PDTC
Down a busy back road off FM 917 in Alvarado, near Lillian — an unincorporated area of Johnson County — sits a school most people wouldn’t expect in a landlocked corner of North Texas — a commercial diving school. The Professional Diver Training Center (PDTC) trains students for one of the most unusual, demanding, and surprisingly lucrative careers you’ve probably never considered.
Today, Mark Allen, lead instructor and co-founder of PDTC, is overseeing a class of nearly ten students as they practice a pipe installation routine in an over ten-foot 20,000-gallon tank explicitly built for dive training. Allen has been in the commercial diving world since the mid-1980s and has spent decades offshore, in shops, and in classrooms.
“Everybody that teaches here has been diving for a long time,” Allen says. “You're not going to find an instructor that got out of school three months ago and now he's teaching. That'll never happen here.”
He emphasizes efficiency and real-world experience. “We’re faster, less expensive, and we don’t have a huge overhead. We’re in an area that’s relatively affordable to have a school. Everything we teach here is stuff that they need to know. When students first get out of school, they’re judged on how they handle a hose, tie knots, and their attitude. That’s it. That’s the industry standard.”
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Allen co-founded the school with Don Moore four years ago. Their goal: to offer comprehensive commercial diving training that cuts through unnecessary fluff.
“Get them trained as good as you can and get them out there to work,” Allen says. “They don’t need a whole bunch of extra fluff that doesn’t really help in the industry.”
The PDTC curriculum exceeds the American National Standards Institute’s 625-hour training requirement, clocking in around 700 hours with extra instruction in welding and ship husbandry. Students learn everything from knot-tying blindfolded with gloves on to lifting heavy objects underwater with lift bags. Safety is paramount — every dive is monitored through umbilicals with constant communication to topside personnel.
Connor Noel, an 18-year-old from North Carolina, enrolled right out of high school. “I always liked the water and I was like, why not go into something like this?” he says. “I also like working with my hands, so I was like, why not? I’m a welder, so why not put the two together and come fix stuff and build stuff underwater?”
Noel describes the training as immersive and hands-on.
“We’ve been on the lake for about three to four weeks, then in the tank for two to three weeks. We do lift projects, salvage projects — we even lifted an old Chevy truck from the ‘50s out of the water. We find all sorts of stuff, like guns and even a grenade once. The instructors have so much experience; it adds a level of comfort. You know they can get you through anything.”
Tuition at PDTC runs just under $22,000, considerably less than other programs and universities. Job placement assistance is included, with contacts at over 40 diving companies across the United States. Graduates typically secure positions immediately, often starting at $35 to $40 an hour, with overtime and depth pay boosting earnings. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, commercial divers earned an average annual salary of $67,100 as of May 2019 — well above the national average.
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Don Moore
For Moore, owner and director of PDTC, the school represents a lifelong passion. A retired Navy chief diver, he comes from a family of divers and spent decades in both military and commercial diving.
“When I retired from active duty, I helped start a school on the West Coast, and then I saw a wide-open market here,” Moore says. “Dallas is the third-largest metro area in the country, and there has been only one diving school in Texas since the 1960s. I decided we could do it better, from scratch.”
PDTC’s facilities reflect that hands-on ethos. Moore and his team built the campus themselves, installing tanks, classrooms, compressors, and shops. Plans are underway to consolidate the entire campus in a newly acquired 10,000-square-foot building, expanding welding and physical fitness areas across the street.
Moore’s focus isn’t just on training divers — it’s on producing skilled, self-reliant professionals.
“Our mindset comes from the military. Divers need to be able to work independently, fix problems in the middle of nowhere, and handle whatever comes their way,” he says. “I want to give these guys as much information as I can in my 700-hour window to make them useful in the commercial world.”
PDTC
The school’s motto emphasizes discipline, professionalism, and attitude: be early, act like you care, and maintain a clean, organized workspace. Moore insists that safety and housekeeping aren’t just classroom lessons — they translate directly into field performance.
“The reality is, most people think it’s all about underwater welding,” Moore says. “That’s less than 1% of what we do. You get paid as a diver, not as a welder. Depth and overtime matter, but the work itself varies. And that’s the beauty of it — you’re underwater, you’re working with your hands, and you’re constantly learning something new.”
For students like Noel, the appeal is clear. “If it’s what you want to do, you need to just do it. Once you start, you’re going to love it,” he says.
Moore smiles when he talks about the future of PDTC. “We’re here to train divers the right way — safe, skilled, and ready to tackle any challenge. And at the end of the day, that’s the most rewarding part — seeing someone walk out of here ready to earn a living doing something they love.”
For more information about The Professional Diver Training Center of Alvarado go to, prodivertc.com
