![ibm-champion-pos-cmyk[1]](https://i0.wp.com/iug-ipower.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/ibm-champion-pos-cmyk1-e1588347572390.png?fit=200%2C40&ssl=1 "ibm-champion-pos-cmyk[1]")
Mike has been associated with the IBM Mid-Range since 1977 and has made a career in Systems and Data Management. Mike has grown with the systems, always seeking out the best way to configure and implement the systems and how to make our tools and applications get the best out of these configurations. In getting to grips with more and more ways to manage and bring out the most in this unique Platform, Mike has embraced many new technologies, philosophies and methods and is well placed to make comment on current market trends and opportunities. Now as the Chairman representing i-UG and Common UK, Mike is putting forward some challenging, independent and pragmatic views on the options we have for growing, adapting and looking after our systems and applications as the platform moves inexorably forward.
Ian Lush has been Chief Executive of Imperial Health Charity since December 2014, having previously been the Chief Executive of the Architectural Heritage Fund (AHF) for 11 years. Following an MA in music at the University of York, he started his career as a viola-player with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, subsequently moving into arts management, including as Marketing Director of the Barbican Centre, and Managing Director of the London Mozart Players for eight years before joining the AHF.
Ian was Lead Governor of Great Ormond Street Hospital Foundation Trust from 2012-15 and served on its strategy and redevelopment boards. He founded and directed ‘Discovering Places’, one of the major projects of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and was Deputy Chair of the Heritage Alliance from 2005-13. Ian is co-chair of the Maddox Group of NHS Charities and chair of the London NHS Charities Group. Apart from work and his family, Ian’s main recreations revolve around sport, playing Middlesex League tennis and going to watch football, cricket, tennis and athletics, and he is also a keen cook.
Steve is The Founder, owner and MD of his own business – Rowton IT, as well as being the Technical Director for the i-UG, member of CEAC and an IBM Champion.
Steve says “I’ve worked in the IBM Business Partner world for over thirty years now and despite IBM’s best attempts I still love them 😉
In 2008 I set up my practice (Rowton) and now spend my time supporting clients or designing new IT solutions using a combination of Power servers, Intel and storage with a little extra cloud magic where it’s needed.
When I’m not looking after my own clients, I help run the UK’s largest IBM i User Group the i-UG and also serve on the Common Europe Advisory Council (CEAC) to helping IBM shape the future of IBM i.
In 2019, IBM made me an IBM Champion in recognition of the work I have done to help and evangelise the IBM i platform, Happy Days 🙂
Tim Rowe is the Business Architect Application Development & Systems Management for IBM i and as such, he is the Business Architect responsible for Application Development and Systems Management for the IBM i operating system. His responsibilities include helping to make sure that the IBM i has what is needed to be successful both today and into the future. He spends much of his time also helping customers understand what is possible on our platform when it comes to modernization.
Scott Forstie is the Senior Technical Staff Member, Db2 for i Business Architect, and leads the Db2 for i database development team. He has worked on IBM operating system development since joining IBM in 1989.
He is a frequently published author, speaker at industry events around the globe and can be found @Forstie_IBMi and forstie@us.ibm.com.
Scott is an avid runner, enjoys cooking, and looks forward to helping you gain an SQL-advantage.
Carol Woodbury is Vice President of Global Security Services at HelpSystems and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC), and has her PCIP certification. She is also a member of the ISACA organization and has been named IBM Champion for her thought leadership on the IBM i platform. With over 25 years of experience in IT security,
Carol s an architect, designer, implementer, educator, and an award-winning speaker and author with specialties in IBM i, i5/OS, OS/400, AS/400, iSeries, AIX, and Linux security and compliance. She is known worldwide as an author and speaker on security technology, specializing in IBM i security issues.
John Armstrong is Group IT Director for ABP Food Group and a Visiting Academic at Birmingham City University. Prior to ABP John worked in Retail with Central England Co-operative and in Consumer Products with Britvic Soft Drinks. When discussing i-UG, John commented “Technology has become so important to businesses and it is great to see that organisations like i-UG are seeing their platform being recognised as a source for innovation and growth, not just running the back-office”
Richard is currently working as an independent IBM i technical and sales/business development consultant and has 30+ years of experience of IBM i/iSeries/As/400 and System/36. Having worked both as an operator/systems manager, as a pre-sales consultant / product manager for a major UK business partner, and more recently as an independent consultant, Richard feels well qualified to give a holistic and agnostic view over all things around recovery.
