Gifted with a singular humbleness and a deep sense of patriotism, José Carvalho firmly believed in the individual’s duty of gratitude towards any opportunities driving the victories achieved. In this regard, for him, free access to quality education, from primary school to college, was decisive for the achievement of his entrepreneurial success, committing himself, while he was still young, to reciprocate this same perspective to underprivileged children and teenagers from Brazil’s poorest areas, just as he had once been.

An outstanding performance in Primary School earned José Carvalho a scholarship to study at the Aloisianum in Rio de Janeiro, a Center for Studies and Training of Jesuit Priests, which operated adjoined to the Colégio Santo Inácio (Saint Ignatius Elementary School). This experience had an extraordinary and definitive influence on his life, as he always emphasized, especially for having introduced him to Greek philosophy and to the appreciation of art and culture in general, knowledge that he defines as indispensable to awakening and improving the individual’s sensibility. Later, in 1949, he returned to Belo Horizonte where he finished High School and enrolled in the Escola de Minas de Ouro Preto (Ouro Preto Mining School), graduating in 1955 in civil, mining and metallurgy engineering.

Early in his career, in 1956, a few months after working in a coal mine in the State of Paraná, he moved to Planalto Central during the construction period of Brasilia, which was being built to become Brazil´s next capital, where he initially worked as an inspector for the Companhia Urbanizadora da Nova Capital do Brasil - NOVACAP. Later he set up his own construction company, The J. Carvalho Filho, specialized in the construction of bridges, walls, and viaducts.

At the age of thirty (1961), after analyzing the occurrence of chromium in Bahia and betting on the expansion of the stainless steel market in Brazil, he founded the Companhia de Ferro Ligas da Bahia - FERBASA in Campo Formoso, BA, to operate in the mining industry; two years later he launched the Company’s metallurgical plant in the city of Pojuca, BA, for the production of chromium alloys, indispensable elements for the stainless steel composition.

Fifteen years after the founding of FERBASA, which was already a national exponent in the mining and metallurgical industries, José Carvalho, at the age of forty-four, decided to consolidate his dream and donated a large part of his Company´s shares to the Foundation. This was the first step for the Institution to become the Company’s majority shareholder, a key requirement for ensuring the long-term stability of the educational work undertaken by FJC. Exceptionally enthusiastic about Education, José Carvalho also hoped to be followed by other entrepreneurs, confident that these leaders could be influenced by his avant-garde attitude, adopted when the dissemination of the concept of social responsibility was still inexpressive in Brazil, as well as foundations and other private investments of the third sector were isolated movements.Ultimately, he idealized the recognition of Education as a key element for the consistent Country development and aimed to make its great leaders aware of the power they have to carry out this transformation.

This milestone went far beyond José Carvalho’s abnegation, because from then on, his daily efforts were entirely devoted to the relentless attempt of finding solutions for the Brazilian educational cause. Since then, the business world became only a means for achieving and maintaining a more dignifying task.

Until the end of his life, ignoring the crucial effects of his illnesses, unconcerned by his debilitating limitations, José Carvalho, was still moved by a touching persistence in favor of Education, has never ceased to focus on the various forms and methodologies of teaching or to travel to the most remote locations in the Northeast of Brasil, becoming increasingly convinced that the opportunity he received needed to be effectively made available to thousands of students, through the services offered by the Foundation, transforming his love for Brazil into actions of significant social impact.