The Challenge

The City of College Station’s existing CMS was painfully outdated; support requests moved at a crawl, and the platform locked them into rigid templates that prevented even basic customization.

For Assistant Director of Public Communications Bobbie Lehrmann and team, the pain points went far beyond aesthetics. The city’s website search function — arguably the most critical feature for citizen self-service — was fundamentally broken.

Other problems included:

• Locked down templates
• No test environment
• Subpar mobile experience
• Limited control over website customization

Why Govstack

“We were blown away from the first time we met with Govstack and saw the product. After that, it was a very easy decision.” recalled Multimedia Manager Joelene Tomecek.  

What won them over wasn't just a sales pitch. It was seeing how Govstack addressed their specific pain points:

• True Customization: Full control over design without tiered pricing for basic features
• Smart Search: Integration with Cludo search that became a central component of the new home page
• Mobile Optimization: The ability to hide or show specific content based on screen size — a feature unique among the government CMS platforms they evaluated
• Approval Workflows: Departments could edit content, but everything flowed through the web team for approval before going live
• Test Environment: Preview changes before publishing to eliminate the risk of live mistakes

The Implementation

College Station faced an aggressive timeline as they needed to be live by Fall 2025. That meant going from contract signing to launch in just six months — roughly half the time of a typical government website project.

Despite the compressed schedule, the project stayed on track. Two elements proved particularly valuable:

• TreeJack Testing and Site Mapping: Rather than simply migrating their department-focused navigation structure, Govstack conducted research with citizens and city employees to create a service-focused navigation. "Our site map is completely different now," Joelene noted. The team worried departments would resist losing their dedicated sections, but the data-driven approach made the case.
• Dedicated Support: The Govstack Implementation Team understood their urgency and kept the implementation moving. "They were on top of it," said Website Coordinator Carlos Elarba. "They understood our expectations and got releases to us as soon as possible."

The Results

The Govstack platform provides several benefits for City of College Station including:

• Zero Vendor Lock-In: Full control over design and content with no restrictions on updates or redesigns
• Intelligent Search: Prominent search bar powered by Cludo that returns relevant results
• Mobile Optimized: Responsive design with granular control over how content appears on different devices
• Streamlined Structure: Service-focused navigation designed for citizens that is truly user-friendly, featuring a consolidation of old, underutilized pages.
• Controlled Collaboration: Departments can edit content while the web team maintains quality control through approval workflows
• Faster Implementation: Six-month timeline from contract to launch

Perhaps most importantly, the team finally has the freedom they need. "The CMS really gives us the ability to do what we need," Carlos explained. "We can figure out the best solution for every department depending on their needs. If we want to do a complete rebrand and change every single color, we can do it ourselves."