About GoDiveNC
I guess it is useful for you to know something about the blog and blogger… so that’s what this section is.
For starters, I began diving in 1998, but it was not part of my chosen career path until 2003, when I started working at Olympus Dive Center in Morehead City. I’m a PADI Instructor, love to travel, have recently discovered cave diving, and dabble in the tech arena. Ultimately, though, my underwater heart belongs to North Carolina wreck diving…and that’s where GoDiveNC comes from.
Like any other blog, GoDiveNC is an outlet for creativity, a hobby, a remedy for my incurable need for social interaction (even if only electronically). Perhaps it is even a quest for verification that I do actually have something useful to say. Mostly though, GoDiveNC is a tour guide of sorts that stems from a true desire to share something I love with others who might love it too.
As for me? My name is Lauren Hermley. Born December 7, 1973 to Norman and Judy Stein, I am the oldest of their two children- my younger brother, Dan (who is fabulous, by the way), lives in Orlando. We grew up in Syracuse, though truth be told I actually consider myself more of a Pennsylvanian than a New Yorker , identifying most with my maternal grandparents whose respective families have lived on the outskirts of Harrisburg since coming to the New World in the 17th century. In high school, I played softball, basketball (albeit badly), and tennis, downhill skied in the winter, and spent my summers at YMCA Camp Tousey, upstate near the 1000 Islands. I graduated from Penn State University in 1995 with a degree in Industrial Psychology (don’t ask, I’m not quite sure) and have lived south of the Mason Dixon line ever since.
After spending three years playing yuppy in Atlanta, in 1998 I married my college sweetheart, Shawn, who would probably prefer to be described as a surfing/fishing master carpenter instead of a Major in the Marine Corps…so we’ll go along with that. We spent three years in Yuma, Arizona before coming to North Carolina in 2002. We now live in the quaint little town of Beaufort and have two cats, Sharky and Tigger, who preside over our 1941 bungalow. Professionally, my background is in sales, non-profit management, retailing, and most recently, small business start-ups. I am also working on my Masters degree in Maritime History and Underwater Archaeology, though I have admittedly no excuse for having not yet finished my thesis. (Maybe by putting this out there I can solicit pressure from the readership.) But enough about me…
