When you think of Plainfield, do you think about warm turquoise water, brightly colored coral reefs and tropical fish dancing past your eyes?

Mike Pederson does.

That’s why he and his father, Rod Pederson, opened Dive Right In, a scuba shop located in the heart of downtown Plainfield.

Now, opening a 6,000-square-foot scuba business in landlocked Will County might sound like a long shot, but, as Pederson points out, there are plenty of opportunities to go scuba diving right here at home.

“Everyone forgets about a little pond called Lake Michigan,” Mike Pederson said with a chuckle.

Dive Right In organizes plenty of Lake Michigan excursions, as well as weekly in-season trips to Haigh Quarry in Kankakee. The Pedersons handle much of their training at Haigh, but also go out every weekend during the warmer weather. They invite customers and friends out free of charge, just to enjoy the experience. The scuba club calls itself the “aquaholics.”

“We try to bring people in as family,” said the younger Pederson. “This is a niche sport, so you get a tight group. People come in because we are more active, and because they want to talk, hang out. They don’t always come in to buy.”

Not buying? Yikes! But that’s exactly the environment Pederson and family tried to create.

“I have been diving for 15 years, and my father has been diving for 40. All the shops we had been to, we never found a fun atmosphere. That’s what we wanted to create.”

So the shop, open just 18 months, has become a social spot for scuba enthusiasts to stop, chat, check out the latest gear and plan the next dive. All it’s missing is the coffee bar.

“We don’t want to look at the short side of things,” said Pederson. “So many people do that. They make their $2,000 on some guy who comes in and then they are done. They don’t care if they come back because the sale is made.

“But me, I don’t care if I make $2 today, so long as they keep coming back and I can continue to get their business, and the business of their friends. We’re building our customer base.”

The shop, open just 18 months, offers patrons services ranging from training, equipment rental and purchase, repair services, certification and trip planning. The store also runs Discover SCUBA programs for local high schools, advertises with online scuba forums and does various other niche marketing.

“We want to keep our hands in as many things as possible,” Pederson said “Your name gets out there, and people talk you up.

“If you give enough people what they want, they’ll give you what you want,” he said.

But it’s a long, hard process, especially in the long, cold winter.

“Yeah, the winter is probably our biggest challenge so far,” Pederson said. But the Pedersons are keeping busy themselves, selling gift items like underwater cameras, doing repair work, planning trips and training. Always training.

And it’s not always for recreation. Dive Right In helped to train and service the law enforcement crews during the searches for missing local residents Stacy Peterson and Lisa Stebic.

Right now they do a lot of their training and certification at the Joliet Park District Pool. Dive Right In struck up an agreement with the Park District that got the shop free access to the pool when it needed it, and in return, provide free scuba instruction for the park districts programs.

“It’s a win-win, because they get to make full profit on the classes, and we not only get to use the pool, but we generate interest,” Pederson said.

But while the Joliet Park District is helping fill a need right now, it’s not in the long term plans. Instead, Pederson plans to have a pool right in the dive shop. He’d have it already, as there is more than enough space in the facility. But the village of Plainfield has road construction plans that will force the shop to move, and putting in a pool right now seemed a bad investment.

“They want to connect James Street to Rte. 126, and that means taking out the building,” Pederson said. But we are definitely staying in the area. We’ll put a pool in the new building and then we’ll really be set. Until then, the folks at Joliet Park District are just great.”

And it has been the people—the countless customers, the more than a dozen employees and the partners in the community—and their passion for diving that Pederson credits with keeping the shop running.

“When you are starting a business from nothing, especially a business like this one, there’s no footprint,” he said.

“Our only examples were the places we didn’t want to be like. And there are so many different things to plan and set up, you just keep trying and going with your gut. If it works great, and if it doesn’t work, change it...quick!”