Martin Dorn Yeah. Yeah. But Okay.
Tim Ryan So Yeah.
Martin Dorn We'll we'll stick with the pot the pot the different pilings, whether they're, you know, cylindrical pipe or, you know, square concrete with pre stress wire inside or old school timber. And can all be repaired. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Some of the old ones. Some of the railroad bridges, if you can believe that.
Zack Miller Okay. Well, I'll you When
Tim Ryan the bridge collapsed in Maryland and Baltimore, so did the did did they have to go and do underwater welding to take to assemble disassemble all that stuff?
Martin Dorn Just ripped it out. Most of it was just ripped out. There was some underwater burning. This company called Broco makes a rod, and it utilizes a a magnesium alloy, wires that run through this mild steel tube pipe, and then you introduce a 100% oxygen to that. You start it, and then you can lit you can literally cut stone with it.
We primarily cut metal with it. Anyway, so that particular job, that was done intermittently if something couldn't have been cut with the device that was being held by the crane.
Tim Ryan Wow.
Zack Miller Yeah. Okay. No. I I just never thought of this until today. So
Martin Dorn Oh, it's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We did after Katrina and Rita, we went down for quite a few years and worked in removing I think it was three different guerrilla class jackup rigs that had capsized. And so we had a lot of experience with cutting lattice work, like, was on the key bridge and just incredible amount of stored energy.
And I I believe some lessons were learned down there because we we weren't the only ones down there working, but some devices were created and utilized in order to and these are massive massive pieces of equipment. To cut the steel and then grab it and then remove it or just cut it and then let it fall and, remove it with another type of device with the crane.
Zack Miller So when there's a tunnel underwater, is that actually in the ground?
Martin Dorn Oh, yes. Like, the ones the ones that that HRBT has been putting in. I mean, that's a straight tunnel.
Zack Miller So it's in it's in dirt, I guess, or whatever the bottom floor is. It's not like there's water on top and water on the bottom.
Martin Dorn It's gonna be more substantial than that. Yeah. Wow. Yep. They that I forget.
I believe that bore was put something like a 110 feet below, something like that. It was an
Zack Miller 110 feet from surface level or a 110
Martin Dorn feet below From surface. From surface. The surface of the water down.
Zack Miller Oh, okay. Yep. Interesting. I guess I just never thought of that.
Tim Ryan It's a super slow yeah. I mean and they it moves, like Very. An inch an hour. I mean, it's a really, really slow process.
Martin Dorn It is.
Zack Miller As fast as I run.
Martin Dorn But, yeah, that's a I I I can't speak too much about that. We've had a a done a couple of things out there for that project, but I so I get to hear people talk about it. And so, unfortunately, my knowledge base is pretty pretty small.
Tim Ryan Do you how much how much of the work that you all do is local versus seems like you travel quite a bit for different jobs as well. The We do. The SandX.
Martin Dorn That that would make that would probably only make up about 1%.
Tim Ryan Oh, wow.
Martin Dorn Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But but, I mean, 1% of we're diving every day. So we've been down to Columbia, to Hawaii, Alaska, California, Minnesota, Upper Peninsula, Michigan, just all over.
All over. Never even
Zack Miller Are there sharks in Lake Michigan?
Martin Dorn Not that I know of. Not that I know of. No. What about the I have I have I did get to Dive Lake Superior the first time it had frozen over since, like, 1978 or '79. Yeah.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Two we had of Minnesota and the UP of Michigan, two coast guard icebreakers had been working twenty four seven for account you know, who knows how long.
And both of these vessels, the rudders nearly fell off. Like, literally, there was one fastener out of I forget, but let's say 10. There was only one left, and we got a call from the coast guard initially. The first one was in the Upper Peninsula. We fixed that one, and then two weeks later, we got a call to go to the UP for the exact same thing on another vessel.
Tim Ryan What, so what's what's if someone wants is interested and they want to, take this on as a career path, what like, how long does that take in terms, like, a certification aspect? Is there or is there, like, multiple paths that you can go to? Maybe you want the welding path versus something different.
