Roybal, sitting ramrod straight at the end of a conference table, told sometimes angry members of the powerful DBED for the third time, "We must agree to disagree on that."

It was not the most auspicious debut for a state executive.

Many of the business leaders who help set the state's development policy were irritated, to say the least, that Roybal had not consulted them before launching a take-no-prisoners overhaul of the state Department of Community and Economic Department. Huntsman's staff on Jan. 5 fired 33 economic development officials by e-mail.

To the board's grilling, Roybal responded, "We're building a new strategy, eliminating a culture that did not get the job done."

Roybal, 43, finds himself at the center of a political whirlwind - most of it of his own creation.

Huntsman, an heir to the Huntsman chemical conglomerate, has made it clear his administration's priority is business development. All other needs, including increased education funding, Huntsman promises, will flow from the resulting improvement of Utah's economy.

The new governor is depending on Roybal to design a new state economic development machine with the same level of accountability as a private enterprise. And although Huntsman laid out his administration's economic goals early in the campaign, Roybal made one thing crystal clear his first day on the job: The Huntsman administration has the guts to make painful and unpopular changes.

Business interest: Roybal himself got most of his business experience in the government and nonprofit sectors. A native Utahn, he graduated from the University of Utah in 1986 with a degree in geo-physics. Finding himself attracted to the business side of industry, Roybal earned a master's of business administration from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1988 and returned to Utah to work as a consultant. He was involved in projects launched by a venture capital firm owned by Utah Republican Congressman Chris Cannon.

"Some made money, some didn't," Roybal remembers.

In the early 1990s, during Gov. Norm Bangerter's administration, Roybal joined the Department of Community and Economic Development where he worked in business development. But in 1993, after the arrival of Gov. Mike Leavitt, Roybal moved on to the Economic Development Corp. of Utah, a private, nonprofit organization that tries to lure new businesses to Utah.

Roybal later became director of EDCU, holding the post until his appointment to Huntsman's transition team.

Bill Martin, a businessman and EDCU board member, said the quasi-private business development venture was a response to the state's ineffectual stabs at development. "The EDCU was created to fill a vacuum because the state was not doing a very good job in economic development," he said.

But the state and quasi-private recruiters often squabbled over credit for bringing companies into the state. Huntsman himself says he is troubled by the lack of accountability in economic development. "It's one of the problems we found when we looked at economic development," Huntsman said, adding his efforts will be "transparent" to the public. Roybal says beyond new strategies, his changes will strip off layers of bureaucracy. "We want to assemble a small, nimble group that can make a difference," Roybal says.

The final details of economic development should emerge over the next month or so, he says, "Stay tuned."

Defining the role: The shape is clear now. Huntsman will put the streamlined core of economic development into his immediate orbit. Offices in the department that are not directly related to business development will be spun off as a new Community and Arts Department.

Economic development, led by Roybal, will "target" businesses and coordinate the often duplicative initiatives led by cities, counties and trade groups. Huntsman himself will be a working member of the "small, nimble group." "The governor has already taken the title economic czar. He will be out there door knocking," Roybal says.

"We are defining the state's role in the economic development world," he says. And though he avoids details, Roybal acknowledges, "There definitely will be a bigger role for EDCU."

Some technology leaders, however, fear Huntsman's administration does not understand the importance of spinning off local high-tech companies from innovations developed at the state's universities. Leon "Priz" Przybyla, director of Brigham Young University's Technology Transfer Office, as well as representatives from several other universities, met with Roybal, in his role as EDCU director, shortly before the campaign. Roybal failed to convince the technologists he is committed to home-gown entrepreneurial tech development, he says.

"His view at the meeting was that he thought it was more important to woo in an IBM to build a facility here than to work with a startup that might take five years before it is hiring significantly," Przybyla says. "We weren't getting our point across."

Fired Department of Community and Economic Development Director Dave Harmer says much of Huntsman's new thrust makes sense. "The idea they have of taking the division of business and economic development and moving it closer to Gov. Huntsman - that concept is not a bad concept."

But Harmer fears Roybal needlessly made his own job more difficult with the purge. "The part I don't understand is to come in and wipe out all of the professional level people involved into economic development positions. That created additional challenges for Chris and his team."

The only real challenge to the overhaul lies with the Legislature. The changes run deep enough that lawmakers must change statutes to allow the realignment.

"We are lacking a little in details right now," says Rep. Craig Buttars, R-Lewiston, co-chairman of the Legislature's Business and Economic Committee. "If the governor can make the case that we need to make these changes, then I think the Legislature would be favorable to it."

Still, rural lawmakers fear that an economic development agency that makes a priority, as Roybal has put it, of high-wage jobs and maximum "bang for the buck" could neglect rural communities.

Says Buttars: "One of the things the rural caucus will be discussing is how we can be sure we are not skipped over in this whole process."

Chris Roybal

Position: Senior Adviser for Economic Development to Gov. Jon Huntsman

Age: 43

Hometown: Davis County native who now lives in Farmington

Education: Bachelor's degree in geophysics from University of Utah; master's of business administration degree from University of California at Los Angeles

Family: Married to Cindy, a member of the Farmington Planning Commission. Children: Blake, 17; Haley, 14; and Hunter, 9