The desk of arguably the second-most powerful member of the executive branch of state government is now empty, except for a note and three bottles of medicine — antacids, aspirin and another painkiller.

"I will leave you with the three most important things you will need," says the note penned by the governor's outgoing chief of staff, Jason Chaffetz, to his successor and former deputy, Neal Ashdown.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., whose private office is next door to the chief of staff's, laughed when he saw the display. Chaffetz, who ran the first-time politician's campaign, is the "most gifted political strategist I have ever encountered," the governor declared.

Huntsman praised Chaffetz for making the transition from running his campaign to running his staff. "He combined campaign leadership with executive branch management that is unprecedented," the governor said.

There have been complaints since Huntsman took office in January that Chaffetz — who is only 38 — and other key members of the governor's staff didn't have enough experience in state government. Chaffetz also was sometimes seen as too protective of the governor.

Adding to the friction was Chaffetz's role in firing more than 30 employees of what was then the state Department of Community and Economic Development to put the governor in charge of selling the state.

Chaffetz, whose last day was Friday, said he had no regrets about how he did his job. He announced last month that he was planning to return to the private sector, a decision supported by the governor.

He's reviving a partnership with his brother in a marketing firm, Maxtera, that will handle political accounts in Colorado as well as other clients. But not in Utah, at least not for another year, out of respect for the governor's effort to establish a cooling-off period for state officials.

Chaffetz said he was approached to lobby the Utah Legislature on behalf of some interests he declined to name. He also interviewed for the top communications job with the Utah Jazz, as well as several other organizations.

When Chaffetz joined the Huntsman campaign in mid-2003, he was an executive with NuSkin. Earlier this year, he toyed with the idea of running for office himself as a Republican challenger to Democratic 2nd District Congressman Jim Matheson.

In the end, though, he said he was ready to work for himself after his stint in government. "I have such an entrepreneurial spirit and I am a self-starter. I don't need a structure," he said. "I like being able to grapple with a project and make it happen. Campaigning is like that."

But not the day-to-day business of government. On the campaign trail, "you deal with the crisis of the day, as opposed to the same thing, day in and day out." As chief of staff, he said there were days when "my eyes glazed over."