"The overall majority of people buy these diplomas to use in the everyday working world," said Allen Ezell, a retired FBI agent who investigated diploma mills in the 1980s and wrote a book on the topic. "There's a lot of potential harm here, from a homeland security standpoint, of someone getting a chemical engineering degree or just someone doing damage in a company because they're a dodo."
And then there are people like DiAiso, who at age 68 wouldn't seem to need a doctorate on his resume.
DiAiso graduated from the Naval Academy in 1962 - the class yearbook said he "kept his name on the Superintendent's list at almost every quarter." He obtained two master's degrees, in engineering from New York University and in urban planning from the University of Pittsburgh, before embarking on a career as an architect and engineer.
By 1983, he was a principal at a surveying and engineering firm and would go on to become president of several development companies.
In the community, he served as president of the Crofton Civic Association and was appointed to the board of trustees at Anne Arundel Community College.
In 1998, after serving for 24 years on the board, he was named a trustee emeritus.
The current board chairman said he was surprised to hear that DiAiso's name appeared on the list.
"The fact that he's emeritus speaks to the fact that he was held and is held in an extremely high regard," said Chairman Arthur Ebersberger.
DiAiso said there was nothing deceptive about his contact with the Spokane-based diploma mill. He said he completed all the necessary course work at the University of Pittsburgh to earn a doctorate in urban planning and was close to presenting his dissertation in 1971. But a job opportunity - working on Pentagon City - arose, and he jumped at the chance.
When he came back to Pittsburgh to finish his thesis, he said, his adviser had taken a job at Harvard, and two of the professors on his dissertation committee had retired.
"My faculty members all left, and it was too hard to set up a new committee," DiAiso said.
A spokesman for the University of Pittsburgh said that it is common for doctoral students to be known as "A.B.D." - for "All But Dissertation" - and not follow through. He likened it to law students who don't take the bar exam. The spokesman confirmed that DiAiso received a master's degree and completed his course work up to the dissertation.