Martin Dorn So you could go to the navy. You can get your certification through the US Navy, or you can go to I think it's a handful of schools now. One in Seattle, two in Texas, one in New Jersey. I I believe that's it that are active. It oh, Seattle, Washington.
I can't forget that one. That's a good one. So, typically, it is from, I think, three to nine months. And, honestly, the three month one is a really good school. I'm not I'm not gonna put names out there, but people can do their research.
That's a really good school, and, honestly, that's all the time that you need. My understanding is the other schools that the length of time is longer, and it they're worth well, it cost considerably more to go to. That's simply to be able to get funding for the students. So, like, veterans, you know, VA funding, they the school has to be x you know, has to be a certain length in order to facilitate that. So they have changed their curriculum to facilitate that funding.
Whereas this other school, you can get it for considerably less monetarily and in length of time. So, anyway, you can choose other avenues if you would like. You can, you know, specialize in welding. You've got some medical courses that you can take. But, ideally, I I believe most, especially inland companies, agree with me.
Just get your your certification, your all you need to do to dive commercially. There's only one. That's that's it. There's no additions. Nothing else.
Tim Ryan Interesting.
Martin Dorn Everything else you have to earn by tying in the business because you can't you can't learn what you need to learn at that school. They're not gonna put you in situations that you oh, yeah. This is a it's a very fluid environment as you could as you can imagine.
Tim Ryan Do you track how much time you have underwater? Like, pilots track flight hours. Is there some sort of mechanism for that?
Martin Dorn Mandatory. Because at a minimum, you every dive you make is is tracked is logged, and you are supposed to maintain a logbook. So, yes, everybody should know the amount of time that they have underwater.
Tim Ryan Interesting. Because I would imagine I'm looking at some of the pictures on your website, so it looks like you can go down with tank with the tanks or That is exactly down there with a tethered system type of thing with Yeah.
Martin Dorn Yeah. Yeah. We are always surface supplied. The tank is for an emergency only. That is it.
And that get those are I think that our website's very antiquated. We're getting ready to redo that along with everything else. But the majority of those are from the Gulf Of Mexico on that particular project I was telling you about. It was deep. We were diving well over 300 feet with a coast guard variance surface gas.
So it was a very it was awesome. Wow. I'm not even
Tim Ryan So I guess
Martin Dorn try and sugar. What's what's that?
Tim Ryan So, like, what's the longest that you that you could stay underwater with with surface supply to oxygen that, you know, that you could stay there almost, an endless amount of time, I would think?
Martin Dorn Cannot. You have to. You cannot. So let's let's say at 30 feet, you've got about five hours. So this is this is a the the dive tables are created for a time and depth.
And so you're going to, let's say, on gas a certain amount of of nitrogen into your system if you're breathing air. So you're going to take this inert gas, and and it it stays in your bloodstream. And as you rise, that has to be processed through your lungs, through your cardiovascular system, and primarily. It can come out through your skin as well, but that takes time. And so the deeper you go, the longer you stay at depth, the more that inner gas and it depends on what inner gas you have if you're have a heliox mix because you need to get rid of the nitrogen because nitrogen becomes it's it's narcotic, if you will.
So let's say for every atmosphere, every 33 feet is like having a cocktail. And so those cocktails will add up every 33 feet. So at a point, you have to you will not function properly. You'll be drunk. And yeah.
Yeah. Which that is immediately when you come up, there is no lasting effects. It it that effect subsides as you come up, you know, equally. Wow. Yeah.
So, yeah, again, we will switch to a helium mix in order to compensate for that. And then this whole physics physiology side, now we also have to decrease the oxygen because oxygen becomes toxic the deeper you go. Because of the volume of air that you're breathing, you gotta you gotta think about the additional amount, the quantity of gas that you have.
Tim Ryan Is all of that done? Is there a program that that will do that automatically, or do you all have to, like
Martin Dorn We still it's nine I'd say 99.9% of everyone still does it. I'm I'm looking at a sheet that has all of my guidelines on it, my take their tables, my dive tables, and you do that long hand.
