Dr. Allyn Decker serves as vice chancellor for the Warsaw campus of Ivy Tech Community College. Photo by Tim Ashley.

By Tim Ashley
InkFreeNews

WARSAW — While attending Grace College and serving on a short-term missions trip in Liberia, West Africa, Dr. Allyn Decker became interested in education. He was teaching a Bible class in a public school to a large classroom of boys of differing ages.

“To my great surprise, they seemed engaged in the learning and I enjoyed the challenge,” he said. “This experience sparked my interest in education.”

He also served as a teaching assistant helping communication students prepare for and review their speeches. “Again, I enjoyed the challenge and rewards of helping people get better at something they initially feared,” he commented.

Decker is now the vice chancellor for the Warsaw campus of Ivy Tech Community College. In 2017 he had been hired as the campus president but a statewide reorganization changed things at the Warsaw campus when it merged with the larger Fort Wayne campus and his title was changed to vice chancellor.

He grew up in northern Michigan and attended K-12 grades in Gladwin, Mich., located near the “thumb” portion of the state.

Later he earned the first of his four college degrees, a bachelor’s in Behavioral Science, from Grace College. He would go on to earn a master’s degree in Counseling from Grace, another master’s in Organizational Communication/Training from Ball State University and a Ph.D. in Higher Education from Azusa Pacific University. And he has a Christian education diploma from Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.

It was during the summer after his sophomore year at Grace he was on the short-term missions trip to West Africa. Decker later taught and chaired in the communication department at Grace from 1986 to 1997. From 1997 to 2017 he was an adjunct faculty member at Grace and taught organizational communication, business, writing, human resource management and organizational development to traditional undergraduate students and working adults.

Decker’s resume shows a clear progression of strong involvement in public education. “(I enjoy) supporting faculty and staff, building new programs and finding ways to bring more resources to our campus,” he said.

As a vice chancellor, he said he works closely with colleagues in Fort Wayne “to ensure the faculty, staff and students at Warsaw have all the resources they need to be successful in their work and learning. I also serve on a number of community boards and committees in order to help strengthen our community and build rewarding partnerships.”

Building new programs has been a pattern for Decker.

He developed and later directed the Orthopedic Regulatory and Clinical Affairs graduate program (from 2011-2016) at Grace College. From 1997 to 2010 he was vice president of organizational development for Lake City and beginning in 2000 and ongoing developed “Lake City University.” Employees were trained in sales, customer service, supervision, leadership and teamwork.

There was also a nearly 30-year stint as a contract trainer for Positive Impact Consulting Inc. from 1986 to 2015. Decker provided workshops, seminars and meeting facilitation to several types of industries including health care, orthopedics, manufacturing and others, in addition to providing long-range strategic planning.

He has apparently been one to do more than talk about the importance of public education. Instead, Decker has went so far as creating programs to give people the training they need to be successful.

Some may recognize his name because of his association with the Kosciusko Leadership Academy. He has been the moderator for KLA since 2008. He also serves on the workforce and education committee for the Kosciusko Chamber of Commerce, the Kosciusko Economic Development Corporation board, and serves on two other committees.

In the limited free time he has, he enjoys gardening year-round in the “greenroom” added to his Warsaw home last year. He also enjoys reading and travelling internationally, such as going on a safari in South Africa for one example.

Allyn is married to Vicky and they have two married daughters, Aly and Anna.