Jan Trnka, Jakub Hecko and Tomas Trnka

Divesoft is entering a significant transition. Rather than selling to an outside investor, founders Lucie Smejkalová and Aleš Procházka are passing ownership to members of the existing management team: Jan Trnka, CEO; Jakub Hečko, CTO; and Tomáš Trnka, COO.

For a company designing gas-analysis equipment and electronically controlled rebreathers, succession involves more than changing ownership. Engineering knowledge, testing practices, manufacturing systems, service philosophy, and attitudes toward safety all have to survive the handover.

We spoke with both generations about how that transfer works, what the new owners intend to preserve, where they see weaknesses, how Divesoft plans to improve service and production, and why the company appears to be approaching another significant step in its rebreather development.

ID: Lucie and Aleš, why is this the right moment to hand over Divesoft, and how do you transfer more than simply ownership?

Lucie Smejkalová: There was no single moment. It was a gradual decision. Aleš and I are both at retirement age, and we know that, at some point, we need to slow down. At the same time, the people taking over have the energy, ideas, and perspective the company needs for its next stage.

We did not simply want to sell Divesoft to someone from outside. It was important that the company remain with people who already understand its products, values, and way of working. The main reason we felt comfortable doing this was the team. Divesoft stopped being dependent on Aleš and me a long time ago. There are experienced people throughout development, production, and the rest of the company who already carry a large part of that responsibility.

For me, the hardest part is knowing that after so many years I will no longer be involved in the everyday life of the company. But what mattered most was not only where the new owners would take Divesoft, but how they would lead it: how they treat employees, customers, and partners, and whether the company continues to stand behind its commitments.

Aleš Procházka: For me, the key word is trust. I wanted the company to be taken over by people who know it, care about it, and understand what Lucie and I tried to build. At the same time, they need their own experience, ideas, and vision.

The technical handover has actually been happening for years. I have worked closely with our developers, passing on experience while also watching them develop their own solutions. You cannot transfer engineering culture with documentation alone. It comes from working together, testing ideas, seeing failures, understanding why certain decisions were made, and learning where the limits are.

What I most want to see preserved is the priority placed on quality. We never wanted to reduce cost at the expense of reliability or safety. That principle is more important than any individual product.

I am confident in the development team, but if they ever need consultation in the future, I will still be available.

Jan Trnka and Jakub Hecko

ID: Jan, Jakub, and Tomáš, how will responsibility work under the new ownership?

Jan Trnka: I will continue as CEO, responsible for overall direction, strategy, business development, finance, and the commercial side. Jakub remains responsible for development and engineering as CTO, while Tomáš, as COO, leads production and manufacturing.

These are not isolated areas. Development affects production, production feeds back into engineering, and both affect serviceability, logistics, and what we can realistically offer customers. Important technical and strategic decisions are something the three of us shape together.

Jakub Hečko: One advantage is that we are all staying in the roles we already had before the ownership change. From an operational point of view, that gives us a lot of continuity. Customers, instructors, and partners should not suddenly find themselves dealing with an entirely different organization.

Tomáš Trnka: I have been with Divesoft for around 15 years and have worked in most of its technical areas. One thing that teaches you is that everything is connected. A decision in engineering may create a production issue, and a production change may have consequences for serviceability or maintenance later.

That is also why I think the three areas—management, engineering, and production—need to stay very close to one another.

ID: Jan, you spent more than 20 years in aviation, particularly aircraft maintenance. What can a diving manufacturer learn from another safety-critical industry?

Jan: Aviation is particularly strong in areas such as traceability, quality control, maintenance discipline, and clear procedures. Some of that mindset transfers very naturally to life-support equipment.

Human factors is another area I am very interested in. It is often reduced to how somebody behaves under stress or why somebody made a mistake, but it is much broader. Communication, workplace design, workload, procedures, organizational culture, and the way information is passed between people all influence performance and error.

That applies not only to the diver using equipment, but also to the people designing it, assembling it, servicing it, and supporting it.

The comparison has limits. I do not want Divesoft to become an aviation company that happens to manufacture diving equipment. But both industries operate in environments where equipment reliability, maintenance quality, and decision-making matter because, when something goes seriously wrong, you cannot simply pull over to the side of the road.

For me, one of the important things going forward is to think about the entire lifecycle of a product. Designing and selling a technically good piece of equipment is only one part of the job. Maintenance, service availability, spare parts, documentation, and support matter just as much over the long term.

Jan Trnka, Jakub Hecko and Tomas Trnka

ID: Where is Divesoft technically strongest today, and where does it still need work?

Jakub: One of our strengths is that development, diving experience, and testing are very close together. Several members of the engineering team are divers, and they work alongside experienced company divers. A hardware or firmware idea can therefore be challenged from both an engineering and an operational perspective very quickly.

We also have our own testing laboratory. Aleš designed and built what we call “Big Bertha,” which allows us to conduct pressure and temperature testing and perform the work required for CCR testing under CE conditions.

Having that capability in-house shortens the loop between design, testing, failure analysis, modification, and retesting. That is important because development becomes much more effective when engineers can test an idea, examine what happened, modify it, and run it again without a long dela...

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