Orion Online
< K-State Student Web Design >

The story of Orion Design is that of how a simple idea and some hard work established something many thought impossible.

When Thomas Gould came to Kansas State University in 1998 as an Assistant Professor, he came with the vague hint of an idea. At the University of North Carolina he had worked with Metalab, formerly known as SunSITE. Metalab provided opportunities for students to work in design and programming for actual, real world clients. Metalab had been in business for a few years was was quite successful at both giving students a great experience, but also filling a need for service in the Chapel Hill area and beyond. Gould began to wonder if a similar model would work at K-State.

With little more than that idea to work from, Gould went to the Director of the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism and Mass Communications at K-State, Todd Simon. What Gould said in that meeting must have convinced Simon that the plan could work. He gave Gould a computer and server space, and Orion was started.

Gould managed to bribe a few students to help get Orion on its feet. Wesley Blue, Matt Kreps, and Amy Ziegler were the first to be Orion staff members.

The first few clients showed remarkable faith and tremendous support. Slowly but surely more clients were added, until there was simply too much work to go around. More staff needed to be hired. One of the first summer interns was Dave Smoller, an advertising flunkie who for some reason had a desire to go into web design. Others, such as Rita Richardson, were also hired that summer as Orion began to expand.

The fall of 1999 saw Orion move its offices out of a small cramped room in Kedzie Hall into a large abandoned TV studio in McCain Auditorium. After a few days of cleaning up the place, the room was converted into Orion's central command center, complete with Nerf basketball hoop. More and more students were added, and the position of Assistant Director, first filled by Blue and then Smoller, was added. Everything seemed to be going well, and the future seemed bright.

Orion, however, needed a new director to replace Gould (who needed to do something else, like finish his dissertation). Smoller was named Interim Director, and had the Interim removed in Spring of 2001 to be the second full time Director of Orion. His efforts doubled the client roster, and initiated several programs to help teach staff members and KSU students more about designing websites that communicate.

Orion continued its rapid growth, and continued to get strong support from its clients and Kansas State University. With this kind of help, and a little luck, Orion will continue to grow and succeed.

The current director is Faculty Advisor Bambi Lanholm.