PUTTING OUT FIRES In politics and the firehouse, Matt Klapper C’05 has learned to take the heat. BY KATHRYN LEVY FELDMAN PHOTOGRAPH BY CANDACE DICARLO 42 JAN | FEB 2014 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE On duty, Thanksgiving Day 2013. THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE JAN | FEB 2014 43 bout six years ago, while shifts to fall almost entirely on nights of guy who makes an impact on the traveling along the Garden and weekends. For two years, he drew no people he meets. He was and is an obvi- State Parkway, Cory Booker— salary or benefits from the city of Newark, ous superstar.” the recently elected junior instead supporting himself as a firefight- At the time, Booker was living in AUnited States Senator from New Jersey, er and through part-time work at the Newark public housing. Klapper recalls then mayor of Newark—and Matt Klapper Brookings Institution, a Washington visiting his sparsely furnished apart- C’05, one of his policy advisors, came think tank. “Being a firefighter is my ment and then spending a week talking upon a car that had just been involved childhood dream come true. Being policy to various people in the candidate’s life. in an accident. The airbag had been advisor to Cory was my dream job,” says “I interviewed firefighters, members deployed; the driver was semi-conscious Klapper. “Declining to take a salary from of tenant-advocacy groups, people who but the ambulance had yet to arrive. the City of Newark, in the wake of exten- had been touched by him in various “Without thinking about it, Matt and sive lay-offs, was a way to do everything ways,” he recalls. Though the resulting I started sprinting to the car,” Booker I loved at the same time.” 25-minute film was “too long to be good,” recounts. “In my mind, I was Batman “I don’t get much sleep,” Klapper the experience convinced him that and he was Robin—but when we get to admits, but aside from that, the two jobs Booker was the real deal. the vehicle, he was the one barking balance each other perfectly, he adds. “The people he attracts are idealistic,” orders. He told me to get into the back “I’m able to hit a re-set button and Klapper says. “He hates cynicism and seat and stabilize the guy’s neck, while ground myself at the firehouse. It’s the convention. If you hear him speak, it’s he forced the front door open, and calm- difference between doing good versus usually enough to become addicted to ly started talking to the victim, checking hoping you’re doing good. It’s hard to his way of doing government. his vitals and assessing the injury. beat that direct feedback loop.” “I got into this through film-making,” “Meanwhile, in the back seat, I noticed Following Booker’s October win in a he adds, “but I began to see politics as a smoke in the car. I had made up my mind special election to finish out the late means to an end.” that I wasn’t leaving this guy, no matter Frank Lautenberg’s Senate term and his Klapper was still expecting to become what, but I also suggested to Matt that resulting relocation to Washington, it’s a film-maker when he came to Penn, hav- we think about getting him out of the unclear how long Klapper can keep up ing applied early decision. “Of course, I car before we all blew up.” this dual existence. Every 72 hours, he is didn’t take a single film class during my At that point, Booker recalls, Klapper responsible for his 24-hour shift in the years there,” he says. He ended up major- looked at him quizzically. “‘Cory,’ he told New Jersey firehouse. So far, by juggling ing in American history and political me, ‘That’s smoke from the airbag.’ vacation days, shift switches, and working science, serving as class president dur- That’s how naïve I was. I have talents, holidays, he has managed to arrange it ing all four of his years on campus, and but my friend Matt Klapper has many so that his shifts continue to fall on week- winning the Spoon Award as a senior. more. It wasn’t the first time I realized ends and holidays, delaying a career move His first presidential campaign “start- how multi-faceted he is.” that could douse his passion. “It’s not a ed as a lark,” he recalls. “I had attended Chief among Klapper’s gifts, appar- decision I’m afraid of,” he says. “But up the PennQuest pre-freshman orientation ently, is the ability to live two (at least) to this point I’ve been able to do both.” trip, so I knew a lot of people before lives simultaneously. For the past 14 classes started. One of my friends sug- years, Klapper has worked for Booker, The Booker-Klapper relationship goes gested I run based on this. There were starting as a volunteer, then as a policy back to when Klapper was a junior at 13 people running, and from my under- advisor, chief policy advisor, campaign Pingry School, an independent college standing I won by a very narrow margin.” policy director, and now as the senior prep school in Martinsville, New Jersey. From then on, however, he ran unop- advisor to New Jersey’s first-ever African- Booker was on Newark’s city council at posed, leading an interviewer for 34th American US Senator. During that time, the time, and came to speak at the Street Magazine to propose the term he earned his undergraduate degree from school’s Martin Luther King Day assem- “dynasty” to describe his freshman-to- Penn and a law degree from Yale bly. As a member of Pingry’s African senior-year run. (“I wouldn’t say that,” University. Oh, and he also completed American Culture Club, Klapper—winner Klapper replied, noting that others had the perhaps-even-more stringent (and of national and international student achieved the same feat, but he did say certainly more physically taxing) require- awards for film-making—had made a that he was “really proud” of having ments to become a full-time firefighter video about the slain civil-rights leader. served all four years and “really happy in New Jersey—a journey that included “It was an awesome video, very profes- he got the opportunity to do it.”) But volunteering as a firefighter for more sional,” Booker recalls. In fact, he was while building his “dynasty,” Klapper than eight years, as well as serving with so impressed that at the end of the also spent a lot of time driving back and an ambulance squad. assembly he offered Klapper the oppor- forth to the Newark area to volunteer as Klapper fulfilled his boyhood dream in tunity to make his first fundraising film an EMT and firefighter, and working for early 2011, the same year he became (for his unsuccessful 2002 mayoral run). Booker on campaigns and for his non- Booker’s chief policy advisor, taking a job “I wish I could take credit for recognizing profit community-service organizations, with a firehouse located about five miles Matt as a diamond in the rough,” Booker Newark Now and Newark Do Something. west of Newark that allows his standard adds, “but the truth is, Matt is the kind When the 9/11 terrorists struck the World 44 JAN | FEB 2014 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE Trade Center at the start of his freshman Booker continued to make headlines as gram. “I climbed on the roofs of a lot of year, Klapper rushed to New York as a First he morphed into “Super-Mayor,” seem- buildings,” he recalls with a laugh, refer- Responder as the twin towers collapsed. ingly everywhere all the time. He shoveled ring to the work he and others did plot- “As soon as I saw it, I got all my stuff and constituents out of the snow, rescued a ting the program’s wireless network. ran down to the train station,” he told The neighbor from a burning building (“I took As a member of Booker’s small, young Daily Pennsylvanian in 2001. He managed a lot of heat for that,” jokes Klapper), car- staff, Klapper found himself involved in to get rides with different police officers ried a dog in from the freezing cold, and all aspects of policy-making: creating, to Chelsea Piers, a staging area for volun- lived on a food-stamp budget of $4 a day. implementing, and evaluating programs, teers and rescue workers. And Booker proved as adept at harnessing and working with constituents through- It turned out to be a long night of mod- social media as the traditional variety, out the city, from the police to commu- est contributions, according to Klapper, gathering more than a million Twitter nity violence-reduction groups to the since there wasn’t much to do for some- followers, for example. Some may call ACLU. “It was municipal policy work, not one with his (at that point) basic level of these acts “stunts,” but according to politics,” he emphasizes. training. He worked through the night Klapper, Booker is always “looking to help The wireless crime-fighting initiative, giving minor first-aid to other rescue people in any way he can.” which received major funding from pri- workers and then went back to school. There had been 107 homicides in vate philanthropy and local businesses, In 2002, he volunteered for Booker’s Newark in 2006, plus a horrific triple took a year to research and less than a first mayoral campaign, assisting the homicide in early 2007.