An academic who specialized in international monetary policy, he didn't seem to fit the profile of a state demographer. In 2000, Gochnour was about to put Ashdown's résumé in her "not interview" stack, when one of his references caught her eye: Rich McKeown, former Gov. Mike Leavitt's chief of staff.

Ashdown had worked with McKeown at the Utah Tax Commission before getting his doctorate. "It made me pick up the phone," says Gochnour. She hired him to replace longtime economist Pam Perlich for a job managing Utah's population and economic projections; she never regretted her decision.

Now, five years later, Ashdown has followed in his mentor's footsteps, taking the most influential behind-the-scenes job in state government: chief of staff to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. Equivalent to the chief operating officer of a large corporation, the state's chief of staff oversees the day-to-day functioning of the $9 billion organization, ensures that administration policies are translated into action and acts as the crucial gatekeeper to the top boss.

As in his previous job in the governor's Office of Planning and Budget, Ashdown sort of slipped in under the radar while Jason Chaffetz, the more colorful and vocal Huntsman campaign manager, was put in charge.

Ashdown is left to smooth over the rough edges plowed by his predecessor. Five years ago, he took Perlich's class at the U. to learn his job and pick Perlich's brain. This time, he will have to soothe disgruntled legislators still smarting from Chaffetz' brusque manner in order to ferry the governor's flat-tax plan, education initiatives and other reforms through the 2006 Legislature.

If anyone can mend fences with both state workers and lawmakers, it's Ashdown, says Gochnour, former state economist and Leavitt spokeswoman.

"It's like there was a huge, collective sigh of relief [when Ashdown was promoted]. His leadership is welcomed," she says. "He's someone who can really deliver in tricky situations because of his maturity and stability."

Born and raised in Lander, Wyo., Ashdown apparently was grounded from birth. His father worked as an engineer and manager of the iron mine in town. Crimped by the limitations of his small town, Ashdown was antsy to shake the dust off his feet. Even as a young child, he would wander off. His parents usually found him at the baseball field, watching his older brother play.

In a small, Wyoming mountain town, there isn't much to do. Like most kids, Ashdown dragged Main Street, watched a lot of "M*A*S*H" reruns, hung out at the Dairyland drive-in and dented his father's truck doing "cookies" in the snow. At the same time, he was studious, but not so bookwormish to prevent him from playing on the high school football team or winning the office of student body vice president. He sang in the choir and ran sprints for the track team.

Nick Johnstone, who went to junior high and high school with Ashdown, isn't surprised by his meteoric rise in state government.

Neither is his younger brother, Clay. "Lander seemed too small for Neil. He always had big ideas and big dreams."

He studied political science at the University of Wyoming on scholarship and then public administration at the University of Utah. A third degree beckoned at State University of New York in Albany. He worked for a time at the Center for Legislative Development, training Lebanon's new parliament. He was about to do the same in Zimbabwe when that country descended into chaos. Ashdown started looking for a teaching job. He figured he'd work for the state for a year while he tried to become a professor.

"It's turned into a career," he says.

Last year, his largely bureaucratic job veered more directly into politics. Ashdown and Huntsman got to know each other when the governor was chairman of Envision Utah, a nonprofit group attempting to help Utah plan its future growth. But in 2004, he started fielding calls from the candidates for governor, including Huntsman, answering basic questions about the state budget and economic policy. While some in former Gov. Olene Walker's camp question his loyalty, wondering if he fed Huntsman details for the race, Ashdown says he was hands-off.

"I really tried to stay out of it," he says.

Nevertheless, Ashdown was one of the few Leavitt and Walker veterans Huntsman picked for his administration. Despite his relative youth - compared to previous governors' chiefs of staff - in many ways, Ashdown is the old-timer in the office. He started out as the governor's policy adviser. Huntsman doesn't expect that to change much with a different job title. He calls Ashdown professorial.

"It was very important to have people who understand the numbers and who were steeped in the intricacies of budget making and the legislative process," Huntsman says. "It's hard to have good public policy without having good numbers to back that up."

In lighter moments, the governor jokes about using a shorter, published version of Ashdown's doctoral thesis as a cure for insomnia.

Ashdown is unapologetically wonkish. His office is still largely bare, except for several economic tomes and a Utah license plate with the word "chief" on it.

But there is another side to the wonk - a budding novelist. A few years ago, during weekends at his in-laws' cabin on Bear Lake, Ashdown penned a fanciful book about a talking deer, One Made of Many. It's an animal allegory for the humans we meet on the journey of life, something he says he wrote to answer his young son's questions about the differences between people. He originally planned to publish the short novel. Now, he figures it will sit on his shelf at home to be shared with family and, perhaps, close friends. Writing fiction, apparently, is his release from numbers.

While his new job is largely about coordinating and managing the state's departments and 25,000 workers, Ashdown is more comfortable focusing on economic policy. He knows he will have to be the heavy sometimes. But he expects to stay in the background, letting others take the limelight while he plans for current Utahns' great-grandchildren.

"This is a place where I get to have my fingers in policy in ways that could affect future generations in positive ways," he says.

Neil Ashdown

Age: 35.

Hometown: Lander, Wyo.

Family: Wife Andrea; son Roman, 6; daughter Siena, 2.

Books written: An espionage thriller inspired by an LDS mission in northern Italy; One Made of Many, a heady book about talking animals in the style of Jonathan Livingston Seagull and The Impact of Banking Policy on Trade and Global Stability, his doctoral thesis.