In My Third Act: Matt Chapman on Taking the Non-Traditional Route

In the November edition of In My Third Act, Jane Fleishman speaks with Bay Area Digital Lead Matt Chapman about his numerous reinventions—from museum curator to beekeeper to middle school teacher. They discuss his lifelong political activism and how an old friend, along with technology tricks from one of his sixth-grade students, led him to Third Act.

Matt Chapman, digital lead for Third Act Bay Area, remembers the day he saw tanks rumbling by his elementary school in Ohio. The governor had called out the National Guard in response to Vietnam War protests at nearby Kent State University.  Matt was very young, but the National Guard killing 4 and wounding 9 unarmed students at Kent State made a big impression on him. He joined Third Act largely out of a desire to be active in opposing right wing candidates in the 2024 federal elections. 

Matt grew up in a Catholic family in Stowe, Ohio, one of four children. He knew from an early age that he was gay. “I took a lot of bullying as a result,” says Matt, “but I eventually found other people on the fringe who were also bullied and they became my social group.” A gap year Matt took after high school turned into 5 years that he spent living and working near his hometown. When he was ready to go to college he chose Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, an institution non-traditional enough to suit his needs as an “older” student with a creative and rebellious nature. He graduated with a BFA in Painting and Art History.   

In his second act, Matt moved to San Francisco and reinvented himself several times, pursuing careers that included museum curator, lithographer, handyman, bike mechanic, bicycle parking valet and beekeeper. Eventually, he found his way into teaching middle schoolers, mostly math and science. After 22 years, he told his principal he needed a change and wanted to bring “Shop” back into middle school.  Under the rubric of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), he got the go ahead to put together a program. “Parents and kids loved it and with help from an angel donor we bought a room full of tools, 3-D printers and other technology.” Several students Matt has stayed in touch with went on to earn engineering degrees. Others pursued experiences with set design in high school with the ambition of making it a career. 

Matt has always been politically oriented and active to one degree or another. At the height of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco he volunteered in a buyer’s club for AIDS patients as well as in ACT-UP.  An avid cyclist, he was involved with Critical Mass and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition as well as other advocacy groups. Growing up in northeastern Ohio he was aware that every year activists held a candlelight vigil on the Kent State hill where the National Guard shootings took place. Matt was living in Kent in May 1977 when the university provost announced that a huge sports center would be built on the iconic site.  Several of the students injured were still living in the area. They rallied people to take over the administration building and to create a tent city on the site of the shootings.  

“I heard about it and wanted to join,” says Matt. In contrast to his high school experience as an outsider, being a part of the tent city gave him a feeling of being useful and needed. “I joined against my parents’ wishes,” says Matt, “but they eventually visited, took a tour with one of the survivors, and were very supportive after that.  Mom is still a dyed in the wool Republican but they respected me for being active and standing up for what I believed in.” Matt and his fellow protesters were eventually dragged off, put into buses, and processed. The tent city was the longest nonviolent civil disobedience action in U. S. history at the time. 

Matt got his passion for politics from his parents even if his views were mainly in opposition to theirs.  “All my parents’ friends were Democrats and they would get together for every election, drink cocktails, watch the returns roll in, cackle, scream, smoke cigarettes,” says Matt.  “Despite their political differences they were friends and hung out together.”

Matt is in the process of re-fashioning his third act after several significant losses during the last two years. A serious back injury caused him to take early retirement from teaching.  Several months later his husband retired and they prepared for a life of adventures abroad.  However, within a year of his retirement Matt’s husband died suddenly, followed by the couple’s two elderly dogs.  

As Matt began picking up the pieces of his life, a friend from his days at Antioch told him about Third Act.  He attended a meeting and got on a committee. “I saw their newsletter and realized I could re-format it—-actually by using an app one of my sixth-graders taught me how to use during the pandemic,” says Matt with a smile. When the Bay Area working group rolled out its website, Matt took on the job of keeping it updated and coordinating the communications team. “We want as many volunteers as possible so we have reporters for all our campaigns. They bring me the content and I format it and post it.” 

With regard to activism, Matt has always felt that “the least I can do is be a body out there and be counted. That’s always been my stance whenever I’ve participated in a demonstration,” says Matt. “I’m not going to be a speaker, I’m not going to try to create anything other than to add my presence.”  Matt’s Third Act work takes up a fair amount of his week but he’s looking for more volunteer work, perhaps helping refugees. In any case, he intends to keep adding his presence. Long term, Matt finds hope in what he sees in his Gen Z nieces and nephews and their potential to do better than their elders. 

Matt Chapman

After spending his  first 26 years in Ohio, Matt Chapman left Yellow Springs, Ohio for the San Francisco Bay Area in 1985. The Bay Area offers opportunities to explore many things, including the ability to create and recreate oneself with relative ease.

Until 2019 when a spinal cord injury slowed him down, Matt was an avid cyclist and a proponent of the bicycle as a primary means of transportation. He has ridden a bicycle and camped the California Coast from Coos Bay, Oregon to Los Angeles. Matt retired from a career as a public school teacher in 2021, but also had careers as a museum curator, a lithographer, a bicycle parking valet, a handyman, a bike mechanic, and a beekeeper. He lived at the San Francisco Zen Center from 1990-1994. He has been involved on the fringes of political movements since the 70’s including the Youth International Party and the May 4th Coalition in Kent, Ohio in the 70’s, ACT-UP San Francisco in the 80’s, Critical Mass San Francisco and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition in the 90’s and 2000’s, a lifetime member of UESF (United States Equestrian Federation), the California Teachers Association (CTA), and a current member of Third Act.

TIm, Matt’s husband and partner of fifteen years, died suddenly in March of 2023. He now hopes to outlast Trumpism, spend time outdoors each day with his dog, Otto, and continue to figure out what his third act will be.

Jane Fleishman

Jane Fleishman is a Third Actor residing in Nashville, TN who is regularly pulled to NYC where her first grandchild lives and to the Southwest where so many of her other family members live. She is retired from a social work career mainly focused on creating and promoting volunteer and civic leadership opportunities for youth in their First Act.