He recently earned the Swimming New Zealand gold level coaching qualification, the highest swimming coach qualification in New Zealand.
It is held by only five other coaches in the country, and Adair is one of only two in the South Island.
An exhaustive list of criteria must be met to earn such status.
Coaches must be able to "create a performance environment that allows progression for swimmers to advance from the New Zealand open to international level competition".
They must also be skilled managers and innovative in their coaching practices.
Adair has had coaching appointments in Wanaka, Invercargill and Dunedin in the past 20 years and has lifted the standard of swimming and the numbers of swimmers involved at all of them.
He was working in Invercargill when he was approached by representatives of the Otago swimming community to move to Dunedin.
It was at a time when Duncan Laing was nearing retirement and concentrating his attention on his elite swimmers.
But the entire development structure and pathways for swimmers in Otago had collapsed.
"My brief was to come in and rebuild competitive swimming in Otago," Adair said.
"I was attracted to this opportunity because Dunedin is a university town and I would have an opportunity to build an elite high-performance programme."
He was keen to build a support team by tapping into the School of Physical Education, including the Centre for Human Performance and the flume.
Adair started coaching at Moana Pool in 2004 with just with one swimmer, and now has a squad of 116.
He is head coach of the Waves Swimming Club that he formed to give a competitive boost to Otago swimming.
Adair's Waves squad is in competition with Gennadiy Labara's Osca group, and the two squads have breathed new life into the sport in the province.
Seven members of Adair's squad have represented New Zealand and they have broken six New Zealand age group records.
The year before he arrived in Dunedin, nine Otago records were broken. In the six years and five months since then, 351 Otago records have been broken.
Adair has been appointed coach of four Zealand teams, and has taken his swimmers to altitude training in New Zealand and North America.
Adair coached in Wanaka from 1992 to 1999, and in Invercargill from 2000 to 2003.
In the year before he arrived in Invercargill, 13 regional records were broken.
Between March 2000 and December 2003 his swimmers broke 214 Southland records and represented New Zealand in the transtasman team at the Australian age group championships.