Paul Tuohy, IBM Champion and author of Re-engineering RPG Legacy Applications and The Programmer’s Guide to iSeries Navigator, is a prominent consultant/trainer/educators for application modernisation and development technologies on the IBM Midrange. He currently holds positions as CEO of ComCon, a consultancy firm based in Dublin, Ireland, and founding partner of System i Developer, the consortium of top educators who produce the acclaimed RPG & DB2 Summit conference. Previously, he worked as IT Manager for Kodak Ireland Ltd. and Technical Director of Precision Software Ltd. In addition to hosting and speaking at the RPG & DB2 Summit, Paul has been an award-winning speaker at COMMON, COMMON Europe Congress and other conferences throughout the world. His articles frequently appear in IBM Systems Magazine, The Four Hundred Guru, RPG Developer, and other leading publications.
Paul also produces the popular iTalk with Tuohy podcast with IBM Systems Magazine.
Susan Gantner is an IBM i evangelist, specialising in modern application development, primarily with RPG and RDi. A developer, trainer and author, she is also an IBM Champion for Power Systems. Susan’s career began as a programmer in Atlanta on a variety of platforms. Then she met the IBM System/38 and decided to stick with it. The System/38 morphed into the AS/400, since renamed (a few times now) to IBM i. A developer, trainer and author, she is also an IBM Champion for Power Systems. After developing applications for 10 years, she joined IBM as a Systems Engineer and later worked in both the IBM Rochester and IBM Toronto labs, supporting developers on her favourite platform. She was part of the team who created the still popular IBM redbook, “Who Knew You Could Do That with RPG IV?” and the more recent “Modernizing IBM i Applications” redbook. She has authored a wide variety of articles on the subject of modern development tools, techniques and languages for IBM i for IBM Systems Magazine, IT Jungle and others. Susan now works with Jon Paris as half of Partner400 – teaching and writing about modern development techniques. She is also a part of System i Developer, hosts of the RPG & DB2 Summit. You can check out the collected works of Jon and Susan at authory.com/jonparisandsusangantner.
After working on a variety of systems for over a dozen years, Jon Paris was introduced to the System/38. This began a “love affair” that ultimately led him to join IBM’s Toronto laboratory, working on the S/3X and AS/400 compilers. While with IBM he played a major role in the definition of the RPG IV language and in promoting its use. Jon left IBM in 1998 to focus on providing IBM i users with education and consulting services to enhance their application development skills. Together with his partner Susan Gantner, Jon runs Partner400, a consulting company focused on application modernization on the IBM i platform. Partner400 are also one of the founding members of the System i Developer education consortium – hosts of the RPG & DB2 Summit events which are held twice annually. Jon and Susan also co-authored IBM’s Redbook for RPG programmers, entitled: Who Knew You Could Do That with RPG IV – A Sorcerer’s Guide to System Access and More. They are also technical editors for IBM Systems Magazine – IBM i Edition and authors for IT Jungle and other IBM i-related site. You can check out the collected works of Jon and Susan at authory.com/jonparisandsusangantner
Ross Cruickshank is an IBM Developer Advocate helping developers across the UK benefit from IBM Cloud platform and services. He has a broad background in development, security and operations and has Industry experience in engineering, banking, (re)insurance, utilities, and transport. Today, Ross is mostly engaged in building prototypes and event-oriented systems with Node-RED, IOT and the Watson cognitive and data platform
Rudi started as a System/38 programmer in 1986. In 1989 he made the switch to system programming and systems management. Being passionate about systems management he founded van Helvoirt Automatisering in 1993. Rudi has enjoyed helping IBM i customers ever since for running their business applications. He is an early adopter of the IBM i Systems management GUI’s, System Object Access that later evolved into System i Navigator and more recently Navigator for i. He has been involved in IBM i BRMS for the past 15 years, helping to improve the backup strategy of IBM i data and also involved in improving IBM i Access Client Solutions and Administration Runtime Expert. Rudi is member of the COMMON Europe Advisory Council, an IBM and End User Experts strategy think tank for the IBM i. On top of that IBM made him an IBM Champion in 2020.
Andy has been an IBM i Consultant/Instructor at FormaServe for over 30 years and has over 40 years IT experience working with S/34, S/36, AS400, iSeries & IBM i. These days, Andy’s skills range across IBM i, RPG, PHP, Zend Server, Zend Frameworks, SQL, DB2 & Node.js. An accomplished instructor & an article writer, Andy specialises in programming on and writing about the the IBM i Platform and you have probably seen many of his articles in PowerWire. Prior to his career in IT, Andy is proud to have served 10 years in the Royal Navy as a communications expert.
