Hi, I’m Janice—you know me.

In San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Visiting one of Alaska's historic Totems.

I grew up in Southern California near Disneyland. My dad was a US Marine, and a UAW auto worker. My mom was a union telephone operator, who helped me get the first of many union jobs as telephone operator for Pacific Bell.

When I was 21 I organized the sewing sweatshop where
I worked, organizing under Amalgamated Clothing Workers
of America.

The first in my family to attend college, I worked throughout college as a union member of Retail Clerks. As a single mom with a four day old baby, I started at the University of California, San Francisco School of Nursing to earn my BS; then attended Cal State Northridge in the Public health education graduate program.

In the beginning of the HIV epidemic I was a member
of California Nurses’ Association AIDS training program.

I first came to Alaska in 1991. My husband worked doing water treatment on the North Slope. So, I moved to Anchorage in spring of 1992, taking nine days to drive the Alaska Highway, with a toddler and a cat, pulling a trailer.

We started Alaska Water Systems in 1994, supplying North Slope drillers, villages, carwashes, and hospitals with commercial water treatment. Our retail Water Store in the front of Alaska Laser Wash on 5th Avenue operated from 1999 to 2008 serving residential customers.

Because of my passion for making a difference to issues that affect so many families, I became a paralegal while attending the UAA Paralegal program. I learned to research and argue my own divorce property settlement in the Alaska Supreme Court in 2009 and I won, establishing precedent for property distribution protection for other Alaskans. Since then I have worked on numerous divorce and custody cases, helping Alaskan women to receive the settlements they deserve.

I've seen loved ones struggle with addiction to prescribed opioids and I have experienced what it can do to families. Currently I have a case in the Alaska Supreme Court fighting to hold prescribers of opioids accountable when they continue to provide these drugs to addicted individuals,
often leading to their death.