By Onyx Watson
Four years before the Navy SEAL Foundation’s Chicago gala hit $5 million, it barely existed. Muneer Satter and Kristen Hertel hosted a small gathering at their home and raised $150,000. By 2015, the annual event had grown to $2.6 million (Crain’s Chicago Business).
Reeve Waud and Melissa Waud were co-chairs during those early expansion years, lending the credibility and donor network of Waud Capital Partners, a firm that had already completed hundreds of investments across healthcare and technology. Jennifer Pritzker, Susan Crown, and Richard Driehaus were also among the event’s high-profile early supporters.
Growth Trajectory
The Fifth Annual Evening of Tribute took place at the Hilton Chicago in Sept. 2016. A year later, the Sixth Annual moved to The Field Museum, where 960 attendees generated a record $5 million for the Foundation (Navy SEAL Foundation). Bill and Sandi Strong co-chaired the 2017 event; Veronica and Bob Loquercio followed for later editions; Anna and Greg Brown took over after that.
Through each transition, Reeve B. Waud remained a consistent presence. He appeared among notable attendees at the 2018 benefit alongside Greg Brown, Joe Scoby, and Dan Tiemann. The co-chair rotation didn’t mean the early builders walked away.
Why Scale Attracts Scale
Once the gala crossed the $2 million threshold, it started drawing keynote speakers who themselves drew larger crowds. The 2017 event featured General David Petraeus and awarded the Patriot Award to Ken Griffin. Griffin later provided a $1 million matching gift at the 2018 edition, pushing that year’s total to $5 million again.
Reeve Waud’s own career mirrors this compounding pattern. He founded Waud Capital Partners as a one-person firm in Lake Forest, Illinois, in 1993. By 2022, the firm employed nearly 70 people and managed approximately $4.6 billion (Waud Capital Partners). Whether building a PE firm or a fundraising gala, the mechanics looked similar: prove the model small, recruit the right co-investors, and let results compound.
