St . Marks School of Texas
Which school did Victor Vescovo go to from 1984 to 1987?
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 . He visited the deepest points of all Earths five oceans during the Five Deeps Expedition of 2018–2019 . Early life . Vescovo grew up in Dallas , Texas , where he graduated from St . Marks School of Texas . He earned a bachelors degree in Economics and Political Science from Stanford University , a masters 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 . Military service . Vescovo served 20 years in the U.S . Navy Reserve as an intelligence officer , retiring in 2013 as a Commander ( O-5 ) . Five Deeps Expedition . In 2018 , Vescovo launched the Five Deeps Expedition , whose objective was to thoroughly map and visit the bottom of all five of the worlds oceans by the end of September 2019 . This objective was achieved one month ahead of schedule , and the expeditions team successfully carried out biological samplings and depth confirmations at each location . Besides the deepest points of the five world oceans , the expedition also made dives in the Horizon Deep and the Sirena Deep , and mapped the Diamantina Fracture Zone . 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 – below the ocean surface to the base of the Puerto Rico Trench , an area subsequently referred to by world media as Brownson Deep . On February 4 , 2019 , he became the first person to reach the bottom of the Southern Ocean , in the southern portion of the South Sandwich Trench . For this attempt , the expedition used a Kongsberg EM124 multibeam sonar system − the most advanced in civilian use at the time − to achieve the most accurate mapping of the trench to date . On April 16 , 2019 , Vescovo dived to the bottom of the Sunda Trench south of Bali , reaching the bottom of the Indian Ocean . Likewise , this was done aboard the Limiting Factor . The team reported sightings of what they believed to be species new to science , including a hadal snailfish and a gelatinous organism believed to be a stalked ascidean . The same dive was later undertaken by Patrick Lahey , President of Triton Submarines , and the expeditions chief scientist , Dr . Alan Jamieson . This dive was organised subsequent to the scanning of the Diamantina Fracture Zone using multibeam sonar , confirming that the Sunda Trench was deeper and settling the debate about where the deepest point in the Indian Ocean is . On April 28 , 2019 , Vescovo descended nearly to the deepest place in the ocean – the Challenger Deep in Pacific Oceans Mariana Trench . On his first descent , he piloted the DSV Limiting Factor to a depth of , a world record by . 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 were a snailfish at and a spoon worm at nearly , the deepest level at which the species had ever been encountered . On May 7 , 2019 , Vescovo and Jamieson made the first human-occupied deep submersible dive to the bottom of the Sirena Deep , the third deepest point in the ocean lying about 128 miles northeast from Challenger Deep . The time they spent there was 176 minutes ; among the samples they retrieved was a piece of mantle rock from the western slope of the Mariana Trench . On June 10 , 2019 , Vescovo reached the bottom of the Horizon Deep in the Tonga Trench , confirming that it is the second deepest point on the planet and the deepest in the Southern Hemisphere at . In doing so , Vescovo had descended to the first , second , and third deepest points in the ocean . Unlike the Sunda and Mariana Trenches , no signs of human contamination were found in the deep , which was described by the expedition as completely pristine . Vescovo completed the Five Deeps Expedition on 24 August 2019 when he reached a depth of at the bottom of the Molloy Deep in the Arctic ocean . He was the first human to reach this location . World records . In 2019 , Victor Vescovo was recognized by Guinness World Records as the person who has covered the greatest vertical distance without leaving Earths surface . As part of achieving the Explorers Grand Slam ( Last Degree ) , Vescovo climbed Mount Everest ( ) on 24 May 2010 , Earths highest point . Almost nine years later he dove to the bottom of the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench ( ) , Earths lowest point , in the deep submersible Limiting Factor on 29 April 2019 , for a total vertical distance of . 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 worlds oceans . He is the first human to have reached the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench , the Sunda Trench , the Molloy Deep , the Sirena Deep , the Horizon Deep , and the deepest point of the Southern Ocean , which lies in the southern end of the South Sandwich Trench . He is also the first to have dived the Challenger Deep more than once , doing so twice , as well as the first to have visited the three deepest points in the ocean ( the Challenger , Horizon , and Sirena Deeps ) . In June , 2020 Vescovo returned to the Challenger Deep , specially equipped to survey its three , well-defined basins , or pools . Carrying three CTDs on his submersible Limiting Factor as well as one CTD and one depthometer on each of his three independent robotic landers . Vescovo piloted six passengers to the bottom of the Challenger Deep . These included former Astronaut and NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan , the first woman to ultimate depth ; Kelly Walsh , the son of Don Walsh ( who with Jacques Piccard made the first dive into the Challenger Deep ) to become the only father/son team to make this journey albeit 60 years apart ; and Vanessa OBrien , the first woman to climb Everest and also descend to the bottom of the seafloor ( Vescovo was the first person ) . At the end of his 2020 dives , Vescovo had the unique record of eight total dives to Challenger Deep , including the record for the deepest dive in history on April 28 , 2019 . Vescovo has announced plans for a return to the Challenger Deep in 2021 .