Zack Miller Yeah. But when you're three
Martin Dorn Even the gas. The gases. So, you know, hypothetically, let's say we're getting ready to make a dive to 240 feet. I'm just throwing this out there. So if anyone's watching, please this is just an example.
I might have an eighty six fourteen mix. 86% helium, 14% oxygen. And you will notice that that is not 21%, which you're used to seeing as our, you know, what we require physiologically. So you you have to bring that gas down so you don't have, like, pulmonary o two toxicity.
Tim Ryan It's just it's it's amazing to how
Martin Dorn Central nervous system.
Tim Ryan Yeah. It's technical all of this is. This is
Martin Dorn Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It gets it gets the deeper you go, it gets extremely technical. I've got a a dive log from a guy who was over a thousand feet, and his percentage of oxygen in the mix was point 5%.
Zack Miller So he doing that while he's down there? Were someone else doing that up there?
Martin Dorn Oh, no. No. That's all
Zack Miller drunk down the bottom of the water. You know, that sounds pretty difficult.
Martin Dorn Okay. So
Zack Miller now point five. No. No.
Martin Dorn No. So, yeah, that's all done by the supervisor
Zack Miller Got
Martin Dorn topside, and that is long before the dive has has began. Yeah. We things are planned way in advance when we do things, especially of that nature.
Zack Miller Style of body of water matter, like salt versus other things in that
Martin Dorn equation too? Or I think you've got a a two pound disparagement disparagement between salt and freshwater. That doesn't really we don't really take that into account when we're diving. If we have to buoy something, add air to something, that most certainly does count.
Tim Ryan Wow.
Martin Dorn Mhmm.
Tim Ryan So what what's what's the maximum depth? Is it a is a thousand feet about it? Or do you can you even go
Martin Dorn They've gone over a thousand feet. I can't remember what the the maximum dive depth is now, but it's
Tim Ryan it's probably think about, like, the buoy aspect or, like, I would imagine, like, the oil rigs in the Gulf Of Mexico, those are probably you gotta I don't know what the the depth is of The Gulf.
Martin Dorn So operational depth. So let's say in diving, I I don't know too many guys that have operated outside of the 600 foot range. Right. Now that again, let's go back to something that you said about an unlimited amount of time because you're surf supplied. That's not the case.
Again, we're gonna get back to these tables. So let's say you got thirty minutes five hours and thirty minutes. You've got sixty minutes at 60 feet. So you notice that there's a difference there. It continues the the time and depth continues to go down the deeper you go.
At 300 a little over 300 feet, we actually had fifteen minutes of of time for tangible work. That's it. Wow. Yeah. More I hear
Zack Miller the the more I hear this, the more dangerous this actually is. Because at first, I'm like, okay. Like, you know, he's just cleaning whatever, you know, whatever. But now, I mean, math? We gotta math this
Martin Dorn whole time. We had to add math into this. I know. I know.
Zack Miller So, like, on a scale of one to 10, how dangerous do you think this career is? Well You can use decimal points if you want.
Martin Dorn Yeah. We we've I've known of some fatalities and people get hurt. But, honestly, I hear of guys following up roofs way more often.
Tim Ryan Yeah. Yeah.
Martin Dorn There's we try very hard with regulations and training and intercompany's discipline to create an environment that is safe. Checks and balances. Every hose is we we try to stay on top of every single piece of equipment no matter how small or seemingly insignificant within the system it may appear. Man, it's tested. It's logged and not just one time.
I mean, this is, like, whether it's a semiannual or an annual or in every dive for that matter. You know, you're gonna inspect your helmet. You're gonna you should inspect everything within sight. If you're a good diver, if you're a good supervisor, it's not mandated. Myself.
I'm going to look at everything.
