Joseph Glenn is the owner of the Southern Dive Center and the scuba professor at Georgia Southern. He started the program nine years ago, and has run the program since.

Before beginning his teaching at Georgia Southern, he worked for the Tifton Fire Department as a rescue diver. He gained more than 10 years of experience and became certified as an Open Water Instructor, Scubability Instructor, Search and Recovery Instructor, and Dive Master Instructor.

Glenn moved to Statesboro to continue his tenure as a Rescue Diver with the Statesboro Fire Department and opened The Southern Dive Center. Shortly after opening a store alongside his dive center, Georgia Southern offered him the position to teach scuba for the institution.

After starting at Georgia Southern, he worked on a Netflix show called Southern Survival. The crew planned to sink a car with someone inside to test an escape tool. With the inherent risks of this they called on Glenn and his many years of rescue diving experience to advise and standby in case anything went wrong.

Glenn has numerous stories over the years of teaching scuba but one of his favorites was a story of redemption. One of Glenn’s students was having a particularly difficult time overcoming the challenges of diving to the point that she wanted to give up.

After class she came up to Glenn and explained her situation and that she didn’t want to quit but that she didn’t believe she could succeed. Glenn then made the most of the opportunity and encouraged her.

“I talked to her about it” Glenn said. “I didn’t talk her into it, but I told her that she could do it because I think diving would help her.”

That student then passed the class and became a marine biologist in the Florida Keys.

“That was the coolest thing in the world,” Glenn beamed. “I actually had an impact on her life and that was super cool to see.”

After a decade of leading the successful scuba program, Glenn plans on retiring and passing the torch to his good friend and student Ryan Whitaker. Glenn stated, “I wouldn’t choose it any other way, this is the exact dream that I wished would happen one day.”

Glenn has taught Whitaker scuba diving for most of his life and certified him when he was only 11 years old. Moving forward, Whitaker will be teaching scuba at Georgia Southern, continuing to grow what Glenn built over the years.