Travel-wise Mark Mastrini.

• Author: BRONIKOWSKI, LYNN
• Position: Profile of the chief executive officer of Trip.com - Brief Article

leads Denver's Trip.com

During this year's summer of discontent in the airline industry, Mark Mastrini suffered his share of six-hour flight delays, topped off by his own parental nightmare of having a 1-year-old son crying for his crib -- all made more onerous by the repeated frustration he saw over and over again in the faces of weary road warriors.

Mastrini is the kind of guy who believes the airlines' argument that 70 percent of delays are weather-related, yet he's also taken his own potshots at carriers over the lack of information they provide consumers when delays occur.

And once in awhile he can play the hero.

Mastrini, president and CEO of 5-year-old Trip.com, was trying to get home from Chicago last summer amid a flurry of delays. Fellow travelers scrambled to gates for information and got nowhere. Mastrini, meanwhile, sat patiently getting flight updates from a live FAA feed via his digital phone -- one of his company's offered travel services. "I was the hero of information at the gate," said Mastrini, who, just as quickly as he was relaying fresh departure and arrival times to grateful travelers, was also able to change his own flight plans. "I was ahead of the pack when it came to rebooking my flight," he said.

Mastrini came aboard Trip.com -- a suburban Denver-based online travel service and technology provider that targets business professionals -- after 17 years at other companies in the industry. A native of Pueblo, his life was turned upside down at age 13 when his father died. He entered a youthful rebellious stage, and his mother mortgaged their house to send him off to Marine Military Academy in Harlingen, Texas. It was a tough decision, but it made a big difference.

"It takes the smart-ass right out of you," said Mastrini, who went on to become the only second-year battalion commander in the school's history, a distinction that still stands.

During those years, Mastrini developed an interest in the airline industry, and at age 19 he founded a regional airline with a military-school buddy. That upstart business ultimately took a...