BANNOCKBURN, Ill., Dec. 14, 2004 -- Decision Design
Corporation ( http://www.decisiondesign.com ), a leading
custom software development firm, today announced the
release of a custom website software product available for
free to any Boy Scout Pack or Troop in need of a website.
Three Scout Units, Deerfield Pack 150 (IL), Brentwood Pack
90 (CA), and Fox Lake Troop 85 (IL), created their websites
using the new product and went live with their new sites
this week.
"Three of our employees, including me, have sons in
scouting," said Monty Davis, President of Decision Design.
"It became obvious that this would be a great way to give
something back to our communities and help the Scouts solve
an on-going problem facing many Scoutmasters."
Davis is working with local Scout councils to get the word
out that other Packs and Troops in need of sites are welcome
to use Decision Design's software free of charge. "We are
all pretty excited about how the concept has evolved, from a
simple website to its current incarnation as a full-fledged
software product, ready to host an unlimited number of scout
units," said Davis.
The website is database driven, making it very easy to
customize a website for any Pack or Troop in need of a site.
The site template reflects all Boy Scout website standards
for colors and logos. "Decision Design did an outstanding
job with this," said Kevin Beauseigneur, Pack leader for
Deerfield Cub Scout Pack 150, adding that the ability for
individual Dens to have their own pages was a great
addition. "I was impressed with how fluid and clean the site
is. It's very easy to navigate." Soon, Davis hopes Decision
Design will be able to offer the Scouts an administration
tool that will allow Scoutmasters to update the sites
themselves.
The website software product idea developed out of an
immediate need of the one of the Packs. "A few months ago we
got talking about maybe upgrading the California Pack's
website, seeing as their site was in need of work," noted
Davis. "We discussed doing this for nothing, as a donation
to their Pack and to the Brentwood, CA community. But as we
talked, I realized that along with the California pack's web
problems, the Fox Lake Boy Scout troop site was in need of
work and my son's Pack, Pack 150, doesn't have a site at
all. Both of their sites were built by well meaning people
that wanted to create a communication tool for their Units,
but neither was very sophisticated and had become
maintenance problems. We knew this would be a way we could
help."
For Davis, this was a natural fit for his company. "We are a
software company that builds custom software products for
our clients. We build a variety of software types, including
many flavors of web-based software. Putting 2 and 2
together, we all decided it might be an interesting project
to simultaneously support all 3 of our scout units by
building a single web-based software product, custom built
for scouts, whereby the pack/troop could operate the site to
store and display its pack/troop specific information.
Scouting has been great to all of our kids. We can't think
of a better way to say thank you."
Packs and Troops interested in obtaining a free web site can
contact Melinda O'Neill, the company's Community Liason, at
847-940-9200 or through email at info@decisiondesign.com .