Donna M. Tobias was an American Diver and the United States Navy’s first female deep-sea diver. Donna M. Tobias was born on May 22, 1952 in California. Her father was a manufacture of electromagnets and her mother was a homemaker. Tobias grew up in a poor household and had no money for college. She took on odd jobs after graduating high school. She took a job as a school bus driver and worked for the police department while taking free classes at Fullerton College. The United States Navy seemed like a good career choice for Tobias, she loved the water and had always been handy, enjoying jobs that required manual work. She enlisted in the Navy in 1974, where she asked a Navy recruiter about the possibility of her becoming a diver. She was immediately shot down as women weren’t allowed to get into dive school. So instead she became a shipfitter and a hull maintenance technician. While working as a shipfitter and hull technician, she applied for a waiver to attend dive school. Tobias was required to get permission from The Pentagon. At the age of 21, she applied to the United States Navy 2nd Class Diving School and was accepted two days before the program started in January 1975. Her training required to dive while carrying more than 200 pounds of gear in dark, cold or turbulent water. Tobias became the first women to graduate from the Navy’s Deep-Sea Diving School, becoming the Navy’s first female deep-sea diver. She went on to work on underwater repairs and search-and-salvage operations. Despite all the work she did, Tobias was still limited opportunities due to her gender. She was unable to join sea duty billets, so she accepted a position as an instructor at the Submarine Escape Training Tank at Submarine Naval Base in New London. Tobias taught others how to escape from a submarine and also worked within a hyperbaric chamber to treat divers suffering from embolisms and civilians suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. After eight years in the Navy, Tobias left and used the G.I. Bill to complete college. She earned her bachelor’s degree in education and a master’s in psychology. She began work at New London High School, where she taught special-education classes for 15 years. In 2001, Tobias was inducted into the Women Diver’s Hall of Fame. Tobias retired from teaching when she became disabled by depression, an illness she struggled courageously with most of her life. At the age of 58, Donna M. Tobias committed suicide on September 21, 2010. Source: https://www.navalunderseamuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Tobias.jpg

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