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WASHINGTON - When LDS Church officials host ambassadors from around the world later this month to throw the switch on 450,000 Christmas lights at its D.C. temple, it will be about more than spreading good cheer.
It will be an opportunity for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to lay the diplomatic groundwork to fulfill its goal of spreading the faith's teachings to every corner of the globe.
At the helm of the church's operation is M. Kenneth Bowler, who for three decades in the nation's capital has been wired into the workings of Washington, working as the top staffer on the most powerful committee in the House and later running a $6 million-a-year lobbying operation for Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical company.
"The LDS Church is well-off with Ken," says Sen. Orrin Hatch, who calls Bowler a close friend. "He's a truly decent man who lives his faith, sets a great example, and has the moxie and know-how around Washington to represent his faith with great dignity."
Recently Bowler made the rounds, meeting with prominent Washington news outlets in an effort to educate political reporters and shape perceptions of the faith in anticipation of the national attention expected if Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Mormon, decides to run for president.
Mild-mannered and soft-spoken, Bowler grew up in St. George and was the progeny of the town's original founders dispatched by Brigham Young to settle the area.
His father, Marion, was the Republican mayor of the city for eight years and built the city's first golf course. Ken attended Dixie State College and served a mission to Great Britain before receiving a bachelor's degree at Stanford University.
He married Ann Taylor, the daughter of a Utah legislator and tax commissioner, and in 1970 moved to Washington with their first child for what was supposed to be a one-year fellowship after receiving a graduate degree at the University of Wisconsin.
Bowler landed in the office of California Rep. James Corman, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, a powerful panel that handles taxes, trade, health policy and a laundry list of other issues.
He became the top staffer on the committee under Dan Rostenkowski, the gruff, no-nonsense, larger-than-life committee chairman from Chicago. Rostenkowski recalls the first time Bowler walked into his office sporting a haircut out of "Prince Valiant," the comic strip about a medieval knight.
"He came to Washington like all the rest of his generation, long hair and evangelical thoughts," Rostenkowski said. "You can just imagine me from Chicago wearing a Butch haircut and Ken Bowler comes into my office with a bob, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt."
And he was glad he did.
Bowler turned out to be tireless, meticulous and unfailingly upbeat. "He couldn't say 's--t' if he had a mouthful of it," Rostenkowski said.
"When you work with someone as long as I worked with Ken, and in the beginning it was kind of an adversarial relationship, but I learned over a period of years to have a great deal of respect and a great deal of affection for him," said Rostenkowski.
Pfizer hired Bowler in 1989 and he spent 16 years as vice president of federal government affairs, shaping U.S. health policy and helping Pfizer become the behemoth it is today, while sipping his odd concoction of Diet Coke and grapefruit juice.
LDS Church-owned Brigham Young University sued Pfizer last month, alleging the company stole a lucrative breakthrough in anti-inflammatory medication. The company has denied the claims, and Bowler said he could not comment on it because it is a legal matter.
"Ken Bowler is one of the smartest guys in Washington, and he's not just book smart; he has sound political judgment," said Michael Boyd, who spent years lobbying for Pfizer before leaving for another drug company.
By the time Bowler left, Pfizer was a powerhouse, spending more on lobbying than any other pharmaceutical company, according to M. Asif Ismail, an expert on the drug-industry lobbying at the Center For Public Integrity. Lobbying records indicate Pfizer spent more than $6 million in 2005.
"They fought tooth and nail any efforts to bring the price of drugs down," Ismail said, and the company was constantly on the lookout for its bottom line.
And the company was effective, Ismail said, beating back proposals to allow the importation of drugs from Canada, fending off efforts to have the government negotiate drug prices, protecting patent rights for their products, and helping to shape the Medicare prescription drug benefit Congress passed in 2003.
Boyd said Bowler believed in the research the drug companies were doing, and when he believed in something, Bowler was a determined and effective advocate.
Bowler said the church finds itself in a similar situation to the pharmaceutical industry when he went to work at Pfizer, needing to educate people about who they were and what they did.
"The big activity there was taking members of Congress, members of the press, others, to the research facilities, our headquarters, just to say we're real people - this is the work we're doing," Bowler says. "A lot of that is the same thing we're doing for the church."
Bowler is also part of a rare breed, the Mormon Democrat, although his political contributions speak to his pragmatism - he has given $18,750 to Democratic candidates, $14,750 to Republicans.
His father worked on Hatch's first Senate campaign, but Bowler says his own politics were shaped in college by his involvement in movements to combat inner-city poverty, promote civil rights and end the Vietnam War.
At the same time, he has been an LDS bishop, conducted the ward choir and is now a stake patriarch. When he was called to serve in the bishopric, Bowler says, the bishop, who was a Navy commander, said he was pleased with the choice, "even though he's a Democrat."
"I make a separation between the focus of the church, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and political issues, and have never thought it was a challenge," Bowler says. "I'm representing the church; I'm not representing myself."
Bowler retired from Pfizer last year and was looking forward to spending time with his grandchildren and not having to make his 90-minute commute from his home in Columbia, Md., to Washington.
He contemplated teaching government or writing a book, and perhaps getting back more frequently to St. George, where he still shares a vacation home and enjoys running and cycling.
But when LaMar Sleight announced he was leaving as head of the church's governmental affairs office last year, Bowler was part of the panel to find a replacement, then he was asked if he would take the job.
"It's sort of hard to say no when they ask you," Bowler says.
Marcus Faust, the son of LDS General Authority James Faust and a prominent D.C. lobbyist who occasionally works for the church, called Bowler's hiring a "great blessing."
"An individual who has his expertise and familiarity with the workings of government, particularly the workings of Congress, he could be out making a million dollars or more consulting," Faust said. "It just is a statement of what he views as important."
Profile:
* AGE: 64
* BORN: St. George
* EDUCATION: Dixie College; bachelor's degree from Stanford University; Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin.
* CAREER: Staff director on the House Ways and Means Committee; vice president of federal affairs for Pfizer; vice president of international and government relations for the LDS Church. Taught political science at the University of Maryland, heads the Johns Hopkins University Oncology Center Advisory Council; member of the board of directors of the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington and the Faith and Politics Institute.
* FAMILY: Married to Ann Bowler; four children, the youngest 26; seven grandchildren; lives in Columbia, Md.