In 1993, a seven-year-old boy stepped off a plane in California with his parents and two older sisters. He spoke no English. The family settled into a two-bedroom apartment near Oakland, where Sergei shared a room with his sisters while his parents took the second.

His father, Valeriy, ran a small import-export business and worked relentlessly to keep food on the table. His mother did the same. School sports, restaurant meals, new clothes, anything beyond the essentials fell under the same five words Sergei heard throughout his childhood: “We cannot afford this.”

He didn’t resent it. He absorbed it. Somewhere between watching his father grind and learning a new language fast enough to translate for his parents, a quiet decision took hold in him. He would build a life where that sentence was never spoken again.

It started in elementary school. Sergei bought pixie sticks in bulk and sold them to classmates for a dollar a bundle. The operation worked too well. The principal eventually called him in over the wrappers littering the hallways. Most kids would have been embarrassed. Sergei made a mental note about marketing and supply chain, and kept going.

By the time he was a teenager, he was working alongside his father, absorbing what hard work actually meant and what a small business actually demanded. The lessons compounded.

In 2005, at nineteen, Sergei met and married Elena. One month later, they opened a handyman company out of a one-bedroom apartment and called it Handyman Service Plus. There was no office, no team, no website worth mentioning. There was a flyer, a printer, and a pair of shoes worn thin walking San Diego neighborhoods before dawn.

“We’d wake up at 4 AM and walk door to door,” Sergei says. “We’d pray someone would call.” The phone rang. Then it rang again. The business grew, and the Kaminskiy Group was born.

What began with two people and a stack of flyers became one of the most decorated names in American home improvement. Over the past twenty-one years, the Group has earned 17 years of “Best of” honors from the San Diego Union-Tribune across categories, including Best Home Improvement Company, Best Home Remodeler, Best Kitchen Remodeler, and Best Bathroom Remodeler. Modern Luxury named Kaminskiy the Best Luxury Remodeler. San Diego Magazine honored the firm in 2024. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recognized Sergei for his contributions to the industry, and he was inducted into Marquis Who’s Who.

But Sergei doesn’t lead with awards. He leads with the 4 AM flyers, because that is where everything that came after was actually built. Today, the Group operates four distinct brands, each serving a specific client at the highest standard of its category.

In 2025, Sergei launched Kaminskiy Premier, the Group’s invitation-only ultra-luxury division. Four to five projects a year. A three million dollar minimum. A senior designer who travels to you. A dedicated project manager on site until completion. Every cost disclosed, no markups, no surprises. The client guides the vision while Premier carries the complexity. It exists for a category of clients that does not shop for a contractor. They vet one.

In December 2025, Sergei acquired Château de Kaminskiy, a 68,000-square-foot French château set on 27 acres in Shoal Creek, Alabama, for $4.8 million. The 21st largest home in America, it is now the most public engagement in the Premier portfolio.

To restore it properly, he flew to France to study the Palace of Versailles firsthand, then continued on to Italy to commission pieces from the master cabinetmakers of Brianza, the district that has furnished European royalty for generations. Every detail is being documented on camera for an audience of more than four million followers.

The Château is not a vanity project. It is the proof of concept for Kaminskiy Premier, and a message to a boy somewhere out there sharing a bedroom with his sisters: this is what waits on the other side of “we cannot afford this.”

In 2022, drawing on two decades of hard-won operational knowledge, Sergei launched Kaminskiy Care and Repair, a handyman franchise built to give driven entrepreneurs a proven, scalable path to ownership. The model serves anyone ready to build something real, from first-time business owners to seasoned operators, including E-2 and L-1 visa candidates pursuing the same American Dream Sergei chased at nineteen. They get the systems, the brand, and the playbook he did not have when he started. “This is the business I wish someone had handed me when I was nineteen,” he says.

Care and Repair is now expanding nationally, with new territories opening across North America. It is the engine that will carry the Kaminskiy name into every market in the country.

The original brand. Kaminskiy Design and Remodeling is the award-winning San Diego flagship where everything began, and it remains the heart of the Group. It is the firm that earned 17 years of “Best of” honors, the firm that built the team, the systems, and the reputation that now power every other Kaminskiy brand. Today, it continues to deliver full service luxury remodeling for kitchens, baths, additions, and whole-home transformations across Southern California.

In 2013, Sergei expanded into the commercial sector, founding Kaminskiy Commercial Construction. The firm’s most notable engagement transformed a 37,000-square-foot empty shell into a state-of-the-art manufacturing and production facility for Nordic Naturals, the global leader in omega-3 supplementation. That project led to a shareholder position at Premier Nutra Pharma, where Sergei helped design and develop a full commercial kitchen and gummy production line, making Premier Nutra one of the most respected nutraceutical manufacturers on the West Coast.

Beyond the Group, Sergei has built a personal portfolio spanning real estate and hospitality: a 24-acre riverfront retreat with five homes and recreational vehicles, multi-unit waterfront properties in Florida, and development land in Tulum, Mexico, slated for up to 60 condominiums. He holds equity in nutraceutical manufacturing and has invested across the dental and commercial real estate sectors.

Sergei attributes his success, in order, to God, family, and work. His faith is the foundation under everything, not as a marketing line but as the actual operating principle of his life. His father, Valeriy, taught him what work looks like. His business mentor, Bob Straul, taught him what scale looks like. Elena has been his partner since the first flyer.

He and Elena are raising three children, David, Anela, and Elijah, along with two Dobermans, Onyx and Iegres (his own name spelled backward). Anela works alongside him in the business, and David trains and competes in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Family time is non-negotiable.

In 2009, Sergei founded the Kaminskiy Gives Back campaign, which donates home transformations to veterans, first responders, and seniors. The 2025 campaign awarded a $50,000 home transformation.

Kaminskiy Care and Repair is expanding nationally. Kaminskiy Premier is being positioned as the most discreet ultra-luxury renovation brand in the country. The Château documentary series is building the brand audience that will carry both. And for the first time in his career, Sergei is putting the Group itself on the map as the parent that holds it all together.

He runs everything by three words: Dream. Hustle. Win.

Dream, because every empire starts as one. His was a boy in a borrowed bedroom in 1993.

Hustle, because dreams don’t build themselves. It takes work, grit, and faith that God is moving even when the phone is not ringing.

Win, because when you stay consistent and walk in His favor, the right doors open.

He’s still running toward the next one.

What began with two people and a stack of flyers is now a multi-brand platform: an award-winning flagship, a national franchise engine, an invitation-only ultra-luxury division, and an audience of more than four million people watching it grow in real time. The foundation is built. The systems are proven. The brand has momentum.

At this stage, the most meaningful work tends to happen at the intersection of the right people and the right timing. Sergei is open to opportunities, collaborations, and strategic alignment with organizations that understand what has been built here and see what it can become.

If there is a conversation worth having, the door is open.