Almarian William Decker (born 1852, Ohio; d. Aug. 1893, Sierra Madre, California; interred Sierra Madre Pioneer Cemetery) was an American pioneer of electrical engineering involved in the early development of three-phase electrical power.
This was the first commercial application of three-phase electrical power in the United States and probably the world.
Its success led to the widespread adoption of three-phase power, in preference to single-phase and direct current.
[2] Decker was responsible for the daily supervision of the electrical installations on the railway, and had also computed the electrical requirements for the Great Incline operating system, even considering a series of rechargeable batteries since there was such a lack of resources for hydroelectric generation.
Decker suffered from tuberculosis which left him so weak that he had to be ferried out to the work sites in a wheelbarrow daily to oversee the electrical installations.