HISTORY

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Inventor, entrepreneur, explorer, President and founder of Nuytco Research Ltd and Can-Dive Services Ltd

An internationally recognised pioneer in the diving industry, Phil Nuytten spent his life creating deepwater dive products that have opened the ocean’s depths to exploration and industry.

Through his companies, Nuytco and Can-Dive, he developed the technology to allow longer-length diving expeditions with increased safety. Nuytten’s one-atmosphere systems – the hard-suits ‘Newtsuit™’ and ‘Exosuit ADS™’, and his deep-diving ‘DeepWorker’ submersibles – are renowned internationally. This deep diving equipment, along with Nuytten’s military submarine rescue system (designated ‘Remora’ by the Royal Australian Navy and ‘PRMS’ by the US Navy), is standard in nearly a dozen of the world’s navies. Contract work took him to oilfields, submarine construction sites and sunken wrecks around the world, including HMS Breadalbane, the northern-most known shipwreck, where his record dives through icy Arctic waters earned him a place on the cover of National Geographic Magazine in 1984. Nuytten was one of the forces behind the ‘Sustainable Seas Expeditions’ in the 1990’s, a five-year initiative by the National Geographic Society and NOAA to study deep ocean environmental impact.

In the 2000's, Nuytten and his team trained astronauts from NASA and the Canadian Space Agency to pilot the DeepWorker Submersibles for the NASA Extreme Environment Operations (NEEMO) project, a multi-year research project that will help improve the knowledge base, tools and techniques for future human space exploration. During NASA’s NEEEMO NXT (2019), held at the UCSB Wrigley campus on Catalina Island, California, Nuytco Research performed astronaut training in the Exosuit ADS™ 1000, as well as the DeepWorker 2000. In addition to standard field training and mission support, the Nuytco team integrated a newly designed heads-up display into the Exosuit ADS™ for simulation of an astronaut extravehicular activity (EVA).

On Canada Day 2016, the office of the Governor General of Canada announced that Phil Nuytten had been appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada, Canada’s second-highest civilian honour, “For his innovations in deep-sea exploration, which have improved safety and made Canada a leader in underwater development and commerce.”

Phil Nuytten spent over fifty years developing undersea systems that had the safety of the diving technician as their common theme. His goal was to provide scientific, technical, military, and sport divers full access to continental shelf depths without the hazards of decompression, so that humans can explore, learn about, and - ultimately - protect the world’s oceans. Phil Nuytten passed away in 2023, but his legacy lives on with his dedicated team at Nuytco Research Ltd.