Matt Werner (MS 2008)

Matt Werner: I went to George Washington University, where I majored in history and luckily met my fiancé, and moved back to New York in 2016. I started off working as a first-grade teacher, and then bounced around in the real estate world until I started this business in October. It was definitely not a very linear path, but I think I learned a lot at each step of the way that informed the decisions I made. I’ve also been coaching high school basketball since my sophomore year of college, including for two seasons at Schechter Westchester. 


Q: How does your path right now align with what you expected to do when you “grew up”?

MW: I would have preferred to be a professional basketball player, but that was never in the cards for a multitude of reasons. I don’t think I really had an idea of what exactly I wanted to do when I grew up. I just knew that eventually I wanted to start my own business, and create something that I thought was impactful and that I could be proud of. I definitely did not anticipate starting a clinic in the middle of a pandemic. That would not have entered my mind as a kid, nor would it have entered my mind 15 months ago when this started. 

MW: My fiancé and I were trying to get a rapid test because we had potential exposure, and we wanted to see my parents for my mom’s birthday. It was near impossible to find a rapid test in the city or in Westchester. Once we found places that offered rapid testing, it was three or four days before we could sign up for an appointment. We were incredibly frustrated because we were just trying to do our best to be safe and adhere to the protocols and I decided that if few people were offering rapid testing, why don’t I look into it? I left my job, took the leap, and we’ve obviously grown from myself as the only employee doing everything from marketing, sales, logistics, and swabbing people, to now having about 40 employees across four testing centers. 


Q: What has your day-to-day been like and how has it evolved since October?

There’s no real one day that looks like the next, but most of it is just figuring out the best way that we can help this pandemic come to an end as safely as possible. That goal motivates me through the difficult customers or the inevitable frustrations that come up when you have four locations and 40 employees.

MW: I’ve never managed a group of 40 employees, but I have coached a team of 18 teenage girls. There’s a lot you can learn from that. I also didn’t do it on my own. My dad has his own practice where he has 50 of his own employees. Throughout the year, I’ve leaned a lot on him for advice. I hired one of my good friends from childhood to handle the people side of the business, which was definitely one of the better decisions that I’ve made. Managing people is one thing, managing people in a pandemic is another, managing people who are testing people in a pandemic is an entirely different thing altogether. My team has worked 70-80 hour weeks in order to get it done properly, where we’re helping people and keeping them safe. I think that not only is that the most important outcome, but it drives us. If we’re not putting in that much time and effort, fewer people are getting tested, and we’re in this mess for longer. We all have a common goal, and that goal is the same as mostly everyone else in society.