Tim Ryan Yeah. I mean, the thing that's interesting is that, like, typically, we talk about, you know, the the the Fervent Four show for those that are not familiar. 4% of businesses hit a million dollars in annual revenue. So a lot of times during the show, we talk about business and how what you did to become successful. But the other thing that we do here at Innovate Hampton Roads is really is serving as a storyteller of the region.
And, like, this episode is very unique in terms of sharing the story of this is a very highly specialized skill that we
Martin Dorn It's a lot of fun, and I'm proud to be a part of it.
Tim Ryan Yeah. That's very specific to this region. And, yeah, very, very way more specialized than I ever even imagined it would be.
Martin Dorn I feel very lucky to have fallen into it, and I've met some incredible people. And the companies I'm, you know, speaking about the other companies in the area, I couldn't speak more highly of of some incredible people that do some really good work. So yeah. It's it's a
Zack Miller Which you don't think about the stuff that you do.
Tim Ryan Yeah. I think
Martin Dorn people don't
Zack Miller as a thing, but it's like
Martin Dorn It's a real I mean, it is a thing. It is a thing. I mean, you know, during COVID, we all had sheets of paper from the federal government, you know, saying we could go anywhere. Because, again, everywhere you go, you you're impacted by the water. And if you're impacted by the water, then more than likely, there's some mitigation that has to be in place underwater.
Tim Ryan Yeah. What's what's it like doing business in Portsmouth?
Martin Dorn I'd say it's fairly easy. Fairly easy. Again, with people like Brian Donahue and Chris Tillett, it makes things easier. So
Zack Miller Yeah. You just you just right in there. Portsmouth. They're gonna be so happy to hear that.
Tim Ryan Portsmouth has a lot of really cool stuff that's going on. And Yeah. You know, it's
Martin Dorn I'm I'm glad to be a part of it.
Tim Ryan Don't don't sleep on Portsmouth. No. No. No. No.
No.
Zack Miller Well, maybe that's what their marketing campaign should be. Tim, you could be getting an advertising manager. You're creative now. Don't sleep on Portsmouth.
Martin Dorn Yeah. No. It's it's been if people don't really recognize it so we kept we were I don't I don't wanna say forced to be enforcement, but we were because that's where we worked for the people that we came to work for initially before we were given the opportunity to become the owners of Chesapeake Bay Diving. So, obviously, there was an opportunity to leave Portsmouth. But one of it's it's not difficult to do business in Portsmouth, so, you know, there's that's not, you know, a big deciding factor.
But the central location of Portsmouth let's say if you were a service provider of almost anything, Portsmouth is a pretty decent place to be. If you process you know, if you've got, let's say, an HVAC company and you've got multiple crews running out all over the Hampton Roads area every day, well, you put yourselves, you know, located near a freeway in Portsmouth, which we did, and you are you know, we're operating out of operate everywhere in Hampton Roads. And so the we made a very pointed decision, to be centrally located, and Portsmouth is it as far as I'm concerned. So that's a nice deciding factor.
Zack Miller I think the fine folks at Portsmouth would love to hear that. So
Tim Ryan Don't don't sleep on Portsmouth.
Martin Dorn I can't wait to see that on the banner.
Tim Ryan Yeah. I saw that happen.
Martin Dorn I saw that happen. It
Zack Miller was really wild. I
Tim Ryan just came back. Zach knows, but I I we just came back from a cruise. So we wanted to support the, the local economy. We we jumped on a crew, the cruise leaving out of Norfolk on, Carnival. And it was a real the ride coming going out and then coming back in along the Elizabeth River.
Martin Dorn It's cool. Right?
Tim Ryan It was really, really cool.
Martin Dorn I mean,
Tim Ryan it was just I was amazed at how long it took.
Zack Miller Oh, yeah. I think it was
Tim Ryan so slow. Of the HRBT. I mean Like, three hours. It was Yeah. It takes forever.
Yeah. We're do so we were on the ship. We left at, like, 04:30. Our dinnertime was at six. We're in the halfway through dinner, and we still weren't through the HRBT.
I mean, it was, yeah, it was a long journey.
