Every day, thousands of young people go unnoticed in the i community. Visit any COMMON conference, and you'd be hard-pressed to find many young people among the throngs of attendees. If you didn't know better, you might assume that the folks hard at work on the System i around the country are all nearing retirement age.

But you'd be wrong.

Only a select few attend COMMON, and it's usually the seasoned veterans. While the YiPs meetings are steadily—albeit slowly—growing in attendance, there are still many unsung heroes of the IT world who have not yet reached middle age. One of those bright-eyed youngsters is Colin Dams at Excel Systems.

Dams came to the i in a rather unusual way. After graduating from the University of Victoria in Canada with a double major in math and computer science, he headed to Japan, where he developed hospital software using .NET, C+, and Visual Studio.

When Dams decided to head back to North America two years ago, he applied for a job at Excel Systems in St. Sidney, British Columbia, Canada. At the time, he had zero experience working with the i and, in essence, a huge learning curve.

Still, Excel's on-the-job training brought Dams up to speed in no time. And, he appreciates his work environment. "The best thing about my company is the people I get to work with and the access to the knowledge they have, since I work with a number of AS/400 veterans who have willingly answered the thousands of questions I've thrown at them," Dams says. Excel has been a great workplace, he explains, "We have a casual atmosphere, and I have flexibility when I need it."

A typical day for Dams involves wading through customer emails (as a consultant and web developer, he stays busy on both fronts) and then plugging away in WebSmart for most of the day. "I mostly work from my PC using WebSmart ILE. When I get on the green screen, I go for STRPDM, SEU, and File-Flash Plus. I end up doing a lot of SQL as well," Dams says.

Projects and their continuous upgrades can take a while. Dams' oldest project is more than 14 months old, although the customer has been using the program Dams has been developing in some form or other since a few months into the project.As for the future of the i, Dams is optimistic. "I see the i supporting more open-source technologies over the years," he says. "I see this trend starting already with PHP and Linux, but I think it will continue. Five years from now, I still see myself working on web applications hosted on the i. I think the i works great as a web server, and creating web applications is what I really love to do."

Erin Bradford is an associate editor for System iNEWS.

Job: Web Developer for Excel Systems

If you weren't a web developer, what would you do? I love being outside. I'd work in parks in a planning or management role.

My favorite thing about the i: I'm a big fan of the System i. My favorite thing has got to be the close integration between the OS and the database. Being able to quickly see files and data and not having to worry about connection issues makes my job a lot easier.

What do you listen to while you're working? The Killers, Jack Johnson, and Feist. When I have a deadline approaching, I'll turn on the Rage against the Machine. I also have a healthy dose of The Who and the Rolling Stones.

FreeTime: Well, I just bought a house, so most of my free time is spent fixing it up. I do like to get outside as much as I can, though. I play for a local soccer team and love rock climbing. And, of course, playing with my one-and-a-half-year-old son!