He graduated from the Mining Department of the Tula Polytechnic Institute in 1975, and went to work at the Kopeisk Engineering Plant in the Chelyabinsk Oblast, a major manufacturer of underground mining machines and equipment in Russia and the Soviet Union. In 1988, he was appointed to the position of Chief Technical Designer and Head of the Plant's Design Bureau. He oversaw tests and implementation of new mining equipment in the underground mines of Kuzbass, Donbass, and Kazakhstan, and was part of Soviet Ministry of Coal Mining inter-departmental committees. He was one of the key persons who designed and produced the GPKS - the most widely used and one of the most efficient continuous heading machines in the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation.