A funeral mass for Craig E. Johnson, Power Systems software product manager for IBM i, was held Saturday, Jan. 30, at Holy Spirit Catholic Church, 5455 50th Avenue NW, Rochester, MN. Burial was in Pleasant Prairie Cemetery. Macken Funeral Home  handled the arrangements. Online condolences may be left at www.mackenfuneralhome.com.

Johnson, 51, was killed in a multi-car pileup on Interstate 35 near Latimer, Iowa. The accident occurred a few minutes after 1 p.m. near the 172 mile marker of I-35 in a crash that involved nearly 40 vehicles, according to Courtney Greene, of the Iowa Department of Public Safety. Apparently Johnson was trying to help his wife, Kathleen, when he exited their vehicle and was struck by another vehicle, according to a statement by the family.

While there were numerous injuries in the pile-up, Greene said that Johnson was the only person killed. News reports of the crash said that a second person later died, but Greene said those reports were erroneous. Johnson, 51, was with his family in their vehicle when the crash occurred during blizzard conditions. Kathleen reportedly was injured in the accident. The Johnson family, who reside in Rochester, reportedly were on their way to the funeral of an Iowa relative, believed to be an aunt, when the accident occurred. Johnson's vehicle, and others on the freeway, encountered blizzard conditions that resulted in the pileup and eventually led to closure of the freeway between Ames, Iowa, and Albert Lea, Minn., according to news reports.

Johnson was the Power Systems software product manager for IBM i, PHP, and MySQL and had been with the company for decades. He was a frequent spokesperson for the IBM i community, traveled extensively for the company visiting with IBM i customers and Business Partners, and wrote a blog and frequent articles about the platform for IBM Systems Magazine. His profile says he was responsible for "understanding the market requirements for IBM i, driving product enhancements, and delivering new product offerings."

Johnson led the introduction of many technologies on the IBM i platform including Linux, AIX, PHP, and MySQL. He also spent much time supporting the IBM side of the PHP relationship with Zend. Before joining the product management team, Johnson was team leader in the AS/400 Competitive Marketing department and had held numerous technical and management positions with IBM sales.

Johnson was born in Des Moines, Iowa on April 30, 1958 to Ivan and Dorla Johnson Eisenlauer, according to the funeral home. He was reared in Des Moines and graduated from Roosevelt High School. He was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Iowa State University, and married Kathleen Sweeney Sept. 21, 1985, in Des Moines.

He is survived by his wife Kathleen; two daughters, Casey Johnson, of Ames, Iowa and Megan Johnson of Minneapolis, along with fiancé Solomon Geigle; his father, Ivan (Judy) Johnson of Des Moines; his mother Dorla (Ike) Eisenlauer of Estes Park, Colo.; a brother Paul (Carol) Johnson of Ankeny, Iowa; stepsisters Renee (Jason) Aker of Baxter, Iowa; Debra (Dennis) Martin of Lincoln, Neb; Diane (Gary) Ellis of Norwalk, Iowa; a stepbrother Dick (Linda) Eisenlauer of Bettendorf, Iowa.

Chris Smith was the Senior News Editor at MC Press Online from 2007 to 2012 and was responsible for the news content on the company's Web site. Chris has been writing about the IBM midrange industry since 1992 when he signed on with Duke Communications as West Coast Editor of News 3X/400. With a bachelor's from the University of California at Berkeley, where he majored in English and minored in Journalism, and a master's in Journalism from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Chris later studied computer programming and AS/400 operations at Long Beach City College. An award-winning writer with two Maggie Awards, four business books, and a collection of poetry to his credit, Chris began his newspaper career as a reporter in northern California, later worked as night city editor for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, and went on to edit a national cable television trade magazine. He was Communications Manager for McDonnell Douglas Corp. in Long Beach, Calif., before it merged with Boeing, and oversaw implementation of the company's first IBM desktop publishing system there. An editor for MC Press Online since 2007, Chris has authored some 300 articles on a broad range of topics surrounding the IBM midrange platform that have appeared in the company's eight industry-leading newsletters. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..