OUR GRADUATES

At imPower we like to see success and achievement, we’d like for you to take a moment to read what our customers have to say about our courses.

Despite my familiarity with other popular programming languages, I initially had no experience with RPG when I stepped into my role as Junior IBM i Programmer. However, after successfully completing the ‘Programming in RPG ILE’ and ‘IBM i Concepts and Operations’ courses, I have gained a solid understanding of RPG.

The courses are very organized, complete with detailed virtual lessons, labs, quizzes, programming examples and programming assignments that use the concepts learned in each section. Every section is equipped with a help ticket button, providing access to a form where you can describe any challenges you encounter. The imPower team responds promptly and efficiently, a feature that is immensely valuable when assistance is required to fulfill course requirements. Jim’s weekly meetups are a wonderful opportunity to engage with past and present peers. These meetings provide a space where questions can be asked openly and project feedback can be obtained constructively.

I am very fortunate to have taken these courses and learned from Jim, who goes above and beyond to ensure his students’ success. I wholeheartedly recommend this course to anyone who is interested in learning RPG.

Twenty-three years ago I left behind my career in programming to fulfill my duties as mother to our growing family. I enjoyed the challenge of homeschooling and the satisfaction of seeing each of my children grow up to be better than I ever was. However, as the numbers at home dwindled and with little left to contribute to my independent learners, I became increasingly restless.

I had been keeping an eye on job opportunities since 2020, but just didn’t see any way to convince an employer that I was a viable candidate for a programmer position. This past summer, I reached out to imPower in hopes of taking a refresher course in RPG. I met Jim and Michelle in an online meeting. They both were very supportive. In fact, this is an understatement. They had more confidence in me than anybody I knew personally, and actually used their connections in the business to find me a job prospect.

I have been with HarrisData since early October 2023 and recently completed the imPower course on RPG ILE. It was perfect for my needs, teaching many new aspects of the language that I had no experience with while reminding me the way things used to be. The book is a wonderful reference to have on-hand, the quizzes were low-pressure and helped reinforce important concepts, and the programming assignments stressed quality with focus on logical process, efficiency, readability of code, and proper error handling techniques, which any employer will appreciate.

I am grateful to Jim and Michelle at ImPower, and Henry, Wes, Sue, and Brian at HarrisData, for the opportunity to work with a team once again, providing quality business software to HarrisData clients.

Thank you all so much!

When I first applied for this job, I had never heard of RPG before, despite my familiarity with most other popular programming languages. In a short span of three months, I transitioned from being incapable of reading fixed format RPG to being able to read it effortlessly. This was only possible due to this course.

This course spared me months of grappling with learning RPG on my own. Jim and Michelle created a conducive atmosphere for learning. The Wednesday meetups were always a highlight, offering valuable insights and glimpses at new technologies coming to the IBM ecosystem. I’m immensely grateful that they provided a platform that facilitated a smooth learning process instead of a splitting headache that always seems to come from self-teaching. Through their mentorship, RPG, is no longer an insurmountable mountain of over half a century worth of code base.

After working in the Quality Assurance department at my company for a few years, I decided to take the leap and learn RPG to become a developer. Having no coding experience, I was very nervous as to where to begin my new journey. We found Jim’s class and after meeting with him I immediately felt reassured that I’d be able to learn the language, techniques, etc, necessary to start me off on my new career path. The class is well organized and easy to follow. The lectures, quizzes, and program examples are very detailed and extremely helpful. If I ever got stuck or needed assistance, Jim, and other resources from imPower Technologies, were more than happy to help me in an efficient and effective manner. The weekly class meeting that Jim hosts was a really nice way to meet other students (past and present) and provided an open space to freely ask questions or get feedback on your projects. I am honored to have had the chance to take this class and I now recommend it to anyone who is starting their RPG journey!