Martin Dorn What vessel were you on?
Tim Ryan It was the the Sunrise Sunshine, one of the two. It was the eight day cruise. But Oh, wow. Yeah. So but it was a lot of fun.
Martin Dorn Cool. Cool. Cool. Where'd you end up going We,
Tim Ryan first stop was at Half Moon Cay in The Bahamas, the carnival island there, and then we went to, Grand Turk. And we then we jumped over to the Dominican Republic, and then we came back
Zack Miller I think the Grand Turk is where the deepest they have, like like, the deepest water in in the world is or something like that. Maybe. Or maybe they just lie about it. You know? It's but I feel like it was, like, a thousand feet.
I don't know. It was probably a lie. But, like, they get you and, like, you can see. And then if you go over this, it's a black hole. You know?
Only $40 to get on this boat ride. You know? Something like that probably. But because yeah. I feel like I've been to Grand Turk.
Tim Ryan Yeah. It was it was I mean, it was I I was really, really happy to see that, I mean, the it was a sold out cruise. And so I'm I'm happy to see that people are taking advantage of of the port and with Nauticus being able to jump on there. And what a really cool thing that so many people were traveling from so like, all over Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia. There was a strong presence there, but all these people traveling into Norfolk to to get on that cruise ship was really cool.
Zack Miller I I think this is the first time they've done year round too, right, in its history.
Martin Dorn I mean, I I don't know why. I think it should be expanded. I mean, why not? Again, where we're located, it's such an e such an easy place.
Tim Ryan It was wild to see when we left the the pier, how they you know, to to to go through the turning process to turn the ship.
Martin Dorn Oh, right. Right.
Tim Ryan Almost a hole with the Elizabeth River. It was wild.
Martin Dorn Yeah. Yeah. Those guys boats are massive. They're massive, but they're oh, man. They're they're so complicated and not in a negative way as far as, you know, the thrusters that they have on them now, their ability to really manage themselves with little human oversight.
It's it's really cool.
Tim Ryan So when they
Martin Dorn That's been pretty neat.
Tim Ryan When they have to do they get cleaned or whatever the technical term is, like, how long does it take to do they would they dry dock something like that, or would they do No.
Martin Dorn No. No. No. So there's a company, a local company, Seaward. They have proprietary machines, and they could again, don't whomever's watching, they'll be critical.
But I would I would expect they could clean a carnival vessel or something of that size two to three days. Mean, a 100%.
Tim Ryan And how often did would that have to happen?
Martin Dorn So summertime marine growth is near exponential to what it would be in the dead of winter. But let's say quarterly, I would expect, and what drives that is fuel consumption.
Tim Ryan That's what I was gonna say. I would have imagined that's also very technical in terms of how much you save in fuel.
Martin Dorn We used to be highly ingrained with Maersk and some other companies, but they've sent some they find extremely cheap labor in South America and some Asian countries. So we don't see much of that work anymore. But back when we were doing it, we were kind of, you know, in the know of of what kind of fuel consumption they were getting, what they were saving Mhmm. The the periods between cleanings. But then we were also at that point in time, there was a regulatory requirement to change the antifouling paint from copper based in ablative style, which means it literally just wipes off to paints that had a I don't know what the exact engineering term is, but but marine growth would just release off of it.
It was so slick. Like, there was many many ways you can look at that. You can look at something that is, like, zero porosity, really tight, and now it has the inability to actually adhere itself to it. And then now this is the problem. So you've got paints of that nature, non ablative.
Again, ablative is where the paint actually sloughs off. Well, after the first cleaning, now you've introduced scratches, which is what do you call that in surface preparation for paint? That's your surface profile. So let's say if you're pay if you're gonna paint a car, you have to sand to with, you know, x grit in order to get a surface profile for the paint to actually get into and adhere itself. Well, what ended up happening is you would clean that hole with nylon brushes, but they would still put tiny scratches in there, and then the ring growth, it would not want to come off.
And so now you've gotta use more aggressive measures, which obviously, in turn, put a greater surface profile, which it just exacerbates the problem.
