Expert Speakers
System i Developer is proud to bring you some of the most prominent speakers in the industry, renowned for their expertise in areas such as RPG, ILE, SQL, DB2, RSE/WDSC/RDi, and more. Benefit from the insight and experience these RPG & DB2 enthusiasts bring to their sessions.
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Susan Gantner
www.partner400.comSusan's career has spanned over 24 years in the field of application development. She began as a programmer developing applications for corporations in Atlanta, Georgia, working with a variety of hardware and software platforms. She joined IBM in 1985 and quickly developed a close association with the Rochester laboratory during the development of the AS/400 system.
Susan worked in Rochester, Minnesota for 5 years in the AS/400 Technical Support Center. She later moved to the IBM Toronto Software Laboratory to provide technical support for programming languages and AD tools on the AS/400.
Susan left IBM in 1999 to devote more time to teaching and consulting.Her primary emphasis is on enabling customers to take advantage of the latest programming and database technologies on OS/400.
Susan is a regular speaker at COMMON conferences and other technical conferences around the world and holds a number of Speaker Excellence medals from COMMON.
Susan is a Technical Editor with IBM Systems Magazine.
Jon Paris
www.partner400.comJon's IBM midrange career started when he fell in love with the System/38 while working as a consultant. This love affair ultimately led him to joining IBM.
In 1987, Jon was hired by the IBM Toronto Laboratory to work on the S/36 and S/38 COBOL compilers. Subsequently Jon became involved with the AS/400 and in particular COBOL/400.
In early 1989 Jon was transferred to the Languages Architecture and Planning Group, with particular responsibility for the COBOL and RPG languages. There he played a major role in the definition of the new RPG IV language and in promoting its use with IBM Business Partners and Users. He was also heavily involved in producing educational and other support materials and services related to other AS/400 programming languages and development tools, such as CODE/400 and VisualAge for RPG.
Jon left IBM in 1998 to focus on developing and delivering education focused on enhancing AS/400 and iSeries application development skills.
Jon is a frequent speaker at User Groups meetings and conferences around the world, and holds a number of speaker excellence awards from COMMON.
Jon is a Technical Editor with IBM Systems Magazine.
Paul Tuohy
www.comconadvisor.comPaul Tuohy, author of Re-engineering RPG Legacy Applications and The Programmer's Guide to iSeries Navigator, is one of the most prominent consultants and trainer/educators for application modernization 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. He also serves as a Strategic Education Team (SET) Member for COMMON. 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 is an award-winning speaker at COMMON, COMMON Europe Congress and other conferences throughout the world. His articles frequently appear in System i NEWS, iSeries Experts Journal, The Four Hundred Guru, RPG Developer and other leading publications.
Skip Marchesani
Skip Marchesani retired from IBM after 25 years and is now a consultant with Custom Systems Corp, an IBM Business partner. Skip spent much of his IBM career working with the Rochester Development Lab on projects for S/38 and AS/400, and was involved with the development of the AS/400. He was part of the team that taught early AS/400 education to customers and IBM lab sites worldwide.
Skip is recognized as an industry expert on DB2 UDB for System i, iSeries, and AS/400 and author of the book 'DB2/400: The New AS/400 Database'. He specializes in providing customized education for any area of the System i, iSeries, and AS/400; does database design and design reviews, and general System I, iSeries, and AS/400 consulting for interested clients. He has been a speaker for user groups, technical conferences, and System i, iSeries, and AS/400 audiences around the world. Skip is an award winning COMMON speaker and has received their Distinguished Service Award.
Scott Klement
www.scottklement.comScott Klement is the I.T. Manager and Senior Programmer at Klement Sausage Co, Inc. He is also a technical editor for System i NEWS magazine (formerly known as NEWS/400) as well as the editor of the popular Club Tech/System iNetwork Programming Tips e-newsletter.
His efforts to help RPG programmers improve their skills have earned Scott an iSeries Innovation Award (presented by Mark Shearer GM of the iSeries division of IBM and Beverly Russell, President of COMMON), a Gary Guthrie Award for Excellence in Technical Writing by the staff of System iNEWS magazine. a Silver Medal for best Feature Series the American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) (West region), and "Speaker of Merit" from COMMON.
Scott lives with his wife and son in the Milwaukee WI area.
Barbara Morris
Barbara Morris is the lead developer for the WDS compilers in the IBM Toronto Lab. She has been working on the RPG compilers since she started at IBM in 1989 after receiving a Computing Science degree from the University of Alberta. The first enhancement she developed was the ENDIF/ENDDO opcodes for RPG/400 in V2R1. Some of her more recent enhancements were Open Access: RPG Edition in 6.1 and the ability to sort and search data structure arrays in 7.1. Some of the other notable enhancements that she developed for RPG include subprocedures, qualified data structures, call-interaction with Java, and V5R4's native XML processing op-codes.
