All this week, we take a look at people who turn their passion into profit. And one man's passion has him living life on the "cutting edge."

Mike Masterman has survived missions in Antarctica, rappelled hundreds of feet down a bat cave and entered burning buildings.

He's an engineer, scientist, firefighter and emergency medical technician and he boldly goes where very few of us want to go!

For example, Masterman organized the first emergency medical air drop at the South Pole to help a doctor diagnosed with breast cancer.

"I believe it started out the day at 94-below zero. It ended the day at 90, ut what made it extraordinary was that there was no moonlight for that drop." says Masterman.

It was during his Antarctica stint in the most isolated and coldest continent in the world that he decided to start his own company: Extreme Endeavors & Consulting.

"We design electronics for very harsh environments." he explains.

And they're not kidding. He and his men have rappelled 165-feet down a bat cave in Pendleton County to install devices to monitor endangered bats.

"Personally, if you've ever crawled underneath a bunch of hibernating bats, you really don't want to be in there for that." Masterman says.

He's currently working on a high-tech wireless firefighter suit.

"If a firefighter goes down, we want to be able to tell that and tell firefighter's down...you need to send in help."

It's hard to imagine that technology for use in some of the harshest environments around the world was developed right here in West Virginia.

A Washington State native, Masterman set up shop in Philippi because of low overhead and the fact that he met his future wife here.

But getting funding to develop his ideas proved daunting.

"Get used to being told 'no.' Get used to being told "you're nuts." he says.

The West Virginia Small Business Administration steered Masterman to its Small Business Innovation Research grant program.

Judy McCauley is with the Small Business Administration based out of Clarksburg.

"It was pretty exciting for me to listen to somebody here in the state of West Virginia have such wide, vast ideas outside our...our area. He is a very impressive individual." McCauley exclaims.

An individual who's passion eventually pushed him to "Extreme Endeavors."

Extreme Endeavors now has seven employees. It's built up a federal clientele which includes NASA and the National Institutes of Health.

By the way, Texas Instruments plans to use Masterman's firefighter suit as the keynote demonstration at its conference next week.