He can relate to an 8-year-old racing a boat down a river or converse with her majesty the Queen of England and the Duke of Edinburgh over tea in the garden at Buckingham Palace.

Despite his worldly experiences and travels, McLaughlin hasn't forgotten his roots, which take him back to the small town of Shawnee, Okla., where he was born and raised. His Cub Scouting adventures started there in 1945, and McLaughlin advanced to become a Boy Scout two years later. But his Boy Scout Troop 9 activities did not end with his youth, as they do for most men.

McLaughlin was one of only a handful of select recipients of the 2003 Boy Scouts of America Silver Buffalo Award for distinguished service to America's youth on a national level. The award, given to men and women since 1925, is the highest achievable commendation in Boy Scouting for outstanding and invaluable contributions. Other honorees included legendary Lawrence P. "Yogi" Berra and philanthropist and business executive H. Ross Perot.

When McLaughlin was notified he would be receiving the award at the Boy Scouts of America national annual meeting in Philadelphia, he said he wasn't sure the news was true.

"They called me up, and I didn't quite believe it," he said. "I was surprised. I thought someone was playing a nice joke on me because it's a very coveted award. I guess I was just a little bit in shock."

McLaughlin was also acknowledged for the award locally by the Greater Bay Bancorp family of banks and Santa Clara County Council Boy Scouts of America at a recent reception in Cupertino. But McLaughlin has actually worked his way to the top of Boy Scouting, previously garnering his Eagle Scout Award in 1949, Silver Beaver Award in 1985, Silver Antelope Award in 1990 and Distinguished Eagle Scout award in 1994. He has also served as area president, council president and long-time member of the National Advisory Council for Boy Scouts of America.

McLaughlin and his wife of 39 years, Ellen, also led an endowment campaign from 1993 to 2000 that raised more than $1 billion for local Boy Scout councils in the Western Region of the United States. The program was adopted on a national level by Boy Scouts of America. There are about 60 local councils that compose the Western Region.

"Boy Scouts have never had an active endowment program like universities, hospitals and art museums," he said. "It made sense to do it because there was enough demographics to do it, but nobody knew how to get it started."

With his sales and marketing background, McLaughlin was able to pull the program together. The McLaughlins also generously contributed $1 million to the campaign themselves.

In his earlier years, McLaughlin graduated with an accounting degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1956 and went on to serve in the U.S. Air Force for six years, three of which were overseas. He said that after graduating from pilot training, his first assignment was at Parks Air Force Base in Pleasanton.

"That was my first introduction to California, and I liked it," he said.

He liked it so much, he was hooked. McLaughlin worked a summer with Wells Fargo Bank of San Francisco and went on to earn his master's degree in finance from Harvard University in 1964. He later joined Foremost-McKesson Inc. of San Francisco, where he served as assistant treasurer from 1964 to 1969. Then McLaughlin worked as the executive vice president and director of MacFarlane's Candies of Oakland from 1969 to 1970. Later he joined the Memorex Corp. of London, England, for two years as director of finance and administration. But he returned to California in the 1970s to work as the senior vice president of finance for Four-Phase Systems Inc. of Cupertino.

That's when he and Ellen decided it was time to move to an old-fashioned neighborhood in Saratoga, where they raised their family. They have a son, Glen "Wallace," now 34, who is an Eagle Scout, and a daughter, Helen, now 35, who lives in Boston. The McLaughlins have lived in Saratoga for three decades now.

McLaughlin has founded 15 companies and directed 32 corporations. He is currently the president and chief executive officer of Venture Leasing Associates in Los Gatos, founded in 1986. The company provides direct investments and equipment lease financing to start-up companies. McLaughlin said his venture capital and leasing work has been rewarding in terms of accountability and achieving personal goals.

"If you have things you believe in and you want to get them done, a lot of times you have to do them yourself," he said.