I’m a .NET developer, and spend most of my day working on code for Windows applications. In my college days, I had taken a fixed format RPG course, and just couldn’t wrap my head around the language. Recently my employer asked a small group of us to learn RPG. My first thought was, I hope things have changed since the last time I tried to learn RPG. However, I have to say that with Jim and Michelle’s approach to teaching and the online resources they provide, they made it easy for me to learn ILE RPG. Were it not for imPower Technologies, I would still be looking for the “right” book to learn RPG. I’m also confident that I would not have learned as much in 9 weeks as I did with their program. I would not hesitate to recommend imPower Technologies to anyone wanting to learn how to program in ILE RPG.

My manager found imPOWER Technologies because our company needed an asynchronous learning platform that would offer the opportunity to learn ILE RPG when it fit into our schedule. I come from a web development background, and RPG could have been intimidating, but after Jim’s nine-week course, I feel confident I am able to take on an RPG Project at my company and make sense of the legacy, fixed-format code my company still has on the system. Jim and Michelle are knowledgeable and ready to help if you have any questions regarding the videos or assignments. The course starts off with the basic concepts, such as generating a report with a print file, and gradually works up to more advanced concepts such as modular programming and interactive applications using subfiles. I would recommend imPOWER Technologies to anyone looking to learn the basics of ILE RPG, and I am excited to use this knowledge as I complete more projects.

I came into impower technologies IBM i Concepts course and Programming in ILE RPG course without any prior knowledge or experience in the IBM i world. The concepts course was an excellent and highly useful foundational learning experience before proceeding to the ILE RPG course. I felt that with the textbooks, video lectures, weekly web calls and practice programs that I learned the skills required to be an RPG developer. I’m glad my employer put me through this course and know I couldn’t have self-taught myself a fraction of what Jim and Michelle teach.

It is challenging to recruit and hire qualified programmers with RPG experience on the IBM i platform. At Sierra Pacific Industries, we have been successful at hiring programmers with a solid background in application development and training them to be RPG programmers. The classes provided by imPower Technologies and taught by Jim have been instrumental in the training process.

The IBM i Concepts and Operations course has been successful in getting our programmers familiar and comfortable with navigating the IBM i environment. Follow that up with the Programming in ILE RPG course and we quickly end up with programmers that are confident in making meaningful contributions to our RPG development efforts.

These classes utilize modern tools and concepts and the format and teaching style are very comfortable and effective. As a manager, I appreciate that imPOWER kept me in the loop on each programmer’s progress as they navigated through the courses.

If you’re looking for an RPG training solution to help address your staffing needs, I would strongly recommend Jim and the imPOWER courses.

Your RPG programming career starts here!  When I started my new job I left 6 years of Windows troubleshooting, SSRS reporting, and .NET programming, and entered the world of IBMi and RPG.  Starting with zero knowledge of the IBMi system, I’ve progressed to contributing to live programs in our business and writing some of my own. New jobs are intimidating enough without having to learn new skills, but Jim and Michelle were quick to get me on my feet. 

IBM i Concepts and Operations was the first course I took.  This covered everything needed to navigate the IBM i system.  This included navigating menus, using CL commands, working with database files, writing a basic CL program, and plenty of examples.  The online lectures, exercises, and Jim’s book: Mastering IBM i, all work together to make you feel comfortable and confident working with the IBM i.

The second course I took from Jim was Programming in ILE RPG.  This language is both similar and unlike any other I’ve worked in before.  In its latest form, RPG is a modern language that’s growing in functionality all the time.  At the same time it is one of the oldest languages around.  Looking at some older programs can certainly be intimidating (looking at you fixed format).  However, Jim provides the building blocks you need to navigate and even update this older code and build modern RPG applications. 

I have been an RPG programmer for 41 years and it was amazing to see our young trainee grasp knowledge that put him ahead of even me after all this time.

Overall, on a scale of 1-10, I would rate the classes and the process as a 10. I seldom give 10 ratings, but I think this case warrants an exception.

