Fast Company  Fast Talk: Metal Mentor  Since 1997, Endeavor
Global has been nurturing promising entrepreneurs to build
companies that help support emerging markets across Latin
America and Africa.  Ivan Calia Barchese, 34  CEO, Mextra Sao
Paolo, Brazil  "I am a pretty simple kind of guy. My great-
grandfather was a farmer, and my grandfather sold his vegetables
in the marketplace. My dad, who was an engineer, started Mextra
in 1978, after he figured out a way to manufacture chromium
powder -- something Brazil only imported at the time. I remember
stories about the experiments he used to do in our backyard. Our
neighbors would get angry because of all the smoke and
explosions. The first office for Mextra was made out of wood
mostly. When it rained, we had to stop production.  I took over
Mextra in 1998, when it was a $500,000 company, but I had been
working there part-time since I was 12 years old. Mextra sells
high-tech iron and aluminum powders to companies like Alcoa so
they can produce all kinds of products