President, CEO, Chairman of the Board, and Treasurer
Errol Duplessis is the chief architect, and the President and Chief Executive Officer of Lake Rawlings. With his leadership and vision, and the help of a very savvy Board of Directors, Lake Rawlings was transformed from "a hole in the ground" into the most viable inland diving facility in the entire Mid-Atlantic region, thus serving the needs of divers from a six-state area.
Mr. Duplessis is a certified PADI Master Scuba Diver Trainer. He has taught scuba diving since 1978, and has been with the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI ) since 1995. Prior to his affiliation with PADI, Mr. Duplessis was sanctioned to teach scuba diving with the National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) and Scuba Schools International (SSI). He is also an Oxygen First Aid Administration Instructor with the Divers Alert Network (DAN), and a CPR/First Aid Instructor-Trainer with the American Red Cross. Mr. Duplessis was also an Instructor-Trainer in Water Safety and Lifeguarding with the American Red Cross.
In June 2003, Mr. Duplessis retired from his most recent post of Assistant Professor of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, and Director of Aquatics at Hampton University. At his retirement celebration, the Department Chairman cited Mr. Duplessis with having influenced more than 8,000 students directly through his teaching in aquatics, and through his academic leadership in other professional departmental courses. Mr. Duplessis initiated a scuba diving program at Hampton University in 1982, and over the next 21 years, he is believed to have introduced and or certified more African-Americans, men and women, into scuba diving than any scuba instructor, active or inactive, in the United States of America. This college program included a scuba club, the Underwater Explorers Club of Hampton University (dubbed "K-Phi" by the students), and at the time of its existence, it was the only club of its kind at an HBCU. Every year, the Underwater Explorers club went on a diving adventure during Spring Break to either Bimini, Bahamas on a live-a-board, or to the Florida Keys and Springs. From 1983 to 2003, Mr. Duplessis led “K-Phi” on 17 excursions to one of these two locations.
Currently, Mr. Duplessis is teaching a scuba class for the Criminal Justice Department at Southside Virginia Community College of Alberta, VA. This 3-credit course is titled “Topics in Underwater Investigation”.
Mr. Duplessis was a co-leader with the Associate Director of the Marine and Environmental Studies Center at Hampton University, to conduct an ecological comparative study of coral reef in Bermuda, June 1992; this study was based at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research. He served as the diving officer for this project.
Mr. Duplessis has extensive experience in river drift diving (Rainbow River, FL), cavern diving in the Florida Springs, ocean drift diving, deep diving, wreck diving, kelp diving, and winter (dry suit) diving in New England. Mr. Duplessis has dived all costal waters of the United States. He is an avid underwater photographer. Further, Mr. Duplessis has coached competitive swimming at club and high school levels, coached All-American high school swimmers, and served as an executive board member to the Hampton Roads Chapter of the American Red Cross.
In May 1994, Mr. Duplessis organized the Rawlings Quarry Diving Company which oversees all activities at Lake Rawlings, and he was the primary organizer of the inaugural Lake Rawlings Dive Fest conducted there in September 1994 and continuing, with some of the proceeds going to support the Divers Alert Network. Last year, Lake Rawlings serviced more than 15,000 divers at this location. Divers regularly visited here from all over Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Delaware, the District of Columbia, West Virginia, and other states and foreign countries.
Mr. Duplessis' academic background includes an M.A. in leisure studies from New York University and a B.A. in recreation form Southern University (LA). He is an active member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., Les Hommes Civic and Social Club of Hampton, VA, and the Tidewater Chapter of the Tuskegee Airmen, Inc.