Serving Our Country

When President Obama formed his Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (PCSBI), his administration hired Gardner Loop to build the commission’s website. Working with designer Matthew Hensrud and the web development team at the Department of Health and Human Services, we launched bioethics.gov. Much like the commission at that time — there were just three staffers and two members then — the site was modest.

Nine months later, PCSBI had grown considerably. There were now approximately twenty staffers and thirteen members working for the commission and they had been busy convening panels of experts, writing reports, and publishing transcripts and press releases. Unfortunately, the website as it was originally conceived couldn’t meet the demands of this larger, more active commission.

Again the commission called on Gardner Loop. We redesigned bioethics.gov from top to bottom, giving it a more “presidential” appearance and developing a content management system (CMS) that allowed commission staffers to manage the site. These improvements allowed readers to easily find and navigate PCSBI’s content while giving the commission greater control over its publishing schedule.