Gordon Smith (born Flin Flon, Manitoba, Canada 1950, died January 9, 2006) was an inventor, machinist and tool and die maker notable for inventing the KISS SCUBA diving rebreather. Professional history Gordon Smith was trained as a tool and die maker at C. A. Norgren, Littleton, Colorado. He returned to Canada in 1975 and went to work for Comptec International Ltd., a two color molding company, in Vancouver, British Columbia. Gordon Smith spent fourteen years at Comptec and moved from the position of Mold Maker to become manager of the Tooling, Engineering, and R&D departments. During this period he was responsible for increasing the machine operator output by a factor of 6. He also helped move Comptec into the telecommunications business and developed production systems for assembly of telephones which are in use today by almost every major telephone manufacturer in the world. Gordon Smith left Comptec in 1989 to start Kiss Manufacturing. In the late 1990s Gordon invented and began producing the KISS line of diving rebreathers under the Jetsam Technologies name. KISS Rebreather development Gordon's was an avid scuba diver in the Pacific Northwest, diving all around British Columbia in his boat "Ferrous". In the mid-nineties, technical diving became a movement which provided some background on some commercially available rebreathers - very expensive and challenging to obtain at the time. Gordon was interested in the technology, and also in simply not finding his dives limited by the size of his tanks (generally consuming two tanks for every regular divers one). As a self-taught man and being the owner of his own machine shop, he had the means and technical ability to begin exploring the design and construction of his own rebreathers. There were virtually no certification agencies that could address non-military rebreathers and certainly no clear path forward towards acceptance of their use in recreational diving. For example, few charters at the time had the ability or the experience to accommodate rebreather divers (often relying upon live boats following bubble streams and with a business model based upon dives lasting under one hour). However, because Gordon's initial aim was simply restricted to diving on his own boat with individuals of his choosing he was able to proceed with developing these experimental devices without the burden and limitations of (self) regulatory considerations. The first attempt in 1998 was a novel approach, with a unique piston serving as counterlungs rather