Janice Zahn is a Bellevue City Councilmember and Chief Engineer at the Port of Seattle. Born in Hong Kong, she immigrated to the United States at ten years old. Her parents taught her a strong education, hard work and caring for others are recipes for success, advice she lives by daily. Janice attended the University of Washington, earning Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, Master of Science in Structural Engineering, and Executive Master of Public Administration.

Janice began her career at Weyerhaeuser, one of only two women engineers amongst a male-dominated department. She then worked as a structural engineer at Berger/ABAM, designing bridge and waterfront projects for the public sector. After overseeing construction at Sea-Tac Airport, she pivoted to leading cross-sector teams to successfully deliver projects at the Port.

Throughout her life, Janice always gave back to the community, whether volunteering as a Big Sister while in high school, serving as PTA and girl scout mom, or running a Portwide community-giving campaign. She mentors others to achieve their full potential, especially women in male-dominated fields. Janice is proudest of her Port Internship Program, growing future engineers and leaders.

As Chief Engineer, she chairs the Capital Projects Advisory Review Board, serves on Construction Management Certification Institute Board of Governors and Transportation Research Board Project Delivery committee. In those roles, she advises the state legislature on public works contracting, ensuring access for small and diverse businesses, and setting high standards for the engineering profession and government excellence. In 2017, Janice successfully ran for public office in the City of Bellevue.

As a Bellevue City Councilmember, she serves on the National League of Cities Board of Directors, Association of Washington Cities Diversity Equity Inclusion and Belonging Cabinet, King County Climate Action K4C and many other committees. During the pandemic, Janice served on the King County Board of Health and chaired the National League of Cities Asian Pacific American Municipal Officials, making policies on public safety while decrying the anti-Asian hate incidents nationwide. She advocated federally for covid relief, resulting in $20million of funds to Bellevue.

Locally, she serves on the board of Seattle Chinese Radio, Nourishing Networks and The Sophia Way. Janice brings transparency, accountability and a continuous improvement mindset to policy-making. As the only women-of-color on Council, she ensures all voices are represented when policies and decisions are made. She and her husband Dwain have lived in Bellevue for nearly thirty years and has two adult daughters.