ALPENA — Since 1976, Great Lakes Divers has been servicing divers of all levels in Northeast Michigan.

While Chris Wright, the current owner of Great Lakes Divers, has only been in that position for about a year, the business has a storied history over its 50 years of operation.

The business was originally started by Steve Kroll in Rogers City.

“He was a school teacher up there, and so he had the shop operating in the summer time. He also operated a dive charter.”

Kroll sold the business to Stephanie Gandulla and Nick Myers around 2015, Wright said. They moved the shop next to the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Alpena.

When Wright took over, he moved the shop to a location in Lutes Plaza on U.S.-23 South. A fire there in April meant another change in location just down the road.

He said it’s been a bit of a roller coaster being the first year, but there has been a lot of community support.

“Business has changed since Steve started it in 1976,” Wright said. “There’s a lot of history here.”

Wright said that a lot of dive businesses and charter operations have come and gone in the area, but Great Lakes Divers has been operating steadily for the past 50 years.

As the current owner, Wright’s focus is helping people experience diving and all that the area has to offer for divers.

“My goal is to get as many people into the water and experience what’s out here as I can,” Wright said. “But, it also opens a bigger world. Most of the earth’s surface is covered by water and we still don’t know all that goes on in the oceans or in the bottom of the lakes, even. We’re still figuring that out, we’re still learning things.”

Most of what Wright does is hands-on with divers, but the shop also sells an assortment of diving and scuba diving gear, including wet suits, snorkels, and flippers. The shop also provides service on the brands it sells.

Great Lakes Divers is a Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI) center, which is the largest diver certification agency in the world, Wright said.

One of the primary goals of the shop is to teach people how to dive, from beginners all the way to people that want to become instructors themselves. There are different levels of certifications, including open water, advanced, and rescue diver.

People can also receive specialty training for deep dives to reach depths of 130 feet. One of the shipwrecks that deep divers like to see is the Cornelia B. Windiate, which rests fully upright at the bottom of Lake Huron, Wright said.

The shop hosts dive travel trips as well, with one coming up in March to Cayman Brac and another in June to Kauai.

Wright is involved with a non-profit out of Houghton called Third Coast Diving, and their focus is adaptive diving. The purpose of adaptive diving, Wright said, is to provide people with disabilities access to scuba diving. The program helps a range of people from veterans to children with developmental disabilities. Wright said that diving can be therapeutic for veterans and it opens up a world of possibilities for children that often get pigeonholed.

“That aspect of it is really important to me, is giving back and providing support for those that also served.”

“Any business endeavor doesn’t succeed without the support of the community, and likewise, the shop is here to support the community in whatever needs it needs,” Wright said.

Reagan Voetberg. News Staff Writer. rvoetberg@TheAlpenaNews.com.