COMMON Hosts Its Annual Conference, Welcomes New Board This Week

May 20, 2024 Alex Woodie

COMMON today kicks off its annual POWERUp conference, bringing the global IBM i community together in beautiful downtown Fort Worth, Texas. The world’s largest IBM i user group is also wrapping up an election for its board of directors, which features three candidates for three spots.

For many decades, COMMON has hosted the single largest annual gathering of IBM i professionals, and that run of success will not be broken this week, with expectations of about 1,000 attendees at the show. This year’s annual COMMON conference, dubbed POWERUp 2024, features four days of education, networking opportunities, and other events in and around the Fort Worth Convention Center.

On the educational front, POWERUp will feature more than 300 sessions given by more than 100 speakers on a wide range of topics, from application development and security to IT strategy and personal development. If you’re looking for info on the latest IBM i Technology Refreshes (TRs) unveiled by IBM two weeks ago, then POWERUp is a great place to get it straight from the IBM business architects and engineers who built them.

But the sessions are just part of the fun at COMMON. The chance to interact in person with your fellow IBM i professionals – something that we all missed during the two-year hiatus that COMMON took during the COVID-19 pandemic – ranks right up there on the list. There are also meetings of various groups that typically take place, including advisory councils.

COMMON will also be hosting a two-day IT Leadership Summit alongside the POWERUp conference. The event is designed for IT managers and decision-makers who are facing strategic challenges related to running the IBM i platform in their organizations. Alan Seiden is running the event again this year, and there are two panel discussions planned for Monday and Tuesday, including one on recruitment and training and another on AI and the skills gap. The event is complimentary for attendees who have registered for POWERUp.

POWERUp will also feature an opening session today, which will feature an update on the organization by COMMON president Dawn May. An IBM executive, such as Steve Sibley, the vice president of IBM Power Systems offering management, is often invited to deliver the keynote.

And what’s a COMMON conference without an Expo? This year’s exhibitors hall will feature about 50 IBM i vendors from all around the world. From DevOps tools and administrator utilities to security solutions and high availability products, the software and services vendors are vital members of the IBM i community.

The last day of POWERUp, Thursday May 23, will feature the annual Meeting of the Members. This is when the new board of directors will be officially seated, as Wednesday May 22 is the last day to vote.

Three board positions were featured in this year’s board election. Marina Schwenk, who is currently a board member, is seeking reelection for her existing seat, while Scott Klement and Pete Helgren are rolling off the board. Running for the two open seats are Justin Loeber and Manas Mishra.

Marina Schwenk

In addition to her volunteer work with COMMON and the Wisconsin Midrange Computing Professionals Association (WMCPA), Schwenk helped to spearhead the creation of the New to IBM i group, or N2i. Schwenk recently started a new job at Innovative Software Solutions, a Phoenix, Arizona-based developer of tax software.

“One of my biggest accomplishments has been a group effort,” Schwenk tells IT Jungle via email. “The N2i group has grown to support members of the community that are just starting in their careers. The N2i team has been instrumental in providing mentoring and a playground that community members six years or less can use to assist in their learning journey. We tie this with the COMMON bootcamps and thus, they can learn and practice using that playground.”

Justin Loeber is the owner of Kisco Systems, a provider of IBM i security software based in Ridgefield, Connecticut. A couple of years ago, Loeber took over the business from his father Richard Loeber, who founded Kisco more than 40 years ago, and he has been working to ingraining himself in the IBM i community.

Justin Loeber, owner of Kisco Systems

“In my role at Kisco Systems, I speak with a lot of IT and business leaders in companies who run IBM i, but who have very little awareness of the platform – its role, capabilities and risks,” Loeber tells us. “I believe there’s a lot of angst out there in the management tier because of this lack of understanding. And so I think an organization like COMMON would be a godsend for these people. One single place to learn about IBM i and connect with professionals and vendors? Sign me up! My platform is that COMMON can and should do more to connect with the management tier in IBM i customer shops. If elected to the board I hope to be able to work on this problem.”

Manas Mishra is a senior IT manager at Ashley Furniture Industries, the $10 billion furniture maker headquartered in Arcadia, Wisconsin. At Ashley, Mishra is responsible for managing the company’s ERP systems and related systems developments, which run on IBM i.

Manas Mishra, senior IT manager at Ashley Furniture Industries,

Mishra shared his bio with IT Jungle, which hints at the goals he will seek to accomplish as a COMMON director.

“Driven by a deep-seated passion for technology, particularly IBM i, Manas is dedicated to advancing the organization’s mission,” the bio reads. “He envisions leveraging his expertise and insights to engage, empower, and educate both the younger generation and IBM i veterans within the community. With a keen understanding of the evolving technological landscape, Manas aims to champion initiatives that blend the robustness of IBM i with modern-day applications and implementations, including the integration of open-source solutions. By blending the proven reliability and stability of IBM i with the agility and innovation of open-source technology, organizations can unlock new possibilities and achieve greater success in today’s digital landscape.”

Since there are three people seeking three seats, there isn’t much suspense as to who will be the next directors, as Schwenk will return to the board and be joined by two new board members, Loeber and Mishra.

Other members of the COMMON board include president Dawn May, executive vice president Floyd DelMuro, treasurer Puneet Kohli, immediate past president Gordon Leary, director Ted Macksam, director Craig Skonieczny, director Peg Tuttle, IBM liaison Brandon Pederson, and executive director Manzoor Siddiqui.

You can read more about Schwenk and the two new future COMMON directors here.

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