In the early 1960s Mario Latártera, an Italian immigrant from Puglia, had already spent several years in the electrical trade. He had started working very young and, once settled in Venezuela, kept building his experience in motor repair and rewinding.
In Valencia he met Oswaldo Micalizzi, also an Italian immigrant, who had gained his experience in the electrical field from a young age in Europe.
They shared a trade, technical experience and, above all, the will to build something of their own. To get started, each contributed what he had: Oswaldo, a toolbox; Mario, a pickup truck.
With those resources they began travelling around the industrial plants of Carabobo, offering electric motor repair services.
The early years
The first workshop operated out of a small parking lot near Avenida Cedeño, in Valencia.
During the day, Mario and Oswaldo visited companies, collected equipment, carried out installations and attended to their customers. At night they went back to the workshop to repair the motors that had to be running again the next day.
It was one of those customers who set them a new challenge: he had a faulty transformer and needed it repaired.
Mario and Oswaldo took the job.
That decision widened the course of the business. Alongside the experience they had built around motors came a new activity that, over the years, would become a fundamental part of their track record: power transformers.
1964: Costel, C.A. is founded
Growth soon demanded more space, more people and more capacity.
The operation moved to a larger shop on Avenida La Feria, where they began handling a growing volume of equipment and taking on new workers.
In 1964 Costel, C.A. was formally registered, beginning a corporate history that continues to this day.
In the years that followed, the company kept growing and specializing. Industry raised new challenges and, with each one, the organization’s knowledge, services and capabilities grew as well.
What had started as a small motor repair workshop began to turn into an increasingly broad operation within the Venezuelan electrical sector.
From a workshop to a group of companies
Over the decades, the operation Mario and Oswaldo started evolved into distinct areas of specialization.
Growth also led to a new home: the La Quizanda industrial zone in Valencia, where the operations were established and where the group’s companies are located today.
From a single shared history and technical experience, the capabilities that make up Grupo Costel today were developed: Costel, C.A., Sidelca, C.A. and C.A. Mantenimiento Eléctrico Costel.
Three specialized companies that share the same origin, but that have each developed their own knowledge, equipment and capabilities to serve different needs of industry.
More than 60 years later
Much has changed since that first workshop.
What began with a pickup truck, a toolbox and two immigrants driving around the industrial plants of Carabobo has evolved over more than six decades thanks to the work of generations of people who have been part of this story.
Since 1964, Grupo Costel has stood alongside Venezuelan industry with the same way of understanding the work: technical knowledge, responsiveness and commitment to every piece of equipment that goes back into service.
Today, the venture started by Mario Latártera and Oswaldo Micalizzi takes the form of three specialized companies, decades of accumulated experience and a shared purpose: to contribute to electrical reliability and to the development of Venezuelan industry.