# Zan Associates

> Zan Associates is a Minneapolis-based transportation planning, public engagement, and communications consultancy that helps public agencies and project teams involve communities in decisions about streets, transit, parks, sewers, and other civic infrastructure. Founded by Charleen Zimmer in 2001 and led by President and CEO Joy Miciano since 2021, the firm combines planning expertise with pop-up events, multilingual outreach, surveys, visual design, construction communications, and consensus-building.

- **Founded:** 2001
- **Headquarters:** Minneapolis, United States
- **Founders:** Charleen Zimmer (Founder)
- **Products:** Creative engagement, Inclusive transportation and environmental planning, Strategic and construction communications, Consensus-building and training
- **Notable:** Founder Charleen Zimmer built the firm from a solo consultancy launched in 2001 into a multi-office practice., Joy Miciano joined as the firm's first employee in 2011 and became president and CEO in 2021., WTS Minnesota named Joy Miciano its 2024 Woman of the Year.

## Products & services

- **Creative engagement** — Public meetings, pop-ups, stakeholder interviews, surveys, online engagement, culturally specific outreach, facilitation, and feedback documentation designed to include people who are often missed by conventional hearings.
- **Inclusive transportation and environmental planning** — Planning and technical support for transit, multimodal, street, highway, land-use, environmental, freight, rail, park, and zero-emission-bus work.
- **Strategic and construction communications** — Communications plans, websites, social media, project updates, graphics, hotline and email management, business access coordination, and issue response during disruptive construction.
- **Consensus-building and training** — Design workshops, charrettes, stakeholder processes, context-sensitive design training, and facilitation for complex public decisions.

## Achievements

- Founder Charleen Zimmer built the firm from a solo consultancy launched in 2001 into a multi-office practice.
- Joy Miciano joined as the firm's first employee in 2011 and became president and CEO in 2021.
- WTS Minnesota named Joy Miciano its 2024 Woman of the Year.
- WTS Minnesota awarded Zan's Brigitte Bjorklund the 2024 Rosa Parks Diversity Leadership Award.
- The Central Certification Program recertified Z Companies, Inc. dba Zan Associates as a women-owned, minority-owned, small, and emerging small business enterprise through November 2026.
- The firm expanded beyond Minneapolis with staff and an office in Portland, Oregon.
- Zan was selected as the qualified team for Minneapolis's Northside Greenway Phase 1 and 2 engineering, design, and engagement work.

## Latest updates

- **2026-02** — Minneapolis authorized a $225,000 amendment to Zan's Northside Greenway Phase 1 and 2 contract, raising the broader engineering-and-design agreement to a not-to-exceed $1,578,889 for added outreach, design, green-stormwater, and Phase 2 work.
- **2025-09** — Zan highlighted its co-authorship of research on transportation needs in daily life, developed with the Metropolitan Council, Bolton & Menk, and Safe Streets Research & Consulting.
- **2025-04** — A City of Minneapolis two-year master services agreement placed Zan in the 2025-2027 Public Works Community Engagement Consulting Pool, with an amount up to $300,000.
- **2024-05** — Joy Miciano received WTS Minnesota's Woman of the Year award, while Brigitte Bjorklund received the chapter's Rosa Parks Diversity Leadership Award.

## Links

- Website: https://www.zanassoc.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/zan-associates/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/ZanAssociates
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ZanAssociates/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZanAssoc/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/zan-associates
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-09-23