The two women came to their positions from different paths: Knight, who has been Orrin Hatch's top staffer since 1999, hails from the Washington area, had a career in government and is an expert on health care; Collipriest is a Utahn who ran Bob Bennett's press office since he was elected before becoming his chief of staff last year.

Each has the ear of their boss as they act as counselor, confidante, gatekeeper and traffic cop. And they thrive in a job still dominated by men - about a quarter of the Senate chiefs of staff are women, and it is the first time both top staffers for Utah's senators have been female.

"They have different styles, but both of them serve their bosses exceptionally well," said Bill Simmons, a Washington lobbyist who has worked closely with Knight and Collipriest.

The backroom soldier

Patricia Knight wants no part of this. She is baffled why anyone would want to read an article about her.

"I really see myself as kind of a faceless supporter for the man who does the job," she says. "There are some chiefs of staff who want to get their names in the paper. I'm just not that."

Knight didn't plan to be where she is today. The daughter of a pair of Washington journalists, she graduated with degrees in photojournalism and anthropology.

She started her government career at the Commerce Department as an assistant to a caseworker, moving to the legislative staff, then up through various positions on House committees and the Department of Health and Human Services, eventually becoming a deputy assistant secretary at HHS.

She was pushed out of her HHS post after President Clinton took office, and began working as a volunteer for Hatch the day after Clinton's inauguration until she found another job.

But Hatch said her talent was apparent and he quickly hired her back as a health staffer.

"She has worked her guts out for our state and for me," Hatch says. "She's one of the shrewdest, smartest, most effective legislative minds in the Senate. She knows everyone and she knows her way around."

Knight has played a pivotal role in every health care bill Hatch has been part of.

In 1994 she helped write the law regulating dietary supplements and has been intimately involved with the issue since. In 1997, she worked with Sen. Edward Kennedy's staff to craft State Children's Health Insurance Program, that today provides health coverage to 6 million low-income children.

In 1999, Hatch approached Knight, asking her to be his chief of staff, a job she didn't seek and didn't expect to get.

She stands out in the starched-shirt, button-down Congress.

Knight often wears two pairs of glasses - one on her face and reading glasses perched on her forehead - and she totes a large, bright bag jammed with files, her Blackberry and a bag of peanut M&Ms.

It also holds her latest cross-stitch or needlepoint work and she surprises people when she starts stitching in the middle of staff meetings or negotiations with Democratic staffers. They are more surprised when they realize she has understood and distilled everything that has gone on.

Her sense of humor can be as sharp and pointed as her needles - and can rub some the wrong way, say those who know her.

"I think I'm much more of a checkers player than a chess player," Knight says. "I like to believe what you see is what you get."

She lets you know where you stand, says Dave Hansen, who ran Hatch's re-election campaign.

"Whatever she says, that's what she means," he says. "She'll never be accused of being a glad-hander."

But experience in Washington has given her a staggering network of contacts. She can pick up the phone and get an issue moving.

"She is wicked-smart and has as good an ability to tactically move legislation as anybody in Washington," says Simmons, the lobbyist.

Knight is a policy wonk and, despite her broader role, remains steeped in health policy. She recently negotiated complex legislation on the Food and Drug Administration's handling of biologic treatments - things like gene therapies, blood and tissue treatments and vaccines.

And she is a workaholic, addicted to her Blackberry and spending late nights and weekends in the office plowing through the piles of paper that accumulate on her desk. She carefully monitors what leaves the office, screening press statements, speeches and occasionally reviewing constituent mail, particularly on the stem cell issue.

In the free time she has, she tends to her vegetable and flower garden, likes to escape to the beach and cares for her dogs - Maxie, a Scottish terrier, and Frank, a Shar Pei and Labrador retriever mix.

"As one gets to know her and understand what a Senate office is all about, I think Orrin has benefited greatly from having her there," says Spencer Stokes, one of Hatch's political advisers, who is close to Knight.

Adds Hansen: "She doesn't really have a lot of interests beyond what goes on inside that office to be honest with you, which is good for the senator."

