Donor Profile: Vikas

Vikas is a valued achiever and leader in Scouting, as Scoutmaster with his home Scouts BSA Troop #3537, a Pack Committee Chair, Den Leader, and as of December 2022 as a board member of the Northern Star Scouting.

An Eagle Scout from his childhood home Troop #21 in St. Cloud, Minnesota, he was initially interested in Scouts in middle school because his friends were involved.  One friend invited him camping and he was hooked! Scouting has had a big impact on him.

Vikas graduated from the University of Minnesota with a B.S.E.E. (Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering), and received an M.B.A. from the Carlson School of Management. After graduation, he moved to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin for 4 years and was involved with Scouts, even having the opportunity to attend Sea Base.

He has been involved as an adult since 2007 when his older son was in Cub Scouts.  After his boys aged out of the program, he decided to stay involved, following the lead of his boyhood Scoutmaster, whom he credits as the second most influential person in his life after his parents. Vikas has continued mentoring Scouts and has collected 15 or so mentor pins from Eagle Scouts from his troop.

His two sons are Eagle Scouts as well as his brother and nephew. One son is a freshman in finance at the Carlson School of Management; the other, in his first year of Medical School at the University of Minnesota, after doing his undergraduate at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.

His current Scouts BSA Troop #3537, chartered by American Legion Post #394 in Wayzata, has had 85 Eagle Scouts in 30 years, 35 of those during his time as Scoutmaster (2016-22).

The troop is one of the most diverse in the Council, with 20 percent of the troop of Asian Indian heritage, where Scouting is not as  popular. As Vikas says, “Scouting is for everybody.”

Now living in Maple Grove, Vikas is in IT Management for Medtronic, and his wife runs childcare centers in Elk River and Zimmerman. He stays in the program, he says, “to give boys some direction,” and says of his financial contributions to Scouting “I view this as an investment in our future citizens and leaders."