Getting Them to Dive In

Steve Conley spent his 70th birthday the way he's spent half a day every week for seven years—underwater. The semiretired chair of the Bancap Investment Group is a volunteer diver at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, Calif. Conley, '59, is among 140 certified rescue diver volunteers who educate the public, including 200,000 schoolchildren annually, from inside the tank. Divers also target-feed the fish by hand, scrub off algae that accumulate in the exhibits and help the professional aquarists observe the animals in the tanks. Conley and his fellow volunteers have been trained in fish husbandry. It's a perfect fit for this avid diver: “Where else can I go to Micronesia and back in one day without getting on an airplane?”