Barbara is a regular participant in several online RPG forums, and has published many articles about RPG.
Mike Cain
Mike Cain is a Senior Technical Staff Member within the IBM Systems and Technology Group focusing on DB2 for i performance and scalability. Prior to his current position, he worked as an IBM AS/400 Systems Engineer and Technical Consultant. Before joining IBM in 1988, Mike worked as a System/38 programmer and DP Manager for a property and casualty insurance company. Mike has extensive experience working with customers and business partners, and uses this knowledge to influence the solutions, development and support processes. He is located in Rochester, MN USA.
Kent Milligan
Kent Milligan is a senior DB2 for i consultant in IBM ISV Business Strategy and Solutions Enablement for the System i platform. After graduating from the University of Iowa in 1989, Kent spent the first eight years of his IBM career as a member of the DB2 development team in Rochester. He speaks and writes regularly on various DB2 for i relational database topics.
Aaron Bartell
Aaron Bartell is a Senior Software Developer for Krengel Technology Inc. Aaron focuses much of his development in the area of web services on the iSeries and also Java development/integration. He enjoys being part of the strong System i community through forum participation, article writing and providing open source software on his personal website - http://mowyourlawn.com.
Aaron lives with his wife and three children in southern Minnesota.
Mike Pavlak
Mike Pavlak has been working with IBM midrange solutions since 1992 and IBM Mainframes before that. After years of developing applications using RPG, CL and PHP he managed IT development and IT for power protection manufacturer Tripp Lite. Mike joined Zend Technologies as a Solutions Consultant working with the IBM sales team in 2008 and enjoys helping IBM i customers explore PHP as a state of the art solution for application modernization. In addition to several roles as a volunteer with COMMON the premier IBM midrange user group, Mike also teaches PHP classes part time at Moraine Valley Community College in Suburban Chicago.
Mike lives in suburban Chicago with his wife, 5 kids, 2 dogs, 3 cats, 2 rabbits, a leopard spotted ghecko, russian tortoise, fancy mouse and bunch of fish.
Scott Salisbury
Scott Salisbury has spent 25 Years as a technology professional working at all levels of the organization, including software development, project management, software/hardware infrastructure management and senior management. Scott has worked extensively with IBM i, Unix/Linux and Windows environments and has managed a variety of IT-related departments including programming, networking, telecommunications, project management, technical writing, quality assurance and technology audit.
Scott has spent the past 10 years focused on web-based technologies including software design and development as well as hardware and network infrastructure concepts. As a consultant, he has worked with Coca Cola Enterprises, Unoin Bank of California, Toyota Logistics, and Kenco Logistics. Scott has written several how-to articles over the years in the technology press. His work can be seen at MCPressOnline.com and systeminetwork.com. Scott is currently a developer for CNX Corporation.
Bob Tipton
Robert S. Tipton has been in the business of transformational change for most of his life. He has always asked “why” and rarely has accepted the “status quo” to be an acceptable answer. As a result, he describes himself as a “manager’s nightmare” because of his constant questioning and his drive to look for new approaches. It’s from this foundation of searching, examining, probing, and synthesis that he has created his significant track record of driving extraordinary results using non-traditional approaches and tools.
He is the author of three books, the latest of which, JUMP! – Get Unstuck, Extraordinary Life Breakthroughs Through Innovative Change is the basis for his leadership training series entitled, “Change is Hard! (Until it Isn’t): Overcoming the Eight Toughest Barriers to Change.” He is a recovering corporate refugee, having spent considerable time in “C” level roles for many companies — from CIO of a $1B company, to CTO of a 10,000 person professional services firm, finally building his dream job of CEO and Chief Transformation Accelerator. It’s in this role where he “gets to go to work each day” and is blessed to be intimately involved in designing and facilitating transformational change within organizations across the world, in various industries and disciplines.
His keynotes? Guaranteed to make you think. In fact, he describes his success as a keynote speaker this way: “If my voice is still inside your head three months later — offering new ways of thinking, challenging your limiting beliefs, and generally driving you nuts, I’ve done my job.” His workshops? Highly-participatory, energizing, high-commitment, and always driving toward power-filled, meaning-filled outcomes. Attendees regularly report, “I can’t believe how MUCH we got done in such a short time — and I’m exhausted!!”
Finally, his approach to education, professional accomplishments, and the other “look at me” stuff, not surprisingly, is also non-traditional. He’s gone to school, he’s accomplished some big things. But — more importantly than 30-year old degrees, or the lists of “in recognition of” stuff, suffice it to say his personal and professional life has prepared him well to help move people through the toughest, messiest situations toward positive, enduring outcomes.