Geoffrey Decker

About Geoffrey Decker

Geoffrey earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music at the University of Kansas (1986) and a Master of Science degree in Computer Science at Northern Illinois University (1990). After 11 years working in the Kansas City area as primarily a mainframe software developer in the financial industry, he returned to NIU in August 2001 and joined the faculty as an instructor in computer science, primarily in the mainframe/enterprise development environment. He continues teaching and mentoring students at all levels, and is a co-founder and the lead instructor of Eli Madison Memorial Apprenticeship, LLC. Programming languages with which he has worked professionally are High-Level Assembler, COBOL, JCL, C++, C and CA-IDEAL, and he teaches - or has taught - all of these languages and Java and Android mobile app development at both the beginning and advanced levels. Under the mentorship of the late great NIU Professor Emeritus, Dr. Robert Rannie, the emphasis of his master\'s degree was MVS Systems Programming. He has more than 38 years of experience in software development with the last 24+ years spent primarily in higher education. He is proud of and grateful for the three annual Excellence in Teaching awards he has been awarded by NIU\'s Department of Computer Science\'s Student Advisory Board in 2005, 2019 and 2021. He has also been honored to be named an IBM Z Champion in 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026. Recently, he was named a member of the Governing Board of the Open Mainframe Project of the LinuxOne Foundation and is also an Open Mainframe Project Ambassador.He plays French horn in the DeKalb Municipal Band and the Kishwaukee Symphony Orchestra. He writes program notes for concerts and classical music reviews. He reads a lot of history and speaks, reads and writes German fluently.

Experience

1. Instructor

   Northern Illinois University

   Aug 2001 — Present · DeKalb, IL, US

   Teaching undergraduate and graduate level computer science courses for both majors and non-majors in HLASM, COBOL, Java, C++, Android Mobile App Development, etc.

Education

• The University of Kansas

  B.A., Music (Music History)

  1980 — 1986

• Northern Illinois University

  M.S., Computer Science

  1988 — 1990

Skills

• Editing
• Java
• Oracle
• Windows
• Db2
• Enterprise Software
• Vsam
• Systems Analysis
• Database Design
• Mysql
• Jdbc
• C++
• Agile & Waterfall Methodologies
• Sql
• C
• Programming
• Software Development
• Scrum
• Cobol
• Higher Education
• Microsoft Office
• Cics
• Computer Science
• Teaching
• Assembly
• Agile Project Management
• Microsoft Sql Server
• Databases
• Data Analysis
• Software Documentation
• Agile Testing
• 360/370 Assembler
• Job Control Language (Jcl)
• Integration
• Mainframe
• Database Administration
• Z/Os
• Sas
• Operating Systems
• Agile Methodologies