David has been with IBM since 1995 and has spent a great deal of that time with the Power systems and has been IBM Power Systems Product Manager for the UK and Ireland for the past four years. Originally concentrating on the AIX side of Power, David is an enthusiastic convert to the IBM i branch and is currently the Power Systems Manager with responsibility for the platform in all guises. David has recently been very active in the AI and OpenSource part of IBM i and is constantly looking for real-life applications for this technology.
No stranger to the group, David has presented on the benefits of the platform and where it is heading and remains an authority in this area.
Alison Butterill is the WW Offering Manager for IBM i. In this role, she works with the IBM i team to define the future of IBM i including the content for releases and technology refreshes. Over the last few years, Alison has spent time working with clients to implement innovative solution using Cognitive, Machine Learning, Robotics, Internet of things and other forms of AI and IoT.
Today, Alison’s responsibilities include working with the IBM i sales, marketing, development teams as well as clients and partners to ensure that the IBM i Operating System and associated software products reflect their requirements.
Having worked in the mid-range area for more than 30 years, Alison has held a wide variety of positions at IBM, primarily with midrange servers and software. She has held a range of positions including field Systems Engineer, an instructor in Customer Technical Education, national support representative for IBM Canada, and Worldwide Technical Marketing support representative for the development tools and compilers from the IBM Toronto Laboratory.
Alison is a regular speaker at industry and technical conferences around the world.
Steve Will is the Chief Architect for the IBM i operating system, which runs on IBM Power Systems. Steve has worked on IBM i and its predecessors since before the creation of the AS/400, and is currently responsible for setting the strategy of the IBM i operating system, as well as deciding which enhancements will be implemented.
Steve is an award-winning speaker, author of one of the most popular IBM i blogs (“You and i” – http://ibmsystemsmag.com/Blogs/You-and-i/), and is one of the most sought-after voices at customer briefings and events.
Birgitta Hauser has worked on the IBM i for more than 25 years.
Currently she is working in consulting and delivering support on application and database modernization. She also works in education as a trainer for RPG and SQL developers. She speaks frequently at the COMMON User Groups and POWER Conferences in European Countries, USA and Canada.
Birgitta is co-author of 2 IBM Redbooks and the author of several articles focusing on RPG and SQL for a German publisher and IBM DeveloperWorks.
Douglas has been with IBM since 2005 and has extensive experience working with a variety of IBM and 3rd party software and systems. He has been a member of the Power team since 2012, starting with the performance team then recently taking on the role of Offering Manager for IO in 2018.
Douglas Gibbs – IBM Offering Manager – Power Systems IO
douglasg@ca.ibm.com / @DouglasGibbsIBM
Dan is a Partner Technical Advocate – Technical Sales & Enablement for IBM working out of Minnesota.
As an IBM Partner Technical Advocate (PTA), Dan enhances IBM Business Partners’ sales productivity by strengthening their technical capabilities. Dan supports IBM Power Systems servers running the IBM i, AIX or Linux operating systems and has the most experience with the IBM i operating system (OS/400, i5/OS, AS/400, iSeries, System i). As Dan also frequently works with IBM external storage solutions, he is here today supporting Douglas Gibbs on the NVMe Presentation
Chris Koppe, Senior VP, Transformation and Modernisation Services at Fresche Solutions, is widely recognized as a thought leader in IBM i modernisation and is a regular speaker at conferences, events, and in webinars. Since joining Fresche in 1988, he has helped hundreds of companies worldwide develop and execute successful application management and modernisation strategies, across a variety of platforms, languages, databases, and technologies
Nick Hampson, Senior Product Manager at Fresche Solutions, has extensive experience in Design, UX, Product Management, Innovation and Pre-Sales. Focused on bringing the business value of design and UX to IBM i customers and the community at large, Nick is recognized as a UX expert on IBM i. He also describes himself as a geek and a bookworm with interests in design, psychology, neuroscience, physics, engineering and mathematics, and given a little free time, he is also a keen target Archer.
Pascal Ruckebusch is the founder and CTO of M81.
Starting as analyst/developer at Info3D, he quickly became CTO at Diane then ACT400, all firms recognized for their high technical level in the world of AS400/IBM i. Pascal has been trainer of Business Partners for IBM i certifications. He has been also product manager for ‘ADRES’ (product to manage in APPC distributed OS400) added in IBM catalog in the 90’s (called SAT – System Administration Tool).
=> ~ 1000 IBM i active partitions are equipped with products designed or maintained by Pascal before he creates M81.
Therefore, more than 150 customers, integrators and MSP have already trusted in M81. Note: M81 has 18 resellers all over Europe (including UK)