EXCEL was founded by Victoria (Underwood) Wheatley, a travel industry professional who has worked in a wide variety of management-level positions coordinating expedition ship operations with a number of leading companies since 1986. She has also served as cruise director on board expedition cruise ships as well as a luxury square-rigger visiting hundreds of ports of call around the world and worked as a port coordinator overseeing passenger turnarounds in Caribbean and North American ports for one of the large luxury cruise lines. She is well known in the industry and respected for her expertise in the recruitment of award-winning teams serving as expedition staff.

Victoria is considered to be a key authority in polar tourism, especially in the regulatory and environmental aspect of ship and yacht operations in the Antarctic and Arctic. Her expertise is sought after to assist individuals and organizations of any size in complying with the multitude of governmental regulations and permits, including the preparation of environmental impact assessments.

In 1999 Victoria was selected to serve as the U.S. tourism industry’s Private Sector Advisor to the Department of State, in which capacity she counsels State and the other U.S. agencies active in Antarctic-related matters (National Science Foundation, EPA, NOAA and Coast Guard) about all aspects of the Antarctic tourism industry, including cruise- and yacht-based vessel operations as well fly/cruise and land-based tourism. In this role she attends the annual Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings as part of the U.S. Delegation, provides recommendations to the U.S. government about the development of their tourism policies, gives input to proposed regulations and advises on tourism-related issues that arise at the meeting and during the year.