Victor Vescovo

Victor Lance Vescovo (born 1966) is an American private equity investor, retired naval officer, and undersea explorer. He is a co-founder and managing partner of private equity company Insight Equity Holdings.

Vescovo grew up in Dallas, Texas, where he graduated from St. Mark's School of Texas. He earned a bachelor's degree in Economics and Political Science from Stanford University, a master's degree in Defense and Arms Control Studies (Political Science) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an MBA from Harvard Business School where he was a Baker scholar.

In December 2018, he became the first person to reach the deepest point of the Atlantic Ocean, piloting DSV Limiting Factor, a reported US$50 million submarine system (Triton 36000/2) – including its support ship the DSSV Pressure Drop and its three ultra-deep-sea robotic landers – 8,375 m (27,477 ft) below the ocean surface to the base of the Puerto Rico Trench. On February 3, 2019, he became the first person to reach the bottom of the Southern Ocean, in the southern portion of the South Sandwich Trench. As of March 2019, he was continuing to lead the Five Deeps Expedition, whose objective is to thoroughly map and visit the bottom of all five of the world's oceans by the end of September 2019.

In April 2019, Vescovo descended nearly 11 km (6.8 mi) to the deepest place in the ocean – the Challenger Deep in Pacific Ocean's Mariana Trench. On his first descent, he piloted the DSV Limiting Factor to a depth of 10,928 m (35,853 ft), a world record by 16 m (52 ft). Diving for a second time on May 1 he became the first person to dive the Challenger Deep twice, finding "at least three new species of marine animals" and "some sort of plastic waste." Among the underwater creatures Vescovo encountered was a snailfish at 26,250 feet and a spoon worm at nearly 23,000 feet, which was the deepest level that the species had ever been encountered.

On 7 May 2019, Vescovo and Alan Jamieson made the first human-occupied deep submersible dive to the bottom of the Sirena Deep, about 128 miles northeast from Challenger Deep. The time spent there was 176 minutes; among the samples they retrieved was a piece of mantle rock from the western slope of the Mariana Trench.

He completed the Five Deeps Expedition on 24 August 2019 when he reached 5,550 m at the bottom of the Molloy Deep in the Arctic ocean. He was the first human to reach this location.

In 2019, Victor Vescovo was recognized by Guinness World Records as the person who has covered the greatest vertical distance without leaving Earth's surface.As part of achieving the Explorers Grand Slam (Last Degree), Vescovo climbed Mt. Everest (8,848 metres (29,029 ft)) on 24 May 2010, Earth's highest point.Almost nine years later he dove to the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench (−10,924 metres (−35,840 ft)), Earth's lowest point, in the deep submersible Limiting Factor on 29 April 2019, for a total vertical distance of 19,772 metres (64,869 ft).

Vescovo completed the Explorers Grand Slam (Last Degree) by climbing the highest peak on each of the seven continents, and skied the Last Degree of Latitude at both the North and South Poles. Uniquely, with the successful completion of his Five Deeps Expedition, Vescovo has also dived the deepest point in each of the five world's oceans.

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  Garmin at 90 Deg South

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  Vescovo at Everest Summit with Texas Flag

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  Vescovo with Kami Rita Sherpa (on right)