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Three new Stewards join USA Wrestling’s Living the Dream Medal Fund

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by Savannah Asmann, USA Wrestling

Jim Esposito (left), Eric Minnick (center) and Bill Hessert (right) are named as the three new stewards for the Living the Dream Medal Fund.

USA Wrestling is proud to announce the addition of three new stewards to our Living the Dream Medal Fund (LDMF) in Jim Esposito, Eric Minnick and Bill Hessert.  

Esposito, currently the President of Citadel Securities starting in September, is based in Miami. He formerly served as co-head of the Global Banking and Markets Division at Goldman Sachs in London since 2010. Esposito also served on the management committee, co-chaired the partnership committee, and was a member of the DEI committee during his time in the role. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Brown University in 1990, concentrating in economics and political science. As an undergraduate, Esposito was a member of the varsity wrestling team. He serves on the Board of Overseers of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, where he earned an Master of Business Administration in 1995. He also serves on the board of Beat the Streets New England.

Minnick is the General Partner at Versus Ventures, where he invests early stage in gaming, sports-tech, and financial technology startups.  Additionally, he is the CIO of Andover Ventures and a Principal at Cerity Partners.  Prior to his current roles, he was the co-founder and CEO of AE Machines.  He is a board member of the U.S. Wrestling Foundation. Minnick was a wrestler at Stanford University, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science.  He also has an Master of Business Administration from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.

Hessert is from Connecticut and wrestled in high school.  He went on to study economics at Notre Dame and Princeton. He is an entrepreneur with businesses in gaming, energy trading, and medical data. Hessert and his wife Tiere have five young children, and all are wrestlers.  He has a passion for building and promoting youth wrestling in Connecticut, and is on a ten-year mission to make Connecticut competitive with neighboring New Jersey and New York wrestling at all levels.

Esposito, Minnick and Hessert will join 12 other stewards in supporting our wrestlers who medal in Olympic and World competitions. Esposito and Minnick will commence their roles at the Paris Olympic Games, while Hessert will begin his role at the next Senior World Championships.

During Olympic years, the Living the Dream Medal Fund provides $250,000 for an Olympic gold medal, $50,000 for an Olympic silver medal, and $25,000 for an Olympic bronze medal. In World Championship years, the Fund awards $50,000 for a World gold medalist, $25,000 for a World silver medalist, and $15,000 for a World bronze medalist.  Since its inception in 2009, five million has been paid out to medalists.

Contributions to this fund are used exclusively to pay these awards to athletes who achieve podium finishes at World or Olympic events. The fund also incorporates existing bonuses from USA Wrestling and additional funds made available by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. The Living the Dream Medal Fund is maintained as a restricted fund by USA Wrestling.

Five spots remain to reach our goal of 20 Stewards, each contributing five percent of the total award amount.  We invite those interested in joining this exclusive team to contact Lorraine Rorabaugh at LRorabaugh@usawrestling.org or call 719-598-8181, to learn more.

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