A sense for the game

Each new batch of college interns that comes through Bob Bennett's office gets the same speech: Work hard, take advantage of this opportunity and it could change your life.

It's more than a nice pep talk, considering the source.

Collipriest first came to Washington as an intern herself. Two decades later, Bennett says her intellect and acute political instincts make her a vital adviser and have landed her in the inner circle of Senate Republican leadership.

"She's one of those Utahns who came back and made a career back here," says David Lee, a D.C. lobbyist with Utah roots.

As a student at the University of Utah, Collipriest was involved in student government and young Republican politics. But it was a brief Washington internship she did in 1985 that changed her life.

"In those three short weeks the Potomac fever bug bit and I couldn't wait to come back," she said.

Two years later, she was back as an intern in Sen. Jake Garn's press office, but Garn says he was impressed with her ability at a young age and hired her full-time.

She came to the office at a busy time, as Garn was in the middle of Congress' response to the savings and loan meltdown and handling a sensitive issue about a Japanese company that illegally sold submarine technology to the Soviet Union.

They were heavier issues than would normally be entrusted to a young staffer, said Jackie Clegg-Dodd, Garn's defense staffer at the time.

"That's when I kind of got to see her cut her teeth on very big issues that had all sorts of sensitivities and she did a fabulous job," said Clegg-Dodd, the wife of presidential candidate, Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn. "She was always ahead of most of her peers. She was a real professional from a very young age.

She also remembers Collipriest scraping by on a young staffer's salary, eating frozen yogurt for lunch and going to Senate receptions for the free meal.

After winning the election to replace Garn in 1992, Bennett said he planned to hire his own people, not holding anyone over from Garn's team, concerned about mixed loyalties. But his transition team came back and suggested he make an exception for Collipriest.

Garn, who had known Bennett since the 3rd grade, said that he remembers a meeting in which Bennett casually mentioned he was keeping Collipriest. "I said, 'Well, then you're a really bright senator, Bob,' " Garn said.

"The thing that attracted me to her as press secretary was her political instinct," said Bennett.

Loyalties were not a problem, as Collipriest proved to be devoted, sometimes protective of the senator. And over time, Bennett came to trust her political insight more and more, bringing her into his inner-circle.

"The senator really, really values her opinion," says Luke Johnson, a former Bennett staffer, now chief of staff at the Bureau of Land Management. "And you can tell that when she speaks, people listen and her insight, in my observation, is spot on."

Last year, when Bennett's chief of staff departed, the senator said felt his anticipated role as adviser to Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., now the Senate Minority Leader, required a top aide with keen political skills, prompting him to promote Collipriest for the job. She now participates in a weekly meeting with Senate Republican leadership, including Bennett and McConnell.

As a press secretary, Collipriest had to track every issue and piece of legislation moving through the office - practice that serves her well as chief of staff. However, she tends to step back from the technical wrangling and negotiations that go into hammering out legislation. She strategizes and weighs in on the essence of the policy, but leaves the technical matters to staff.

"I have a lot of folks tell me that you've got one of the best on Capitol Hill," said Bennett, who is familiar with the role, having served as chief of staff to his father, Sen. Wallace F. Bennett.

Collipriest shares a love of art with the senator and enjoys skiing on those occasions when her job lets her get home to Utah.

She has also been learning to golf, she says, almost a job requirement in the Washington networking world.

Clegg-Dodd, who remains close friends with Collipriest, says she is a de facto aunt to the Dodd children and keeps them supplied with stylish outfits. She has vacationed with the family in Ireland and New England, and helped her friend plan her wedding to the senator in secret in a five-week span.

"Utah has really been lucky in getting seamless support from an individual who came here as a baby and grew up in this job," said Clegg-Dodd.

gehrke@sltrib.com

On Collipriest:

I have a lot of folks tell me that you've got one of the best on Capitol Hill.

- Utah Sen. Bob Bennett, talking about his chief of staff.

On Knight:

She's one of the shrewdest, smartest, most effective legislative minds in the Senate. She knows everyone and she knows her way around.

- Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, talking about his chief of staff.