RICHARD LADISKY

Rich retired from high school teaching after 35 years in public education which included Citywide Department Chairman for Vocational Education in Bristol, CT. He has been the Director of Emergency Management and Homeland Security in Bristol for 30 years. During that time, he has responded to almost all kinds of disasters and crisis. He has done extensive course work in Emergency Management at the National Fire Academy, FEMA, and in the State of Connecticut. He represents the City around the country at conferences, and has written the City plans for emergencies for 3 decades. Rich also teaches photography and instructs and practices ballroom dancing around the world.

Richard began scuba diving for lobsters and wrecks in New England in 1981. Shortly after he decided to join his love of diving with his passion for photography.

Licensed in amateur radio in 1958, he was able to talk to people around the world and was lured by their exotic locations. He started visiting these places 4 to 6 weeks at a time, for both land and underwater photography. He was in the ill-fated Teacher in Space program, used his radio license to communicate with the cosmonauts on Mir, and still talks to the astronauts on the shuttle and International Space Station.

His work and adventures have appeared in many periodicals, the latest being Parade Magazine and Scuba Diving Magazine, both nationwide and the Hartford Courant Travel Section. Canon cameras and Subal housings are his equipment of choice.

He has been asked to present is work for six years at the largest consumer diving and photography convention, Beneath the Sea, in N.J. His presentations have been in demand at dive clubs and civic organizations, as well as municipal functions. He enjoys traveling as a photo-journalist for a company in CA and is most attracted by the Indo-Pacific Rim.

He resides in Farmington, Connecticut and Boca Raton, Florida.