The Scuba Company Shop Staff
The Scuba Company shop staff is available to assist you in deciding, purchasing, and servicing your dive equipment. With decades of experience with diving and dive equipment, the staff is a great tool to help you when you need new gear or maintenance.
Yasmany Fuentes
General Manager
Born in Cuba, Yasmany made his way to the United States during childhood. Yasmany began his diving career totally by accident. After having studied karate his entire life, one day he walked into The Scuba Company just to see what it was about. The rest is history. Yasmany took the plunge and went from the PADI Open Water Diver to Divemaster within a year. He didn’t stop there, moving from Divemaster to Instructor and finally to IDC Staff Instructor. Yasmany is absolutely enthralled with diving and loves to share this passion with prospective and current divers. In 2017 Yasmany obtained 300 certifications, making him a PADI Elite Instructor, the only PADI Elite Instructor in New Mexico. In 2018 he also was awarded PADI Pro of the year, diving with him will get you hooked…
K.T. Wu
Assistant Manager, Merchandise Display, Divemaster
While studying abroad for her Bachelor’s in International Business, K.T. realized her fear of open water and by the end of the semester, she received her Open Water certification in Thailand. The dancing music notes or fishes made her fall in love with the sport. Shortly after, she pursued her Divemaster certification with The Scuba Company. K.T. finds peace and curiosity underneath the world’s surface while appreciating the community that comes with diving.
Blayne Huss
Operations Manager, Shop Lead Technician, Atomic Specialist
Blayne is originally from Illinois and moved to New Mexico with his family. Blayne graduated from the University of New Mexico with a Bachelors’s in Science and Art. A temporary college job in retail led to a career managing in the same store. Blayne comes to the world of diving as most do, preparing for a vacation in 2013. Once he and his wife, Jamie, began diving they were hooked and have continued to move their diving knowledge forward. Diving for Blayne is incredibly calming, leaving all the stresses of everyday life on the surface.
Pierce McDowell
Shop Staff, PSI Inspector, Rescue Diver,
Pierce started his career as a Technical Supervisor for tickets.com in the Bay Area of San Francisco, CA. After leaving the Bay Area, Pierce relocated to Albuquerque, NM. He began his diving journey by getting certified in Thailand in the 2000s. Pierce quickly learned how incredible the sport of diving is and brings that love into his work at The Scuba Company every day.
Cipriano Salas
Hydro Static Testing Specialist, Shop Technician
Cipriano was district Manager for Home Depot before falling in love with Scuba a few years ago. With the joy of diving driving him he shortly moved up in the PADI ladder and became an Assistant instructor helping future divers and is currently working on an Instructor certification. He is an expert in Cylinder inspections and Hydro testing tanks and if you ever want to laugh just have a few words with him and you will see the joy he brings to the team.
Jaime Huss
Sales, Special Orders Specialist
Jaime is a New Mexico native with a Master’s of Science in biology and green technologies. She also teaches science and health to teenagers with special needs. After being terrified of water, she learned to dive in 2013. She immediately fell in love with sharks, turtles, and wrecks. Loving the atmosphere of The Scuba Company family, she joined the staff to help others experience the joy of diving.
Paul Ness
Suunto Technician, PSI Inspector
Paul fell in love with the sport and enjoys sharing his joy of diving with others. He quickly became interested in more than just diving but in rebuilding and maintaining dive gear. He finds joy in traveling and loves motorcycling on the race track when he is not diving.
Kara Batie
Sales Associate, Newsletter
She was born and raised in New Mexico, but she fell in love with all aspects of the ocean. She received her open-water certification in July 2022. She intends to work her way up to become a rescue diver and to pursue a further career in the medical field or in the US Coast Guard as an Aviation Survival Technician or a Boatswain’s Mate.
Lauren Vail
Travel Coordinator
She has had a love for the ocean since she was a little girl, her life has been based around travel not work. That being said when The Scuba Company gave her the opportunity to help organize trips she jumped in head first. She runs a very organized work life and her personal trips have always had an air of organization with a tone of sightseeing and adventure along the way. She has her advanced certification and can’t get enough of the underwater world, so helping set the shop trips will let her live vicariously through you all and maybe sneak in on a trip or two with her new dive family.
Michaella Fuentes
Marketing / IT
Michaella learned to dive with The Scuba Company in 2013 when students from their military program were interested in learning to dive. In order to teach their students to learn the basics of diving, she needed to start learning her open-water diving journey. Over the years she has completed her Open Water Diver, Advanced Open Water Diver, and several specialties, including our fun favorite Pumpkin Underwater Speciality. She usually helps organizes and promote events throughout the year. Michaella started teaching math at a middle school in 2006 and later became a school technology teacher so it easily became suited to help things around the shop with technology and marketing. She has enjoyed working at The Scuba Company because it has become a family. The Scuba Company is always working to welcome divers to join our dive family.
Charleigh Williams
Sales Associate
With a family who loves to travel together, diving was a natural next step. Open Water certified and still in high school she loves the times she is able to escape to the ocean, a place she has always loved. A water baby stuck in a desert she loves anything to do with the water especially diving and getting to see a variety of aquatic life and habitats.
Lindsey Thomas
Sales Associate
Working towards a Bachelor’s in Biology at UNM and hopes to combine her love for learning about the earth and her love for scuba diving. She first fell in love with diving at the Galapagos islands where she did her first ecological surveying trip and knew she had to continue with this amazing hobby. She loves exploring the outdoors both above and below water taking her dogs with me for all my adventures. She enjoys both the plants and animals of this world and they are her favorite subject to study.
Jamie Pierle
Technician
She started her love of scuba diving by following in the fin kicks of her father. From an early age, she was SNUBA diving and snorkeling faster than any barracuda she chased. In 2018, she was certified in open water in Jamaica. In 2019, she dove in the cenotes around Mexico and the reefs around Cozumel. But the diving in the 2022 Philippines trip with the Scuba Company was what changed her life forever. After experiencing such beautiful diversity and thrilling currents, all with the help of supportive new friends, she decided that she needed to make this her life every day. She is now working to be a dive master for the shop so that she can help others and introduce them to the joy she finds in this amazing sport.