DVIDS:
RHINE ORDNANCE BARRACKS, Germany — Like most Soldiers, Sgt. Robert Baddeley’s day starts around 6 a.m. for morning physical training, and ends around 5. How he spends the hours in between separates him from other Soldiers.
Baddeley, a patriot system repair Soldier with Service Company, 5th Battalion, 7th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, spent the last 12 weeks using his civilian skills to save the Army a lot of money by developing a new website to help fellow Soldiers and their families.
Prior to joining the Army, Baddeley worked at a web page design firm in his native California as a web design programmer for five years. There he learned the basics of back end coding as well as design and coding and turned his very serious hobby into a valuable skill.
In April 2014, the U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz Public Affairs Office recruited Baddeley through a Facebook community wide request. He volunteered his expertise to help revamp their website.
“He’s gone above and beyond here at the garrison,” said Rick Scavetta, garrison public affairs officer who’s worked alongside Baddeley. “He created an amazing newcomer’s page to help our sponsorship efforts, and designed an entirely new and dynamic garrison website from scratch, as well as a community resource guide for the 21st Theater Sustainment Command.”
Baddeley creates code templates line by line using a “bootstrap frame work,” a term known mostly to computer programmers, to allow him to use the same elements on every page without having to rewrite each and every one. His daily schedule revolves around creating documentation, bug checking, and checking the spelling of the many pages he has created.
Since March, Baddeley has been working to rebuild the Rheinland-Pfalz website to make it both friendly for desktops and mobile platforms. He has spent more than 400 hours making an original design based on the guidance of the garrison leaders. He regularly meets with them to ensure satisfaction and efficiency on the many sites. He has even integrated a German translation for certain sites…
