Page 14: of Marine Technology Magazine (March 2013)

Pro leThat was then, this is now: Dominion Diving?s  rst ROV, circa 1982, above. Dominion Diving ROV today, working in the demanding offshore O&G  eld. While things were moving along smoothly and in a busy fashion, ?changes happened after 2000,? Robin added. ?Some larger competitors moved up from the States and disrupted our operations in Newfoundland, quite severely to the point where we had to sell some assets and restructure the company and rethink our strategy.? In 2002, co-founder Jim Ritcy passed away, subsequently leading to a buyout agreement with the Ritcy estate. Robin became CEO and his brother Matthew, 35, president in 2005. ?Matthew never chose the diving route,? Robin said. ?He went down the route of robotics; that?s what he looks after. He is a ROV pilot, a certi ed hydraulic technician. He looks after all our contractual bidding, pricing structure and still works offshore. I?m on the diving, barge, tugboat side of things. The ROV operation it is a division of the company responsible for 50% of the revenue.? Robin said that, during the reconstruction, ?we went back to our traditional services, inshore construction, diving, tugboat and crane services. We rebuilt the company, acquired some new assets and presently we are operating four ROVs, three work class and one observation vehicle and have about 45 employees. We have six small tug boats and a 90-ft. offshore towing and research vessel. We do a lot of work with BIO (Bedford Institute of Oceanography) and do coastal towing with the larger vessel.? Innovate to Compete For Dominion Diving, its diversity in the marine industry has led to new innovation and the company?s involvement in sub- sea technology. A 24-hour operation ready to answer industry emergency calls, Dominion needs quick solutions and equipment modi -cations to meet immediate challenges.?We are continually developing subsea technology,? Robin said. ?We try to minimize our reliance on outside resources. We are not 100% self-suf cient but we have our own certi-  ed in-house fabrication shop, and one of the main purposes of that is for underwater tooling for our ROVs. These things are limited in their dexterity, so we make things to make them able to complete tasks. Basically, instead of going to an alter- March 2013 14 MTRMTR #2 (1-17).indd 14MTR #2 (1-17).indd 143/6/2013 9:22:32 AM3/6/2013 9:22:32 AM