The First Church of Round Hill in Greenwich, Connecticut has hosted its share of notable ceremonies. Among them was the August 20, 1988 wedding of Reeve Byron Waud and Melissa Ann Wheeler, a union that brought together two families with deep roots on opposite sides of the country. The groom’s family was from Lake Forest, Illinois; the bride’s from Greenwich and Verbier, Switzerland.
Dr. Olin Robinson, then the president of Middlebury College and a Baptist minister, presided over the service, assisted by Dr. Avery Manchester, a United Methodist minister. Both Reeve and Melissa were members of Middlebury’s class of 1985. This milestone is captured in the original New York Times wedding announcement. Nearly 38 years later, the couple is approaching another milestone anniversary.
Two Families, One Ceremony
Melissa Ann Wheeler was the daughter of Russell Phillip and Dorothy Ann Wheeler, who split their time between Greenwich and Verbier. She had attended Miss Porter’s School before enrolling at Middlebury, and she worked as a manager at Bergdorf Goodman in New York City prior to the wedding. This union is documented in www.chicagotribune.com/1988/09/04/melissa-ann-wheeler-and-reeve-b-waud-are-wed/.
Reeve was the son of Cornelius Byron and Corinna Roosevelt Reeve Waud of Lake Forest. After graduating from Middlebury with a BA in Economics, he earned his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. At the time of the wedding, he was beginning a career in private equity that would eventually lead him to found Reeve Waud Waud Capital Partners in 1993.
From a Summer Wedding to a Career-Defining Firm
Five years after the Greenwich ceremony, Reeve Waud started his own firm in Lake Forest with an initial investment of just $5,000. That small beginning would grow into a private equity operation managing roughly $4.6 billion in assets. The firm has since completed more than 480 investments, with a particular focus on healthcare and software & technology. Additional details are available at peprofessional.com/2016/02/waud-beats-target-at-nearly-1-1-billion/.
Among those investments is Acadia Healthcare, which Waud Capital formed in 2005. Acadia has since become the country’s foremost independent behavioral health provider, with upward of 250 facilities operating across the United States and Puerto Rico. The firm’s accomplishments can be seen through the firm’s 30-year track record of healthcare-focused investing.
A Personal Milestone Worth Marking
As the Waud family looks ahead to the 38th anniversary of that August day in Connecticut, the occasion offers a chance to reflect on how much has changed—and how much has stayed the same. Reeve continues to lead Waud Capital from its Chicago headquarters. The the recent promotion of several senior professionals at the firm underscores the firm’s continued growth and the principles that guided him in 1988 remain central to his work.
