Meet The
Scuba Ventures Team
Dives
Students
Years
Certifications
Austin Rickard
Austin Rickard is ScubaVentures shop manager and professional repair technician. He is an avid hunter and spear fisher and will talk your ear off about all sorts of diving all day.
Austin has been a PADI certified diver for 10 years, has been an active instructor for 3 years. He has been a major part of the dive shop for many years and has worked for the dive shop full time for 4 years. He is one of many instructors involved with class instruction for Colorado Mesa University, as well as private classes offered through the dive shop. He has several specialties including, dry suit diving under the ice, full face mask regulators, and Nitrox. He has professional experience in commercial diving and search and recovery throughout the Grand Valley of the Grand Junction area and beyond. He spends his off time in the mountains enjoying nature and what it holds and exploring all that he can.
Austin is one of many people associated with the dive shop that are world freshwater spearfishing competitors as well as several national freshwater and regional tournaments and is more than willing to answer any all questions about any type of diving and traveling that your heart can desire.
Matt Wesselink
Hometown: Matt grew up throughout many states being a military dependent. He graduated from Roosevelt High School in Sioux Falls South Dakota 2004.
Family: Matt has been married to his wife for 13 years and has 3 children, 3 dogs, 7 snakes (for now) and 1 hedgehog.
Military career: Matt joined the United States Army Active Duty two months after graduating high school. During his career he deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Dubai before he retired.
College: After Matt retired from the army, he moved to Grand Junction Colorado to pursue his bachelor’s degree in Biology. During his time at Colorado Mesa University, he got his PADI open water certification with Scubaventures.
SCUBA: Matt first’s diving experience was in the early 1990s with his father when he lived in Hawaii. Matt received his PADI OW certification with scubaventures and fell in love with diving. He continued his dive education in pursuing commercial diving doing pool, headgate, and water tower inspection/repairs. Matt joined Mesa County Search and Recovery dive team lead by shop owner Darren Cook. In 2020, he traveled to La Paz Baja California Sur to become a PADI OPEN WATER SCUBA INSTRUCTOR taught by PADI COURSE DIRECTOR and professional videographer/photographer Luke Inman. Since then, Matt has been the training coordinator for Scubaventures alongside teaching and certifying divers.