Thanks to Jim and his company for providing training that will yield a very valuable asset to our company, that we will realize for many years to come.

The programming exercises are cleverly designed. I had “ah ha” moments with all of them learning what to do and what not to do. The hands-on work was my favorite part of the course. There is no substitute for the resources (example programs, test data, etc.) you’re given access to with the student account, such as how to leverage the RDi development environment. My RPG developer experience now is a lot better than I ever thought it would be based on my initial impressions. Not to mention the end of the course opened the door on how we can use our existing RPG programs and data in a browser environment.

We now have a brand new, burgeoning intranet site. I give my highest recommendation to this course for anyone in need to learn RPG programming.

Thank you, Jim!

I am a programmer who learned COBOL in college and began my career with an insurance company that had most of their policy admin systems and accounting systems written in COBOL. I spent several years as a COBOL programmer and eventually VB.Net, before leaving the workforce to raise a family. When I decided to re-enter the workforce, my new company needed an RPG programmer and I was enrolled in the imPower RPGLE class.

This class was a great introduction to the RPG language, RDi, and the IBMi in general. The class is online and you are able to move at your pace which I enjoyed. The videos are very easy to follow and the programming examples allow you to practice the techniques that were just introduced. Jim provides many sample programs that you can access and use when working on your assignments. There is a weekly meeting with Jim and other students where you can ask questions and learn from others that are taking the class. By the end of the class, I felt comfortable coding in RPG and even viewing existing programs at my company and following the code.

This class is detailed enough for a brand new programmer to learn not only the language, but basic programming concepts, while also being fast paced enough that an experienced programmer would not be bored learning the language. I highly recommend this class for anyone needing to learn RPG and the IBMi.

Thank Jim and Michelle very much!

I just wanted to let you know what an outstanding online course (Programming in ILE RPG) that imPower Technologies teaches is. To take a person with no programming experience but with a desire to learn and turn them into a junior programmer in just a matter of months is remarkable.

I like the fact they are able to do this at their own pace but you make sure they stay on track. The progress reports and updates I received from imPower Technologies as he progressed though the course was great. This gave me a real good idea how things were going.

He has already finished a couple of projects and is really enjoying programming.

I would highly recommend this course. I plan to send others through this course in the future.

In our search for an alternative to the audio tapes, we found imPower Technologies. This was an actual course with live meetups and homework! This was a fit for our needs, and the results show it. Since taking your course, we have been able to get him involved with some ambitious projects that allow our field operations to generate and update work orders on their tablets while in the field. He is also working on a program to control and maintain inventory and equipment.

Apart from being a valuable learning resource, I can tell you that our new hire really enjoyed his time in this class. The weekly meetups were encouraging, the assignments were challenging and helpful. A lot of work was put into the examples and assignments, and it is clearly paying off.

I am a new programmer that is still in college for programming. I “lucked out” in finding a job with Rogers Water Utilities. They are a company that uses the IBM I system and a single programmer to develop all of their software. I was thrilled to get a job in my field of study but overwhelmed at how much there was to learn with the IBM. I quickly realized that just operating the system (let alone programming it) was very different than anything I was used to. I learned a few basics with the archaic audio tape training, but a lot of the material didn’t apply to modern IBM Power systems (I literally learned how to install IBM clients on Twinax cable).

The imPower Technologies RPG class was a different story. Not only did it teach the most modern RPG coding skills, but also saves you from the pain of figuring how to set up RDI, how to navigate the green screen and it demystifies the compiling process of a bunch of RPG modules. These things can all be road-blocks to one’s success in learning RPG. It isn’t as simple as throwing source code into an IDE and hitting run. Jim Buck removes these road blocks with a carefully structured course that holds your hand through the system as you learn to code in RPG. The weekly meetups are where he will personally walk you through a program or a problem that you may be experiencing.