While he is rapidly running into retirement, McLaughlin said it will allow him more time to sail with his son and travel with his wife. The couple has already been to 85 different countries, but they are shooting for a total of 120.

On one of the McLaughlins' most recent trips to London, they had the pleasure of attending a garden party at Buckingham Palace in the presence of the Queen of England and Duke of Edinburgh. Ellen McLaughlin said her husband was invited to the event because he is a member of The Queen's Club, a group of officers from all branches of military service. The club is one of the largest private contributors to the "Not Forgotten" Association, a group which assists ex-service disabled men and women. The "Not Forgotten" Association hosted the English high tea party, attended by about 1,000 people. Ellen McLaughlin added that she and her husband had the opportunity to be politely introduced to the duke and to the queen herself.

"You really felt like she was focusing her attention on you when she was talking to you," she said.

Don Allen of Saratoga said he met McLaughlin when both their sons were involved in Boy Scout Troop 508. Their friendship branched from there through both volunteer activities within the community and business opportunities when McLaughlin was chairman of Cupertino National Bank from 1990 to 1996.

Allen, the retired president of Cupertino National Bank, described McLaughlin as "basically a quiet guy."

"He is a solid individual who cares about his neighbors," Allen said.

He added that McLaughlin has continued to demonstrate honorable Boy Scouting values while giving back to the community and building a career for himself in the high-tech world with his leasing company. Allen said that even though McLaughlin is quiet, his character and perseverance hasn't been overlooked. More than 150 people attended the Cupertino reception to recognize McLaughlin for receiving the Silver Buffalo Award.

"Because of his financial background, he has helped to raise more than a billion—with a 'b'—dollars for the Scouting movement, and he just did it with bare tenacity," Allen said.

McLaughlin also helped found the Silicon Valley's Band of Angels, a group of retired or semi-retired area venture capitalists who efficiently invest in products and companies with which they are familiar. Since 1995, the "angels," who have extensive business-leadership experience, have helped launch new companies by providing investment and board sponsorship.

"The idea was people formerly in the high-tech industry that had some resources to help mentor entrepreneurs that wanted to get companies started," McLaughlin said.

But McLaughlin's involvement with the community doesn't end there. He has also held many leadership positions and received numerous awards from The Sovereign Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem Knights Hospitaller; Junior Achievement of Santa Clara County; The Health Trust; O'Connor Hospital Foundation; American Cancer Society; and the business-school advisory boards for Santa Clara University and University of Oklahoma.

The Knights of St. John is a worldwide philanthropic order of chivalry dating back to 1099 that built the first hospital in Jerusalem for the Crusades. McLaughlin helped raise $500,000 toward building Knight's Inn, an infirmary at a summer camp near Chico for children with cancer and their families. The building dedication and opening took place in 2001.

For the past two decades, McLaughlin has also been serving as a guest lecturer in the finance department at Santa Clara University under professor Meir Statman. The classes in which McLaughlin has spoken include corporate finance, investment, management of high-tech companies and ethics and finance. Statman said McLaughlin comes regularly to classes and does a fantastic job of engaging the students in the topic being presented, as well as aiding the department financially when they are in need of software, data and supplies.

"He is a very generous man, very kind, very helpful to others, and he sees that as his mission," Statman said. "I can always count on him, and so can my students. He is really someone who is there for other people. He stands out as a very dear man."

McLaughlin lent a helping hand in July to a group of about 20 Cub Scouts from Pack 328 of San Jose attending Stevens Creek Day Camp in Cupertino. There were a total of about 100 boys attending the camp, many of whom were from the Los Gatos and Saratoga area.

Pack 328 spent the afternoon with McLaughlin, parent volunteers and camp staff. The boys made pizzas in box ovens, dissected owl pellets and raced handmade pinewood boats down the shallow Stevens Creek river.