Tim Ryan Wow. If you travel did you do you travel to go diving at other places, or do you do you get your fill here
Martin Dorn locally? I I bring free diving equipment with me everywhere I go. I don't dive. Honestly, I don't go looking to dive. My point in saying with the free diving equipment is I'm game to get in the water at any If it's it's basically if it's if we're talking about, you know, nice, clear tropical waters, I'm game all the time.
It has it has not lost its shine.
Tim Ryan That's awesome. Mhmm.
Zack Miller You ever seen any pirates?
Martin Dorn I I do not today's pirates, I want zero parts of. Goodness. Yeah. That's a whole that's a whole another show, I believe. That's yeah.
Pirates are pirates are scary. Pirates are scary. I've got friends that have had to deal with them. Yeah. That's a that's a serious, serious problem around the world right now.
Tim Ryan Yeah. Yeah.
Martin Dorn And it's no challenge.
Tim Ryan Well, I I hope at some point you find a sunken treasure.
Martin Dorn That would be nice. I I did. I got to dive on what was supposed to be the Juno, which was a Spanish galleon off of Ocean City. One of my first really cool jobs. That was in a hundred and eighty foot of water off of Ocean City.
And I I forget. We were on the sister ship of that that fishing vessel. They made that movie about years and years and years ago. Anyway, that was just a cool little side note. But, yeah, I I got to do that one time.
Yeah. That was a that was, like I think I was 27, 28 years old, and I'm out looking for a sunken treasure.
Tim Ryan Well and I would would it would be interesting to know how much either shipwreck or aircraft or just wreckage in general, you know, is a lot.
Martin Dorn There's a lot. There's a lot. Cat fish fishermen commercial fishermen have what's called a hang log, and they are thick. And it is, again, going back to everything you just mentioned all over
Tim Ryan the place. Yeah. Wow.
Zack Miller So we like to end every show with a very specific question. So we actually lied to you, and we said we were gonna wing this whole thing. We had one question.
Martin Dorn Watched the whole show. Perfect.
Zack Miller Some there there's some variation of it. But
Tim Ryan There's no wrong answer on this one.
Zack Miller There is not. But, Tim, you wanna do the honors?
Tim Ryan Well, I guess when you are above water and you're on the surface, you're looking for a a place to to eat. If there is there a restaurant or a region, food of the region that that we need to to market ourselves after?
Martin Dorn I'm gonna say the leaping lizard.
Zack Miller K.
Martin Dorn If you're not familiar, it's on Shore Drive. If you're coming from the oceanfront before you get to the tunnel on the right hand side, it is a farm to table. The gentleman that owns it, he travels across the country. He does some research prior to, and he will drive around, and he will research different food items from different places. And he will come home.
He's a very intelligent person that I've got a lot of respect for, and you will you will not get it wrong. From breakfast to dinner, desserts, it doesn't matter. It's it's it's made in house with very specifically selected ingredients. The selfish beast lizard.
Tim Ryan This is this is why I like the show. So I learn about new places to to check out. Pretty cool.
Zack Miller Alright. Martin, this has been absolutely lovely. Learned a lot of things I never thought happened, so thank you for that. Absolutely.
Martin Dorn I look forward to Stowe.
Zack Miller That's what I was about to say. You know? Jacques Cousteau. I'm gonna do a little Jacques Cousteau YouTube, you know, looking through tonight, and we'll see what happens. I I I don't know what to expect.
And the Aquaman, you know, whatever. So
Tim Ryan Well, yeah, Chesapeake Bay diving. Who thought that there was such a cool story and cool company right in Portsmouth. Very cool.
Martin Dorn Thanks for having me. Appreciate
Tim Ryan it. Thanks
Zack Miller for your time. Peace.
Tim Ryan Hey, everybody. I'm Tim Ryan, executive director of Innovate Hampton Roads, and I'm inviting you to attend the Startup World Cup on August 21, 05:00, here at Town Center in Virginia Beach.