During his school years, Valery created the Blue Shadows vocal and instrumental ensemble. They played rock. He was a vocalist and keyboardist, a musical education came in handy.
He graduated from music school in the 6th grade, becoming its youngest graduate.
Valery headed the first Council back in his student years
Valery was born and raised in Sochi. He came to St. Petersburg to study and entered the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute.
At the institute, half of the students flew out in the first or second year. Of course, the educational requirements were strict, but mostly the newcomers could not adapt to independent life in the metropolis. Junior students were lost in the flow of information, they wanted to do everything at once, and organizing themselves after school was often very difficult.
Advice and help from curators, teachers of the institute, freshmen did not help. Too different generations: teachers mainly supervised the educational process, already poorly remembered their youth and did not understand the problems of youth of another era.
Valery suggested making senior students mentors for young students. Senior students have recently encountered the same difficulties and could share their experience and provide friendly help.
newspaper Laboratory of Culture and Student Labor
"Studying ourselves"
1980 year
The main difficulty of first-year students is the inability to know oneself. And not everyone is able to do it on their own, and even in a short time, in an unusual environment. But if his colleague, almost the same age, but more experienced in student life, is nearby, you can be sure that the problem will be solved.
Valery Vakulenko,
Chairman of the Council of Student Mentors
In 1980, Valery Vakulenko organized and became chairman of the Council of Student mentors of the Shipbuilding Institute. As a result, junior students have found reliable guides to independent adult life. Senior students helped not only in their studies. For younger students, yesterday's schoolchildren, it was much more important to find a guide to adulthood. This is the role that the mentors took on. They helped younger comrades to know and organize themselves, showed Leningrad to visitors, helped them adapt to independent life.
Leningrad and all-Union newspapers wrote about the Soviet. Successful experience was adopted by other institutions in Moscow and St. Petersburg. [+] [+]
School of Management in Stroyotryad
The construction team became a good school of management for Valery: at the age of 22 he managed 800 people! It was at this time that he acquired the necessary knowledge and skills in managing people.
Student construction is a field for the formation of character and personality. Here comes a sense of responsibility not only for oneself, but also for a friend - for the team. Wanting to do something for people
Valery Vakulenko, student brigade commander Izhorsky
newspaper
"CHANGE",
September 1980 year
After the first course, Valery got into a construction team that worked in the North beyond the Arctic Circle. For that time, it was an exceptional case - freshmen were not taken to such complex objects.
Valery's leadership traits were noticed by his comrades in the detachment almost immediately. He worked as an ordinary fighter for only six months. The team rebelled against the passive and unreasonable foreman, because of which they had to do a lot of unnecessary work. Valery Vakulenko was chosen as the new leader as the most active and giving practical advice. The efficiency of the team has increased.
Gradually, Valery took on more and more responsibility: a year later he was the commander of a linear detachment, after two, he was deputy commander of a city detachment on the railway.
After the fourth year, under the leadership of Valery, there were already 20 construction teams and 800 people. Student detachments worked in the Frunzensky, Kolpinsky and Pushkinsky districts of St. Petersburg. The objects were different: cowsheds at the state farm, hospitals, houses.
Valery admits that it was during this period that he developed a love for the Pushkin district.
First professional steps
Following his interest, Valery plunges into the field of Economics
By the end of his studies at the Leningrad Ship Institute, Valery realized that he did not like technology. He studied conscientiously, so during the distribution he had more opportunities for choice. Following his interest in the economy, Valery got a job at the Central Research Institute of Economics, Management and Informatics of the shipbuilding industry "RUMB". For six years he worked as a research assistant. At the same time, he studied at the graduate school of the St. Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance, defended his Ph.D. in Economics.
Valery fights for the development of youth potential
newspaper
"CHANGE",
1986 year
Young people of the 80s are distinguished by a broad outlook, education, energy. They are charged with action, looking for opportunities to express themselves in all areas of public life. <...> Real life requires greater flexibility and variety of forms in the organization of scientific and technical creativity of young people. Their essence is important: young production workers should have the opportunity to apply their abilities to fulfill initiative orders from industry.
Valery Vakulenko,
Chairman of the Kirov Council of Young Scientists
In the late 80s (1986-1988) Valery created and headed the regional Council of Young Scientists and Specialists. The council included 35 thousand people.
Valery was a member of a small group of ten "founding fathers" of the Centers for Scientific and Technical Creativity of Youth (NTTM). The group worked under the Komsomol Central Committee. Valery and his colleagues developed regulations for these centers, which they worked on throughout the country. [+]
The centers were intermediaries between teams of creative youth, industry and science. They began to appear during Perestroika, dictated by Gorbachev's course towards an efficient economy. These were the first timid attempts to create non-state forms of business in a country where everything was state-owned. [+]
Training program complex skills in a short time
In 1988, a law on cooperation was passed. The first full-fledged private form of business appeared. The country's economy developed.
Valery and partners created a research and production cooperative NPK "GAOS" (flexible automated learning systems). They have developed special programs and methods for teaching complex skills in a short time. In their center for 4 days they taught the blind method of printing, typing. English could be mastered in 5 days from zero to basic. [+]
Valery was the general director of the NPK. He saw the potential of such centers. In order to bring great benefits to society, he wanted to create a network of educational centers throughout the country. However, the chairman of the cooperative did not support the large-scale idea.
Valery left and organized the ROST Innovation Association, in which he gathered his team and continued to develop a new economy for the country, making it understandable and useful for the average person.
Innovation Center GROWTH is a change agent
In the 1990s, privatization processes began in the country. In a country where everything was owned by the state, the time has come for change.
The state economy, business, it's like a sailing ship without sails. In the role of sails there should be a private initiative. When an entrepreneur has property, motivation also appears - the desire to develop
Valery Vakulenko,
President of the ROST Group of Companies
In the first wave of privatization, it became necessary to make factories, shops and other formerly state-owned facilities private property. Clear instructions from above on how to do this were not given to the people.
Valery assembled a team of doctors of economic and legal sciences at the Rost Innovation Center. They developed a series of practical guides in nine volumes "How to create a new type of firm and organize its effective work." The grant was sold in millions of copies.
In 1991, the privatization process of catering and housing enterprises began. The Valery Center has developed a practical guide “How to maximize the benefits become a homeowner.
So in the early 90s, the real estate market began to emerge in Russia: realtors and brokerage business appeared. The ROST group of companies stood at the origins of the real estate market and is the oldest company in the real estate market in St. Petersburg.
Under the leadership of Valery, the ROST company mastered pioneering topics for the benefit of society. We developed the concept of equity participation agreements, and were the first in Russia to come up with a rental pledge. [+] [+]
