Ambassador Juan Oliphant
Juan Oliphant grew up on Chuns reef beach on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Juan was surrounded by marine life from an early age and grew up surfing and spending a lot of time around endangered green sea turtles. After breaking his back and becoming paralyzed for a short time he slowly regained the ability to walk again and was recommended to spend his water time scuba diving to help release pressure and stress off his spine. While diving with sharks he developed a love for the animals that he once feared as a surfer. After achieving his Captains license Juan jumped on board a sea Shepard campaign to help stop finning and save sharks internationally. Juan travelled around the world diving with sharks and after a beautiful dive surrounded by hammerheads in the Galápagos Islands he was inspired & began to focus using his degree in fine art and photography (Graduated from BYUH in 2000) to capture beautiful underwater images of sharks to share with people in hopes it would help change their perception of the animals. In 2006 Juan Oliphant teamed up with shark conservationist & marine biologist Ocean Ramsey to start Waterinspired.org a non profit international shark and marine conservation organization. Utilizing research, photography, videography, media, etc to help raise awareness of sharks plight and help gain or grow protection for sharks internationally. Many of the campaigns and project photos have been published in a large variety of the most popular media around the world. In 2010 Juan & Ocean started OneOceanDiving.Com originally only for pelagic research but it soon branched to a semi-commercial program that supports research and conservation & takes public individuals out to dive with sharks & other large animals to learn about their behaviour. Juan has conducted special shark photography workshop expeditions in correlation with research and conservation expeditions. He has worked around the world diving with over 30 species of sharks and has been featured on TV shows, documentaries, & other productions as a shark expert and marine photographer/videographer. With a rapidly growing following Juan uses his AquaTech water housing daily in the water with sharks to help capture digital shark Identification images as well as photograph participants of his companies "Pelagic animal research and interaction program."