SIPA NEWS - School of International and Public Affairs - Columbia ...

People measure you
based on what you
accomplish and not how
old you are.
Young Grad’s Career:
Look Out, No Brakes
By Anne Burke
SIPA News editor
Jacob Kupietzky graduates
from the MPA program this
spring with an impressive
resume: consultant to a
governor’s blue-ribbon
panel, foreign affairs adviser
to the mayor of Jerusalem, campaign
staffer for a state attorney general,
press officer in the Los Angeles
mayor’s office.
The scary thing is he’s only 25.
How did he do it?
Kupietzky was only 14 when he
got his first job in politics, as a Jewish
liaison in Los Angeles for then-U.S.
Sen. John Seymour, a California
Republican. He’s been running at full
throttle ever since. Though he’s often
the youngest person in the office,
Kupietzky said he never lets his age
hold him back.
“People measure you based on
what you accomplish and not how old
you are,” said Kupietzky, who grew up
in Los Angeles.
The latest feather in Kupietzky’s
cap is the consulting work he did last
fall on California Gov. Gray Davis’s
Blue Ribbon Panel on Hate Crimes,
appointed in the wake of a shooting
spree by an avowed white supremacist
in Los Angeles.
Several of Kupietzky’s recommendations
were incorporated into the
panel’s final report, which Davis
planned to include in an omnibus,
anti-hate crime legislation bill.
Kupietzky’s contribution
included recommendations that the
government reward businesses that
take a leadership role in fighting xenophobia,
and that community organizations
develop hate-prevention policies.
“My name won’t be found on it
anywhere, which is totally fine with
me,” Kupietzky said. “I’m just happy
to know that if you have a good idea,
someone else will think it’s a good
idea, and they might actually use it,
and it might lead to something good.”
Kupietzky also worked last fall as
a teaching assistant for Visiting Professor
George Stephanopoulos’s class on
presidential politics. He fit the hatecrimes
work into his busy schedule as
an independent study project, under
sponsorship of Associate Professor
Mark Gordon.
After graduating from high
school, Kupietzky worked on foreign
affairs issues for Mayor Ehud Olmert
of Jerusalem. While still in his teens, he
worked as a press officer for Los Angeles
Mayor Richard Riordan and as the
assistant to the manager of then-California
Gov. Pete Wilson’s presidential
campaign.
In 1998, after graduating in political
science from Columbia College,
he was hired as a political consultant
for then-Attorney General Dan Lungren’s
campaign for governor. That
spring, Kupietzky was accepted at
SIPA. But he didn’t want to give up
his work with Lungren, and Lungren
didn’t want to lose him. Since Kupietzky
is the kind of guy who can keep a
lot of balls in the air at the same time,
he decided to do both.
“I tried to be at SIPA on Mondays,
Tuesdays and Wednesdays, then
I’d fly back to L.A. I probably made
about seven round-trips my first
semester at SIPA.”
Lungren lost to Gray Davis, but
the experience didn’t dull Kupietzky’s
appetite for politics. Last summer, he
worked as a consultant to the nonprofit
New York Fair Elections Project,
analyzing contributions to the 1998
New York governor’s race. His report
is due out this month.
Kupietzky may be turning into a
seasoned pro, but he’s not blasé.
“If you pick up the newspaper
and it’s talking about an event, and
you’re able to say, ‘Oh, I helped plan
that,’ or ‘I was there with the candidate,’
or, ‘That was my idea,’ it’s really
exciting.”
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