USIA provides jobs for 58 people on site and 36 off.  His company adds substantially to our Columbia County Economy

A wall of awards.  Many of which were earned by the work of the Fire Districts' Marine Rescue Academy

Kim Johns is a local businessman.  He runs USIA..  USIA stands for Under Sea Institute of Aqua-Technology.  Johns' corporation produces and sells Dry Suits and other underwater equipment.  USIA is an American corporation established in 1987 as a manufacturing firm mainly involved in defense contracting. In 1989 the first recreational diving suits were offered to a select few diving retailers.  People found his products to be superb, and his recreational dry suits became an instant success.  Johns has built his company up to become the Northwest's premier manufacturer of underwater equipment.

Johns has always enjoyed giving something back to his community.   In 1991, he along with Fire Chief George "Cork Rowe",  helped create the St. Helens Rural Fire District National Marine Rescue Academy. Teaching for Kim was easy, since he was also on the staff of Reed College (and continues to be on staff, with 17 years of service).   Kim used his industry contacts to get equipment for the Academy.  He arranged to obtain jet ski, boats, and other materials necessary for marine operations.  Much of which was either given or loaned at little or no cost. 

The Academy was born. They provided training in boat and PWC operations, rescue and combat swimming operations.  They were able to offer complete programs in advanced technical as well as tactical diving operations, air rescue and a full range of other courses.
To quote an academy brochure: " With over 100 miles of mutual response area on the Willamette and Columbia Rivers (two of the coldest and largest rivers on the North American continent), the need for a wide range of diversified water operations training became apparent.  With no other agency providing this training regionally, and having professional resources within the District, the Marine/Rescue  Academy was born."

The Academy brought prestige, water safety and money back to our community.  Numerous news articles were written about their rescues (See News).The Academy received
Nationwide recognition for their work.  They trained other fire districts, Coast Guard, US Marine Corps, and even the US Secret Service in Rescue techniques. As a result of their work, the St. Helens Fire District was known to have one of the best, if not the best marine rescue program in the Nation.

What happened? How could something that was working so well, become discontinued?  I and others have spoken about this to Columbia River Fire and Rescue Chief George Dunkel. Chief Dunkel says that the Fire District Insurance would no longer cover Marine Operations.

Kim Johns disagrees with this and said that he had a professional Teaching Liability Policy that covered the Fire district for all their Marine Academy operations.  He paid for this policy himself, at no cost to taxpayers or the Fire District.  He also pointed out that the Fire District must have some sort of insurance in order to run the Dagmar (a boat donated by State Forestry) or the Columbia Responder, another boat Donated by the Maritime Fire Protective Association for marine related oil spills.  Both of these boats are still in service.

"No." says Johns "The reason that the Marine academy was disbanded had nothing to do with insurance at all".   It was discontinued because someone's idea of a practical joke was to sabotage life saving equipment.