When David Boomer hit bottom in November 1987, the victim of a drinking problem, it was John Mastropietro who helped turn his life around.

Mastropietro got the young congressional aide to enter a treatment program. As chief of staff for then-U.S. Rep. John G. Rowland, Mastropietro told Boomer not to worry; his job and his future were secure.

Today, Boomer credits Mastropietro -- "Mastro" to his friends -- with saving his life.

"He stuck with me in a very tough time and he kept my job open," Boomer recalled this week. "Had he not done that, I would be dead."

Now Mastropietro, whose people skills are not as widely touted as his political acumen, faces the challenge of turning around a Republican Party whose problems, though not life-threatening, are severe.

To those who know him best, the 39-year-old Watertown resident who was unanimously elected party chairman Tuesday is the ideal person to shake the state GOP out of its decades-long lethargy.

As the architect of Rowland's strategy in the three-way gubernatorial race in 1990, Mastropietro drove the ticket to within 3 percentage points of victory, the closest the Republicans have come to winning the governor's office in 23 years. Indeed, if Democrat Bruce A. Morrison's candidacy hadn't collapsed, many believe, Rowland would have defeated independent Lowell P. Weicker Jr.

To this day, Rowland and Mastropietro, whose working relationship dates from 1984 when Rowland first ran for Congress, remain fast friends and political allies.

"We're like an old married couple nagging at each other all the time," Rowland said. "I'm the risk-taker. He's very calm, organized and incredibly cautious."

In what was considered an unusual arrangement, Mastropietro served as Rowland's top congressional aide, even though he was based in Waterbury. Mastropietro directed the Washington operation from afar, spending as many as five hours a day on the phone and occasionally jetting to the capital to put out legislative fires.

Despite the distance, Mastropietro inspired loyalty from the staff, which had one of the lowest turnover rates on Capitol Hill.

"There was never any in-fighting. Mastropietro was the No. 1 person and everyone recognized that. We had very few problems," said Boomer, who was a legislative assistant to Rowland and later his press secretary.

After leaving Rowland's employ, Mastropietro, a lawyer, worked for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in Boston, where he managed a $1.3 billion housing budget and supervised a staff of 537. He left the political post in late January.

Political associates say HUD was a character-building experience in which Mastropietro learned to "butt heads" with a wide assortment of people. As one of 10 regional administrators, he earned praise for his stewardship of the agency and caught the eye of former HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, who has agreed to be keynote speaker at the state party's Prescott Bush dinner June 14.

Mastropietro, who is married and the father of two adopted sons from the Philippines -- Mark, 7, and Daniel, 4 -- has since landed a 25-hour-a-week job with CIGNA Corp., allowing him the flexibility he needs to function as party chief.

His political indoctrination began at age 10, when he swept the floor of Waterbury mayoral candidate Lou Gallulo's headquarters. Though he flirted for a while with the Democratic Party, he soon realized he was more at home with the Republican philosophy that "the best government is the least government."

Mastropietro is also comfortable with the notion that the party should be inclusive, and to that end has pledged to steer the state GOP down a centrist path, rejecting what he calls the "rigidity and righteousness" of the national party's more conservative elements.

He credits his parents, Daniel and Elmira Mastropietro of Watertown, with teaching him the fundamental values of hard work, thrift, honesty and loyalty, traits that people also ascribe to him.

"My heroes are my mother and father," Mastropietro said. "They are exactly the type of people that both parties need to be catering to today: people who ask for nothing more than to make enough money to support their families and put a roof over their heads, and raise and educate their children."

A skillful technician, say those who know him, Mastropietro has dedicated himself to remedying the party's ills, eliminating its $125,000 debt, recruiting good candidates and improving its communications and voter-targeting techniques.

That will come, he says, not by "throwing Hail Mary passes, crossing our fingers and hoping that someone is there to receive it," but by putting in place an ideological and political infrastructure to carry the party into the next century.

But, as sincere and resolute as Mastropietro is, perspective is important, he says.

"Politics is fun, politics is necessary for government to be effective. But we need to understand that it has its place. It's not finding a cure for cancer or solving world hunger. We need to make sure that we don't take ourselves too seriously.

(Copyright @ The Hartford Courant 1993)