Portland State’s secret agent alumnus

Portland State alumnus William Klausman is a man of many faces. He might be serving coffee incognito at your local coffee shop, or masquerading as the co-worker in the cubicle next to you, or as your new boss. As a corporate spy, it’s all in a day’s work for Klausman.

After graduating from PSU with a degree in business and social sciences in 1966, Klausman said he had no idea he would end up uncovering illegal activity within organizations as a corporate spy–he was originally a deputy sheriff for the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office, he said.

During his time in the sheriff’s office, Klausman applied for jobs at the FBI and the CIA, but quickly realized such a high-profile career in espionage was not for him.

“I went back and looked over the intelligence community back in Washington, and just decided it was a little too scary for me,” Klausman said. “I didn’t have any control over what I would do, and I would be under someone else’s watch.”

But when he got a call from a lawyer offering him work in corporate espionage, it was a passage into another type of cloak-and-dagger world just as intriguing and sometimes just as dangerous as government work, he said.

Drawing both on his ability to establish a rapport with people, as well as disguise himself as anyone from doctors to businessmen to cook’s assistants, Klausman works his way into companies and institutions to uncover any nefarious or illegal activity, such as fraud, counterfeiting and copyright infringement.

But how exactly is the spy able to prepare for all these roles?

“That’s pretty much a trade secret,” Klausman said. “All it is is just acting. [But] there are no retakes … you make a mistake and you’re done.”

Klausman said he has been able to keep his identity a secret.

“No one knows who I am,” Klausman said. However, Klausman has experienced his fair share of sticky situations and has learned to hone his escape abilities because of them, he said.

One instance was when Klausman was investigating a psychiatrist whose patient claimed he had victimized her. He was unable to share much more than that regarding the case.

“I was a psychiatrist for 10 minutes,” Klausman joked. “I mean, I couldn’t pull it off for more than that.”

During that time, he knew the other doctors began to be suspicious of him, he said, and quickly left the building with the files that his client needed to win a civil lawsuit and have the doctor’s license taken away.

Another, more harrowing, escape happened when Klausman was investigating merchandise distributors in Connecticut. The distributors were importing illegal goods and selling them to unlicensed dealers.

Klausman said he set up a fake company to catch them in the act, but became leery when one of the distributors wanted to meet face-to-face with him at a place in Long Beach, Calif.

“I called a friend of mine at the LAPD and said, ‘What is this?'” said Klausman, referring to the meeting place. “The friend replied, ‘Well, it’s a mafia dumping ground.'”

Klausman said he decided not to attend the meeting, and afterwards contacted his boss who said “‘Get out of there now! They know who you are!'”

Grabbing some things from his office, Klausman said he was about to drive away when he noticed a man exiting the door of his office, which was supposedly unknown to everyone.

“I know it was the mafia,” Klausman said. “They were after me.”

Using his own experiences as a template, Klausman has since written a novel, called The Amacon Cover. He has also written a screenplay, Switch, another thriller of corporate espionage.

Klausman said he enjoys writing. His latest screenplay, Stevie: Making It With Autism, hits closer to home and is the story of his 40-year-old autistic son, Stevie, one of Klausman’s four children.

Klausman said he and his first wife discovered that their son had autism at the age of 2. He’s a savant who is brilliant with numbers and has a photographic memory, according to Klausman.

“You can say, ‘What were we doing Aug. 10 of 1978?’ He can tell you exactly where we were and what we did,” says Klausman about his son, who he also said is a “natural athlete” and has won several gold medals in the Special Olympics.

Klausman’s diversity extends outside of his literary talents as well–he also formed a bluegrass band, the River City Ramblers, in 1960, and still sings and plays banjo and guitar with the group today.

“It’s just amazing that he could hold a group together that long,” says Glenn Berry, a long-time friend and former band mate.

Klausman is “very funny … people just migrate towards him,” said Berry, who met Klausman while taking choir at PSU. “He’s like a brother.”

As a musician, “he’s extremely talented,” said Bob Statton, another friend that Klausman met at PSU through a fraternity. Statton said he has often gone skiing and camping with Klausman and his family, but doesn’t know much about his work in corporate espionage.

Berry said he also doesn’t know much about Klausman’s work, except some of the cases he does are “on the edge,” but his profession doesn’t surprise him, he said.

“He’s kind of like Sherlock Holmes,” Berry said. “He loves to investigate.”

Klausman said he has never doubted the line of work he has chosen.

“Everything I do is rewarding because it’s all defense. It’s all about righting a wrong,” he said.