Parent volunteer Kara Jones said it was great for her 8-year-old son, Austin, to see McLaughlin setting a good example as a leader in Scouting. As she spoke, Kara watched her son's boat cross the finish line in first place. The rowdy boys, wearing water sandals to avoid slipping on the rocks, didn't seem to mind the freezing water.

Being at the camp, McLaughlin said, reminded him of overnight camps he used to attend in his youth for weeks at a time. He said they learned to cut trees, build towers, use a map and compass to navigate through the woods and start a fire without matches.

"You start by learning basic skills early on," McLaughlin said, marching right alongside the 8-, 9- and 10-year-olds at day camp. "You keep advancing and learning bigger challenges."

Back behind his office desk, McLaughlin talked, using his hands to illustrate a different childhood memory. This one was of attending two Boy Scout jamborees during the 1950s, where he had to raise the money to attend the sessions about a year in advance.

"I had a lot of help coming along. I had scholarships to college. People opened doors for me," said McLaughlin, adding that now giving back to the community just seems like the logical thing to do.

McLaughlin said he comes from a long family tradition of generosity, which relates to the fundamental and timeless values of being a Boy Scout such as trustworthiness, loyalty and helpfulness.

"With the Boy Scout [values], you said it once a week, and then you said it for several years. Well pretty soon, it becomes second nature," McLaughlin said, about the Boy Scout law, motto and oath that most young Scouts know by heart.

Within his lifetime, McLaughlin has seen the Boy Scouting movement grow, modify and keep in line with current times. Boy Scouts today can earn more than 20 merit badges and 20 regular badges.

"They keep adapting all the time. They adapt the uniforms. They adapt the programs. They change the merit badges. When I was growing up, they had a lot of farm-oriented merit badges, of which I earned several. But those have pretty well been cleaned out," he said. "The ranks are the same. The one requirement that is different on the Eagle Scout badge is that you have to do a community project, and I think that's really a very good addition."

Frank Erickson, Scout Executive and chief executive officer for the Santa Clara County Council of Boy Scouts of America, said he's proud to know McLaughlin. He said McLaughlin has dedicated many years of time and service to Boy Scouting on local, regional and national levels, creating a positive effect on many youth.

"He's one of the most caring people I have ever met," Erickson said of McLaughlin. "He genuinely cares about the welfare of the children in the community."

Erickson said he was honored to sit at McLaughlin's table, along with Santa Clara County Scout executives Brian Allen and Doug McDonald and McLaughlin's family, at the award reception in Philadelphia.

"He is a man who embodies the Scout standards of ethical behavior. I can't imagine him not using the Scout values in daily life," Erickson said. He added that his friend's success is due in part to an encouraging family.

"Ellen is very supportive of him in everything they do," Erickson said. "They are a fun couple to be with. They make everyone feel important, and that's a real gift."

Owen Brown, who now lives in Los Gatos, first met McLaughlin when he bought McLaughlin's Saratoga house from him in 1983. At the time McLaughlin was an investor in Sun Microsystems, a networking hardware and software company, and Brown was the president and chief operating officer of the company during its startup phase.

Brown and McLaughlin have since continued a friendship and business relationship. Brown said they have shared an office together for the past six years on University Avenue in Los Gatos, where McLaughlin owns Venture Leasing Associates and Brown owns Owen Brown Enterprises, an investment and consulting company.

"He's probably the most mild-mannered guy you'd ever see," said friend Owen Brown, describing McLaughlin. "He's a great teacher, and he's very detail-oriented. He is very quiet and thorough in his analysis of things."

Brown said he and his wife travel and attend social functions on a regular basis with McLaughlin and his wife and are also involved with helping many of the same charities. Brown said McLaughlin's quiet and deliberated efforts have not passed unnoticed, reinforcing that McLaughlin is very deserving of the Silver Buffalo Award.

"There are not too many people in this world that have raised that much money," Brown said. "Glen is a very sincere, thorough family man in his truths and values. You couldn't find a much better human being, and he deserves every award he ever gets."