Mark Fowler

Fowler comes up on ScubaBoard as one of the northern Florida cave instructors who still teaches backmount, named in the same breath as Paul Heinerth and Ted McCoy and described as "good and friendly" — a small but pointed endorsement, since that thread existed because the poster could not find instructors who would take a backmount student. Much of his standing comes from his roles: he was IANTD's Training Director until he left to open Lake City Dive Center, an instructor who taught out of that shop called him "an exceptional instructor" who made sure everyone associated with it shared his love of teaching, and he runs instructor-level work — an IANTD CCR cave instructor candidate describes finishing his instructor course dives with Fowler after Tom Mount's last dive, and a European instructor's evaluation on Bonaire was signed off by Lamar Hires and Fowler together. Few students have written up courses with him online; what exists is consistent, and much of it comes from other instructors.