Hi everyone! My name is Scott Decker and I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. I had a great 33-year career in public accounting with a multi-national accounting firm and retired at 58 years old the end of 2014. In my career, I moved numerous times (at one point, five times in eleven years) and lived in Texas (multiple times), Connecticut, and Ohio. I also spent a short period of time living in Luxembourg on an international assignment. I worked on every type of client from universities to banks to pharmaceutical companies to the largest steel company in the world. I must have enjoyed it as I stuck with it from my graduation from Baylor University in 1982 to my retirement in 2014.
I was not born a Catholic. Early in my life, I was Southern Baptist, Presbyterian (for a very short time), and Church of Christ, all based on where my parents attended church. Upon meeting and falling in love with Kathy, I started attending church with her. She was Roman Catholic. Sometime after we married in 1977, I was confirmed. When I tell my conversion story, I say that I became Roman Catholic in the late 70s, but I converted to Catholicism in 2011 (that’s another story — read my blog on my conversion when I write it!!).
Upon my retirement and feeling the need to do something for God (plus needing to stay out of my wife’s way), I decided to go back to school. After about three years, I graduated with a master’s degree in biblical theology from John Paul the Great Catholic University in Escondido, California. Since then, I have been teaching adults at our parish in Texas.
Kathy and I have been married for more than 40 years and we have three sons (who are off my payroll), two wonderful daughters-in-law and three adorable grandchildren. We live in Texas for most of the year. We spend our summers in Lake Tahoe, where we vacationed with the kids for many years before finally buying a home there.
You may wonder how the moniker “The Relentless Catholic TM” came about. You can blame my good friend, Jim. Not long ago, Jim’s father died. Kathy and I traveled to California to attend the funeral. However, that was going to make celebrating Mass on Sunday difficult. I arranged for an early morning flight to get us to the Bay Area in time to find a church and attend Mass before the family dinner. After Mass, we met Jim and his family to celebrate his father’s life. When we arrived, I told him the story of the morning flight and attending Mass and he broke out laughing, say, “Decker, you are the relentless Catholic!” I told him then that I intended to use that someday! Recently, I started the process of trademarking the moniker and engaged a graphic designer to help me with a logo.
ευλογησε ὁ θεος σε (God bless you)
Scott Decker
The Relentless Catholic TM