You may know David Sandahl as the former deputy mayor in Hopewell, or as the board chairman of the Princeton YMCA. Maybe you heard that he just came back from the white House, where he attended the Forum on Job Creation and Economic Growth, or that he’s helping keep watch over New Jersey’s share of recovery dollars, serving on the New Jersey Recovery Accountability Task Force.

You might not know that his father, working at Bell Labs, was a fiber optic pioneer or that he double majored in econ and government at Bowdoin. That’s when his internship with then Senator Walter Mondale’s office led him to take a master’s degree in organizational management from Yale. His adventures in government include coordinating the security part of the federal budget for President Carter and saving $1 billion in health care costs while retaining benefits for federal employees.

For 17 years he was at Kepner Tregoe, the world-renowned management training and consulting company located just off Route 1. He honchoed the pharma practice, building 7 figure account relationships with the likes of J&J; and Merck, and leading several of the projects for the successful turnaround of a medical device company. For the past five years, at his private practice, Decision Consulting, in Pennington, he has been a strategy advisor. Now he is leading a grass roots effort, the Princeton Job Creation Forum, which promises to hold a “speed dating session” on January 26 for funders and entrepreneurs.

Sandahl will present “Getting It Right This Time: Accelerating Economic Sustainable Growth” on Thursday, January 7, at 11:30 a.m. before the Princeton Regional Chamber of Commerce at the Princeton Marriott (www.princetonchamber.org).

Perhaps the best description of what Sandahl does, to quote the U.S. 1 article, is to be a sherpa, helping people who want to climb the mountain by telling them which paths to take and which to avoid. I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say about the job creation mountain.