Paul Vassos worked in Springfield through the week, then traveled home to Marshall to spend weekends with his family.
He knew the challenges when he took the job, but also understood that as a young architect working for a contractor, the opportunity benefited his career.
As his family grew, Vassos continued his education, eventually earning a master's degree in architecture.
The family moved to Jefferson City, where his three young boys enrolled at St. Peter School.
His degree gave him the chance to take a job as a senior project manager for Missouri's facility management design and construction team, within the Office of Administration.
Things in his life had started coming into alignment, Vassos said.
"Even though that job is very time-consuming, there is still the ability to balance between home life and work, which allows me to really work on this part of my home life," Vassos said, referring to his work as the pack leader for Cub Scouts at St. Peter. "I work across the street from my kids' school, and I don't have another thing in the background to work on."
All three boys -- now ages 10, 12 and 14 -- are in Scouting.
Shortly after Vassos joined Scouts, other scout leaders encouraged him to undertake Wood Badge leadership training -- intended to improve adult scout leaders by teaching advanced skills and creating a bond of commitment between them and Scouting.
In the Central Missouri area, Wood Badge is a two-weekend event in which adult leaders registered with the scouts program go to the Lake of the Ozarks Scouts Reservation for an outdoor experience, Vassos said. The program is for everybody from den leaders in packs, cub masters in packs, Scout leaders in troops, commissioners, district executives, to anyone who wants to learn more about the leadership program that Scouting promotes, he said.
"Which is servant leadership -- doing for others before doing for yourself," he continued.
They put the adults into the environment of themselves being scouts, he continued. Administrators of the program give participants very few details, other than what they need to pack and how many days they are going to be down there.
"And, they kind of throw all these adults together in groups," Vassos said. "The chances are you don't know anybody in your group, which is very much like what happens with kids in Scouts. Sometimes they know some people, sometimes they don't. It pushes their boundaries of trying to form this -- what they call patrol."
The adult program emulates programs where scouts lead each other. It basically puts adults through intense three-day training on the first weekend, and two-day training on the second weekend.
"And, really kind of expect them to rise to the situation -- to the challenge -- in a very short time frame," Vassos said. "I have been going full-tilt ever since then."
The training helped Vassos set goals for himself and his pack.
"I wanted to increase communication with our pack -- between the parents and leadership. Basically, a transparency of communication," he said.
He also wanted to broaden whom his scouts encounter. So, he started taking them caroling at Heisinger Bluffs Senior Living Community and St. Joseph's Bluffs senior living facility.
"(The intent was) to let the scouts see what impacts they're having on others. Maybe they don't even realize (seniors are) in our community," Vassos said. "Some of them have grandparents that live there. But, there's a lot of people that live at Heisinger Bluffs that don't have any family. We thought that would be something we could give back to the community."
One of his new goals was to ask his unit, including parents, to give feedback about what could be improved.
He wanted the scouts (who range in ages from 5-10) to have input, even though some are at an age when they aren't certain what they want.
"I'm sure there are some things that they enjoy," he said. "We try to get feedback during those events -- try to see how the scouts are responding. There are some of them that are obvious, and some that I wonder if this was successful or not."
In the accompanying video, Paul Vassos talks about how he balances his work life and home life as a Scout leader who has three sons in Scouts.
Paul Vassos is a pack leader at St. Peter School. (Photo by Joe Gamm/News Tribune)
Paul Vassos is a pack leader at St. Peter School. (Photo by Joe Gamm/News Tribune)
Paul Vassos is a pack leader at St. Peter School. (Photo by Joe Gamm/News Tribune)