• oceanelders@gmail.com
Ocean Elders
  • The Ocean Elders
  • About Us
  • Our Work
  • Showcase
  • Our Team
  • News
  • Photo Gallery
  • Contact
Victor Vescovo

Venture Capitalist, Explorer, Former Naval Officer & Pilot

Victor is a venture capitalist with particular interests in aerospace, defense, and life sciences. He is an investor in many extreme technology companies such as SpaceX (rocketry), AstroForge (asteroid mining), Colossal Biosciences (de-extinction of species), Sceye (stratospheric airships), and Caladan Therapeutics (genetic-based cures). Victor received his bachelor’s degree from Stanford University, a Master’s Degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar. Additionally, he served 20 years in the U.S. Navy Reserve as an intelligence and targeting officer, retiring in 2013 as a Commander. In 2025, the US Navy announced that the second ship in the Explorer-class of ocean surveillance vessels would be named after him, the USNS Victor Vescovo (TAGOS-26) .

In 2017, Victor completed the “Explorer’s Grand Slam” which requires climbing the highest peak on all seven of the world’s continents including Mt. Everest and skiing to the North and South Poles. He piloted the first repeated dives to the ocean’s deepest point, Challenger Deep in the Pacific’s Mariana Trench — now fifteen times, and in August 2019 became the first person to visit “The Five Deeps,” the deepest point in all five of the world’s oceans. Victor has now personally explored the bottom of seventeen deep ocean trenches and has made three dives to the Titanic including the only solo dive ever made there. He was awarded the Explorer’s Club Medal in 2020 and the Captain Don Walsh Award for Ocean Exploration in 2021.

He and his team also discovered the two deepest shipwrecks in the world: the USS Johnston in 2021 and the deepest, the USS Samuel B. Roberts at 22,600 feet, in 2022. Between 2018-2022, his research vessel the DSSV Pressure Drop mapped over 3 million square kilometers of seafloor, close to 1% of the seafloor’s total area, and named over 60 undersea features. Victor is also a commercially rated, multi-engine jet and helicopter pilot, a certified submersible test pilot, and flew into space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket in June 2022, becoming the first person in history to climb Mount Everest, dive to the bottom of the ocean, and visit space.

Facebook

Browse By Tags

Antarctica Aspen Institute High Seas Initiative Belugas Bertrand Piccard Captain Don Walsh Catherine A. Novelli Climate Change Climate Refugees Cuba David E. Shaw David Shaw Dr. Jane Goodall Dr. Sylvia A. Earle Dr. Walter Munk Gigi Brisson Great Barrier Reef H.M. Queen Noor H.S.H. Prince Albert II H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco Her Majesty Queen Noor High Seas Hokule'a Hope Spots IUCN Jackson Browne James Cameron Jean-Michel Cousteau José María Figueres letter writing Marine Protected Areas Michael Holland Monaco Blue Initiative Monaco Ocean Week Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage Nainoa Thompson Ocean Elders Ocean News President Barack Obama Ross Sea Sir Richard Branson Sustainable Development Sustainable Oceans Alliance Sven Lindblad Ted Turner United Nations

Special Thanks

Thank you to Brian Skerry for letting us grace our site with his beautiful photography.

Thank you to Something Digital for helping us maintain this site.

To help support our efforts, DONATE HERE.

Copyright © 2025, Ocean Elders. All Rights Reserved | Sitemap | Maintenance & Support by WP Tech Support