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hONORARY mEMBERS

In addition to regular members, FAPAC also has Honorary Members who are nominated by the President with the approval of the Board of Directors. Honorary Members are community leaders who are recognized for their service to the AAPI community and also are strong active advocates of the FAPAC brand and mission. Honorary Members are:

  • Representative Cindy Ryu - first Korean woman elected to the Washington legislature (inducted 2011)
  • Conrad Lee - first Asian Mayor of Bellevue, WA (inducted 2011)
  • Senator Susan Lee - first Chinese American State Senator for Maryland after several terms in the Maryland House of Delegates (inducted 2014)
  • Delegate Mark Keam - Korean American representative in the House of Delegates in Virginia (Inducted (2014)

Honorary Member since 2011

Representative Cindy Ryu
First Korean woman elected to the Washington legislature

Rep. Cindy Ryu is serving her 6th term in the Washington State House of Representatives. While a Shoreline City Councilmember, she served as Mayor, becoming the first Korean American woman mayor in America.

In Shoreline, she served as president of both the Shoreline Chamber of Commerce and its Dollars For Scholars Chapter, and helped improve numerous public parks, build its first City Hall and create Shoreline’s Green Business Program. Rep. Ryu is a 51-year resident of Washington state and lived previously in South Korea, Brunei and the Philippines. She received a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and an MBA in Operations Management from the University of Washington. She is also Chair of Women in Government, a national non-profit, non-partisan organization of women state legislators.

Rep. Ryu chairs the Community & Economic Development Committee, with jurisdiction over community development; community investment programs; and underrepresented communities.  The committee also considers issues relating to economic development and economic resiliency, including small business assistance; business financing; international trade; tourism; parks and recreation; telecommunications; and broadband; as well as emergency preparedness, response, and resiliency.

She also serves on Appropriations and Consumer Protection & Business committees, is a Washington Tourism Marketing Authority Board Member, and Pacific Northwest Economic Region Delegate Council Alternate.

Rep. Ryu advocates for small business owners, public schools, public transportation, environmental and consumer protection, affordable housing, homeownership and public safety. She welcomes ideas for implementable solutions to make Washington state a better place for us to live, work, conduct business, and raise our families.

Honorary Member since 2011

Conrad Lee
First Asian Mayor of Bellevue, WA

Councilmember 1/1/94-12/31/25
Mayor 1/2/12-12/31/13
Deputy Mayor 1/4/10-12/31/11

Conrad Lee is Bellevue's first minority member of the City Council, the longest continuous serving member of the council and the first mayor (2012-2013) of Asian (Chinese) ancestry.

He represents Bellevue on the Greater Seattle Partners Executive Council and Puget Sound Regional Council Economic Development Board. He is council liaison to the Environmental Services Commission and Special Events Committee.

He was the former president and chair of the Society of Chinese Engineers of Seattle, as well as the Chinese American Association for Professionals. He chaired the Ethnic Chinese New Year Festival and was president of the Chinese Garden Society.

Conrad holds a master's degree in business administration from the University of Washington and a bachelor's degree in engineering from the University of Michigan. Conrad is retired, after working as the regional administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration and an engineer for the Boeing Co. and Seattle Solid Waste Utility.

Born in China, Conrad grew up in Hong Kong and has lived in Bellevue since 1967. He and his wife Winnie live in the Somerset neighborhood, where they raised their two children, Christopher and Jennifer. They have three granddaughters.

Honorary Member since 2014

Susan C. Lee
First Chinese American State Senator for Maryland

She was the first Asian American elected to the Maryland State Senate and the first Asian American woman and first Chinese American to be elected to the Maryland legislature

In 2023, Maryland Governor Wes Moore appointed Susan Lee to be Maryland's Secretary of State.  She became the first Asian American person to serve as the Maryland Secretary of State.

Prior to her appointment as Secretary of State, Lee was a leader in the General Assembly on cyber security and innovation, consumer protection, pay equity, and gun safety and laws to fight domestic violence, sexual assault, human and labor trafficking, child and senior abuse, and hate crimes. She also led efforts to promote bioscience, nanobiotechnology, telehealth, IT, and emerging technologies. Lee served in many important roles including Senate Majority Whip, Member of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, Member of the Senate Executive Nominations Committee, Legislative Policy Committee, and the Joint Committee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology and Biotechnology. Lee was the first and past Chairman of the Maryland Legislative Asian American and Pacific Islander Caucus and past President of the Women Legislators of Maryland (Women’s Legislative Caucus). She also was a Member of the National Conference of State Legislatures Task Force on Immigration and Task Force on Cybersecurity, Member of the Communications, Technology & Interstate Commerce Committee, Member of the Maryland Council for New Americans, and a Presidential Elector.

Lee was the lead senate sponsor of the Maryland Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, True Freedom Act, and Anti-Exploitation Act and laws to ban ghost guns, require background checks on long gun sales, and to empower women, children, families, and all hardworking individuals.

Lee, an attorney, is the first Asian American elected to the Maryland Senate and Chinese American to the General Assembly. She graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of San Francisco School of Law. Having served in both the public and private sectors, Lee was an attorney with the US Commission on Civil Rights and the US Patent and Trademark Office and Of Counsel with Gebhardt & Associates. She was appointed to serve on the United States Patent and Trademark Advisory Board during the Clinton Administration. Lee has held multiple leadership roles in the community including President of the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Greater Washington Area, and Board Member of the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies. 

Honorary Member since 2014

Delegate Mark Keam
Korean American representative in the House of Delegates in Virginia 

Mark Keam served as a Virginia State Delegate. He graduated from the University of California, Irvine and received a law degree from the U.C. Hasting College of Law. He began his career in public service as an attorney at the Federal Communications Commission and later served as a policy counsel at the Small Business Administration, where he worked to create a level playing field for women-owned businesses and minority enterprises.

After the Clinton Administration, Rep. Keam moved to Capitol Hill to serve as Chief Counsel to Democratic Senator Dick Durbin on the Senate Judiciary Committee from 2001 to 2007, when he left to become a senior advisor for strategic affairs at Verizon, where he helps the company develop ideas that promote the use of technology to solve societal problems.

Since 2009, Rep. Keam has served his constituents in Virginia’s 38th District. In the assembly, Rep. Keam has served in leadership roles as Vice Chair of the Finance Committee and as Chair of the Higher Education Subcommittee. Rep. Keam is the first Korean-American elected to any statewide office in Virginia and serves as the chair of the Asian-American and Pacific Islander Caucus of the General Assembly.


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