Alan,
Thanks for your help. It seems I did have a similar problem. In my code I had:
oleExcel.cells[cntr,ncolumn].VALUE = " "

I came across some code in the "MS Office Automation with Visual Foxpro" book and switched the code to:
oleExcel.cells(cntr,ncolumn) = " "

Not only does the invisible excel no longer open but my program runs 5x faster. Weird!

Thanks again,
Dave