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PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad— Like others on this island nation, Leonard Ochoa emerged from college with a degree but still felt aimless.

He came from a rural village to attend the University of the West Indies in Port of Spain, where he learned to be an engineer but also went overboard on the rum-filled "liming" or party scene. He failed four courses and says he "played the fool" before he got serious about finishing college and also became a committed Christian. But early jobs at industrial factories dotting the oil- and natural-gas-rich island country did not inspire him.

"My pastor told me I was innovative," said Ochoa, noting that the encouragement from his pastor and mentor at Immanuel Christian Church helped him to find and enroll in a new master's program for Industrial Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Management at The University of Trinidad and Tobago. He graduated with a master's degree last November and has been using his training in mechanical engineering to develop a business plan that he says will help companies and municipalities treat and recycle wastewater for crop irrigation.