Meet our Staff
Florida Dive Company Staff
Jim Newell – Instructor Trainer
Florida Dive Company (FDC) was founded in 2017 by Jim Newell. Jim's love for scuba diving quickly turned from a recreational hobby to a passion for providing education and training for other dive enthusiasts 🤿. Jim knew that he wanted to take a different approach to scuba diving and that is how FDC was born. His goal was to reduce class sizes and bring a much higher quality of training to his students.
Jim takes pride in his instructional methodology and adherence to course standards, all while providing a safer, fun, and memorable learning experience that will last a lifetime.
Jim and his wife Christine have three daughters who also share the love for all things sun and ocean. They have 2 rescue dogs; Cole (Great Dane) and Gizmo (Toy Yorkie), who are best friends and take up way too much room on the couch.
Mikol Rowland – Open Water Scuba Instructor
Mikol is a family man with a passion for almost anything related to water. With their three kids, he and his wife enjoy outdoor activities like diving, scalloping, fishing 🐟 , hiking, and hunting.
Mikol was raised on the water in Florida and he served 15 years of traveling the world with the U.S. Army (hooah!). P.S. Don’t forget to thank him for his service!
The Florida waters called him back for vacation adventures in the sunshine.
Looking for a new career, Mikol turned his love for the water into the professional world of scuba diving. As an Instructor, Mikol uses his positive attitude to keep diving fun and his military background to ensure constant attention to detail and safety every time he steps into the water.
Krissy Gerola – Freediving Instructor
Krissy is a Freediver Instructor certified to teach PADI and PFI Freediver courses. She has loved water and water-based activities since childhood. After completing a PADI Freediver certification course in Grand Cayman, she came back to Florida and found herself getting back into the water to freedive any chance she had. She completed advanced certification levels, assisted many classes and students as an assistant instructor, and then became a PADI and PFI certified instructor herself.
Continuing to expand her knowledge of freediving physiology, technique, and benefits and sharing that knowledge and experience with students is her passion.
Krissy is also an underwater photographer and certified yoga instructor 🧘♀️, and she incorporates her knowledge and experience in pranayama and breathing techniques into each course.
Mackensie Stellrecht – Dive Shop Associate
Mackensie is originally from Ohio (We know, cut her a break). She currently attends Stetson University and is majoring in aquatic and marine biology and environmental science. She has been diving since she was eighteen and is working towards becoming a dive master.
Mackensie’s favorite marine animal is an orca 🐋. She loves the ocean because of all the unique animals and feels like when she is in a whole other world when diving.
Mary Ann Zukowski – Dive Shop Associate
Mary Ann is a freediver and underwater photographer. Grew up in Orlando but her roots are from the Philippines. She is definitely an island girl at heart! You will always find her near the water, whether it’s spearfishing with her husband, kayaking with friends or fishing with family. She loves sharing her passion for the water with others, as she is a part of a community of freedivers that advocates the awareness for safe diving practices and never diving alone. Her freedive group creates meetups to spread knowledge on the buddy system to reduce the risks of dive related accidents.
Through freediving, she has grown a love for traveling. In the last two years she has gone to the Caribbean Islands and Hawaii for unforgettable experiences diving on famous shipwrecks, meeting with professional underwater photographers and diving with manta rays, whales, sea turtles and sharks.
Did we mention, Mary Ann is a pastry chef too! (Yummmy 🎂)