If you are a company that is hiring new programmers to keep your RPG environment cranking on all cylinders, do not make the mistake of supplying your employee with a book or stack of audio tapes to learn from. There are many things that have to be figured out and skills that must be acquired when new to an IBM system. Learning how to code in RPG won’t be enough if I can’t check my spool file, or run a simple query to validate my program, or deal with system error codes. Jim Buck will get your workforce on the right path.

The results we’ve seen and the understanding into programming that these new programmers have gained from your class has been amazing. To take 4 non-programmers and turn all 4 into Junior RPG developers in such a short time has been a huge help to our department. We appreciate all that you did to help our new people become productive employees and look forward to working with you again in the future.

My name is Michael and I am an IT Manager at MBI, Inc. a $300 million consumer products company in Connecticut that has just celebrated its 50th anniversary. We are an IBM i shop with two divisions plus corporate each running their own applications on a partitioned system with three separate supporting teams of application developers. Our applications are written in ILE RPG Free utilizing extensive SQL and using Rational Developer (RDi) as our development tool.

Over the years it has become harder and harder to find talented RPG developers especially ones with the drive and excitement to take on new technologies. Along with ILE we are using SOAP and REST web services, PHP, XML, HTTP and JavaScript to build more modern applications and interfaces. We needed to find employees to support our growth and it was at the fall COMMON User Group conference in Pittsburg last year that I met Jim and heard about his company and its mission.

At the conference I met with a group of young developers, new to the IBM i, and was very pleased to see their enthusiasm about our system. These developers came from a variety of technical backgrounds, .Net, Java, etc., but all were now working at IBM i shops. The common thread for these developers was that they had gone thru Jim’s courses to help get them up to speed on ILE, CLLE, RDi, DB2 and our very amazing operating system.

I got home from the conference and convinced upper management here at MBI that this was a very viable approach to addressing our staffing needs. Approval was given and I immediately started working with local agencies to find non-ILE talent interested in adding IBM i to their skillset. In February 2019 we found and hired Laura an experienced developer with C#, MVC, .Net and JavaScript experience. She immediately started taking Jim’s courses ‘IBM i Concepts and Operations’ and ‘Programming in ILE RPG’.

By mid-April Laura had completed the on-line courses. She was an active participant in their weekly online group sessions and she got timely and effective support from Jim and his team. imPower was effective in keeping me abreast of Laura’s progress so that I could feed her appropriate assignments to reinforce her education.

Laura has taken her new knowledge and become a contributing member of our team. We are only three months past the formal education phase and I am pleased to be able to report to both Jim and my management that this has proven to be very effective solution. I highly recommend Jim and his company’s on-line education offerings and would be glad to talk one-on-one with anyone considering taking this approach.

“What Jim offers fills a needed gap. It is a great answer to training resource with required skills. We have had a couple of staff members, including a student take Jim’s class. After doing so they have been able to hit the ground running in a short period of time. A student with the desire and aptitude can take Jim’s class and be a valuable part of your programming team quickly. The class is great quality at a great price. Well worth the investment. The class format, material and structure is very professionally done and well suited to the purpose. Jim goes beyond and above and truly is making an impact on meeting the need to train the next generation on IBM i.“

I was a student at Gateway Technical College and took Jim’s RPG classes. He taught me everything I needed to know about RPG to successfully maintain and build source code as well as navigate the system. He is a big believer in modernization, so as a student I learned the most current form of RPG and embedded SQL. We also used the most current tools like Profound UI and Arcad. In his classes I successfully created programs that have the same logic that I use everyday at work now. Without Jim and the knowledge he has given me I would not be where I am today.

Jim Buck’s courses were the most important classes in my career. He wrote the book RPG and teaches the language from a business use-case scenario. Students are learning more than how to write a new language, some are learning how a business runs day to day from creating inventory reports to creating tools to manage inventory. Over the years he has taught and helped students to become programmers where some go on to succeed to become business leaders.