At SHARE Cleveland, members elected Frank Chu, software engineer at Izzi Software’s subsidiary ColeSoft Marketing, and Derek Powe, senior vice president and zPlatform manager at M&T Bank, to the Board of Directors. SHARE HQ asked them a few questions about their career and their goals as members of the board.

SHARE HQ: WHAT’S YOUR MAINFRAME STORY? HOW DID YOU COME TO THE PLATFORM?

Frank Chu: I was a Computer Engineering major at Virginia Tech when I had to drop out due to some family issues. I needed a job and didn't want to work in the family restaurant business and landed an IT gig with Dave Cole at Cole Software. It was mainly to look after the PCs, printer, and software that was in the office. Nothing mainframe related. Sometime later, Dave handed me a sheet of paper with some handwritten commands and told me that I'm the systems programmer (sysprog) of our P390. Dave had gotten bored with sysprog things that detracted from his development work. That eventually led me to learning how to upgrade OS390 to z/OS, setting up new hardware (from an IS3000 to our current zPDT system), reading dumps with IPCS, writing bug fixes, and finally contributing to development overall. It's been an interesting and fun ride to get to this point.

Derek Powe: I matriculated through the IBM Academic Initiative. Originally, I was headed toward AD management and distributed systems administration until I heard of the opportunity my senior year of undergrad. I learned more about Systems Z, started as z/OS systems programmer right out of college and never looked back. I had the opportunity to work and learn from some great mentors across several companies, serving as a systems programmer, architect, consultant, and manager.

SHARE HQ: WHAT ARE YOU PASSIONATE ABOUT AT WORK, AND WHAT ARE YOU PASSIONATE ABOUT OUTSIDE OF WORK?

Frank Chu: Luckily, my interest and curiosity about technology drive many things at work and in my home life. I'm always looking at new tech to see how it might fit into our development and our future plans. At the same time, I'm looking at new tech that I can get set up at home to poke at. I'm naturally curious and stubborn, which helps a lot while tracking down random bugs in our code. The stubborn part doesn't help much at home, unfortunately.

Derek Powe: I’m a naturally inquisitive person. At work, I’m passionate about strategy, process, and resolving issues. Outside of work, I’m interested in learning about various topics, as well as less common ways to meet a specific goal. It aligns with my thought of strategy and the best way to get something accomplished even if it is unconventional.

SHARE HQ: HOW DID YOU FIRST LEARN ABOUT SHARE?

Frank Chu:  SHARE San Francisco, August 2002. That was the first SHARE I attended. We have a new version of our product out and the SHARE Technology Exchange is the best place for us to talk to existing and new users about the added functionalities.

Derek Powe: Early in my career, I became aware of SHARE, attending a conference and meeting people that were part of Z NextGen. In a field where everyone I interacted with was an expert, it was refreshing to meet other newbies.

SHARE HQ: WHY DID YOU BECOME A SHARE MEMBER?

Frank Chu: I’m personally not an individual member of SHARE, but I really should be. The company I work for is a SHARE member. As an individual member of SHARE, I would gain access to the repository of knowledge that SHARE contains. I often don't have time to attend all of the sessions I want to, and having the ability to catch up on those that I missed would be invaluable.

Derek Powe: I joined SHARE originally for the networking. SHARE appeared to be the premier conference all my SMEs referenced when I was an entry-level associate. As I’ve grown in the industry, it’s one of the only ones that hasn’t changed or disappeared, which speaks to its consistency and longevity.

SHARE HQ: AS A NEW BOARD MEMBER, WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR GOALS?

Frank Chu: One of my goals as a board member is to see if I can give the members/users more of a voice and agency in SHARE sessions. I would like to see the tracks I’m most focused on (Language, APIs, and Frameworks) have content that shares more knowledge with members. I'm not sure how I will accomplish this but the experience of trying and learning will be interesting.

Derek Powe: I would like to listen, learn, and propose some new ideas relating to membership engagement. A goal of mine is to be able to implement one of my ideas and receive feedback by the end of next year.

SHARE HQ: WHAT EXCITES YOU ABOUT ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY AND WHAT CHANGES DO YOU SEE GOING FORWARD?

Frank Chu: The most exciting things for me that are on the horizon is the continued modernization of access and technology that are coming to z/OS. It's great to see that the platform is moving forward. New languages like GO and Python and tooling like Node are now available on Z, which is great because I use them at home when I'm trying to learn new things. New skills I learn off platform can now be leveraged at work. Ease of access to Z will hopefully introduce more people to the platform. I'm excited to see what kind of shenanigans that we can get into.

Derek Powe: I see many of the tools and processes improving and the viewpoint of Systems Z changing. With many of the innovations that are in the works, I envision a space where many internal technicians may not know if their application is mainframe hosted or not due to consolidation of tools. They’ll benefit from the processing capability but won’t need to be as specialized or familiar with certain Z-specific functions. Other innovations will make it much easier for the systems programmers of tomorrow to troubleshoot and resolve Z specific issues by leveraging quicker reference or receiving artificial intelligence (AI) prompts.

SHARE HQ: TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT YOURSELF THAT SHARE MEMBERS MAY NOT ALREADY KNOW.

Frank Chu: I have an apiary. It currently only has 2 hives but I'm hoping to ramp up to 3, maybe 4, in total.

Derek Powe: I love to travel, experiencing different cultures and delicacies, having flown around the world a handful of times.

Serena Agusto-Cox has more than 20 years of editorial experience and six years of experience writing about mainframe and information technology. She interviews and crafts forward-looking and engaging technical updates related to the mainframe ecosystem, highlights the experiences of thought-leaders in the community, and shares important updates to technical education and training.