Gloria Decker

Gloria A. Decker (born 1933) is a New Jersey Democratic Party politician who served as mayor of Phillipsburg and as executive director of the New Jersey State Lottery Commission. She switched to the Republican Party in 1994.

She attended Churchman's Business College. Decker became active in politics in 1953 when Democrat Robert B. Meyner, a Phillipsburg resident, ran successfully for governor. She served as vice chair of the Warren County Young Democrats and served on the Warren County Democratic Committee. She was an alternate delegate to the 1968 Democratic National Convention and a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention. In the 1960s, she was elected to the Phillipsburg Board of Education.

Decker was elected Warren County Democratic Chairman in a 1972 special election following the resignation of Arthur W. Paini. Decker was a Commissioner of the Warren County Board of Taxation from 1972 to 1974. She was among the early supporters of Brendan Byrne for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1973. Byrne appointed her to serve as the executive director of the New Jersey Lottery Commission in 1977; she held that post until the end of the Byrne administration in 1982.

She was the vice president and general manager of Games Production, Inc. from 1982 to 1984, and a lottery consultant for G Tech Corp. from 1984 to 1986.

Decker was the deputy mayor of Phillipsburg from 1989 to 1991, and the mayor of Phillipsburg from 1991 to 1995.Elected as a Democrat, she switched parties in 1994 and lost re-election in 1995 running as a Republican. Governor Christine Todd Whitman appointed her to serve as executive director of the New Jersey Real Estate Commission in 1996; she held that post until 2002.She has served as a commissioner of the Warren County Board of Elections since 2001.