Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

How the Navy SEALs wound up buying 450 counterfeit radio antennas

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Last spring, the Pentagon spent more than $165,000 on a set of sophisticated radio antennas for a contingent of elite Navy SEALs.  Unfortunately, they were cheap knockoffs, courtesy of a California vendor apparently looking to secure some extra profit.

A search warrant application recently filed by the Defense Department provides a glimpse into how the alleged scam worked.

In April 2019, the Naval Special Warfare Command solicited bids to buy 450 VHF/UHF antennas for use by members of the Navy SEALs.  The request required the body-worn antennas come from New York-based manufacturer Mastodon Design, and that the supplier qualify as a small business.

The government used to purchase the antennas directly from Mastodon.  However, it no longer could because after Mastodon’s sale to a large multinational defense contractor, the once-boutique company no longer qualified as a small business.  This meant the Navy would have to buy Mastodon’s antennas through an authorized small distributor or reseller.

On May 1, the sales team at Mastodon got an email from the procurement department of a California company called Vizocom.  It said the company was bidding on a Navy contract and wanted to know how much 450 Mastodon antennas would cost.  Mastodon quoted a price: $165,109.50.

Vizocom then submitted its bid to the Navy for the exact same amount.  A source with direct knowledge of the situation told Quartz it was highly unusual that Vizocom wouldn’t want to make any money on the deal.  At this price, the Navy awarded Vizocom the contract.

The company, however, would never actually place the order with Mastodon.  Instead, it would import low-cost antennas from China and pass them off as from Mastodon using fake serial numbers and spec sheets, according to the search warrant application and sources with knowledge of the deal.

Continue reading at:  Yahoo Finance

$25 million project will advance DNA-based archival data storage

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The demand for archival data storage has been skyrocketing, and if a new research initiative reaches its goals, that need could be met by taking advantage of an efficient and robust information storage medium that has proven itself through the centuries: the biopolymer DNA.

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity’s (IARPA) Molecular Information Storage (MIST) program has awarded a multi-phase contract worth up to $25 million to develop scalable DNA-based molecular storage techniques.  The goal of the project, which will be led by the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), is to use DNA as the basis for deployable storage technologies that can eventually scale into the exabyte regime and beyond with reduced physical footprint, power and cost requirements relative to conventional storage technologies.

The technology already exists for storing and reading information into DNA — which also encodes the genetic blueprint for living organisms — but significant advances will be needed to make it commercially practical and cost competitive with established magnetic tape and optical disk memory.  While current archival storage has a limited lifetime, information stored in DNA could last for hundreds of years.

Continue reading at:  Georgia Tech News Center

Why companies should start preparing for CMMC now

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It’s a new year — and a new cybersecurity regime for vendors working on defense contracts is coming.

The Defense Department has been steadily working on its new unified standard, the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), and is expected to release a final version and a list of accrediting bodies in January.  But while companies shouldn’t wait until things are finalized to prep for certification, many are stuck.

“CMMC is going to be law of the land,” Corbin Evans, the director of regulatory policy for the National Defense Industrial Association, told Defense Systems, yet “folks are a little hesitant to make any major moves.”

Continue reading at:  Defense Systems

Lockheed Martin’s Marietta GA facility wins major C-130J contract

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Lockheed Martin has won a $3 billion multiyear contract to deliver up to 50 C-130J Super Hercules to the US Air Force (USAF), US Marine Corps (USMC) and US Coast Guard.

The Department of Defense awarded $1.5 billion for the first tranche of 21 C-130Js on 27 December, the company says on 13 January.

In total, the company is contracted to deliver a mix of 24 HC-130Js and MC-130Js to the USAF, and 20 KC-130s to the USMC, while the US Coast Guard has an option to buy six HC-130Js, as part of the “multiyear III award”.

Continue reading at:  FlightGlobal

Hartsfield-Jackson designates restaurant spots for small businesses

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As Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport puts contracts up for bid for new restaurants, half of the contracts are designated for small businesses.

The airport concessions business is dominated by longtime concessionaires and large multinational firms with hundreds of locations around the world that have expertise in operating in the unpredictable, security-restricted, round-the-clock environment of an airport.

That can make it difficult for small, local restaurateurs to win a contract at the world’s busiest airport.

Continue reading at:  AJC

Alpharetta man charged with conspiracy to defraud U.S. government

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Three men were charged recently in federal court in Boston with conspiracy to defraud the United States and mail fraud in connection with a scheme to obtain government contracts.

Frank Apicella, 63, of Groveland, Massachusetts; Michael Sforza, 59, of Alpharetta; and James Apicella, 37, of Kingston, New Hampshire, were charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and one count of mail fraud.

According to the charging document, beginning in 2011 the defendants used Tactical Office Solutions, a company run by James Apicella, to bid for and obtain government contract work that was set aside for Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses and Historically Underutilized Business Zone companies.  Although the work was bid by and awarded to Tactical Office Solutions based under these set-aside programs, the work was actually mostly performed by FENS, a company owned and operated by Frank Apicella and Michael Sforza that was not eligible for these contracts.

Continue reading at:  Patch.com

What the Fair Chance Act means for government contractors

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The “Fair Chance Act” was signed into law as 2019 came to a close, just one part of the National Defense Authorization Act.  It prohibits federal contractors that have openings for positions within the scope of federal contracts, as well as all federal agencies, from inquiring about or otherwise seeking criminal history information from an applicant until after a conditional job offer has been extended.

The Act won’t actually go into effect until December 20, 2021, but it could change the hiring process for some contractors.  It “bans the box,” which means that federal contractors would be prohibited from asking applicants about their criminal histories until a contractor extends a conditional job offer.  Moreover, it prohibits contractors from even seeking any information about criminal activities from other sources.

Continue reading at:  Clearance Jobs

Podcast: 2020 will be a busy year for federal procurement

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Fiscal year 2020, which coincides with calendar year 2020, started off busy on the federal contracting front.  Dan Snyder, the director of government contracts at Bloomberg Government, joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin for a look ahead.

Listen to the podcast at:  Federal News Network

How DoD’s new cybersecurity rules affect government contractors

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At the end of the last year the Department of Defense (DoD) issued six guidance memoranda aimed at assisting acquisition personnel in developing what has been described as “effective cybersecurity strategies to enhance existing protection requirements.”  This included a mandate for the Defense Contract Management Agency to ensure that cybersecurity compliance will be a part of a contractor’s purchasing system audit and approval process.

Among the changes is the new Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), which will replace the self-attestation model and move towards third party certification.  It will require all defense contractors and subcontractors to undergo a third party assessment of their internal cybersecurity technical practices and process maturity against published standards.

The final version of CMMC is set to be published by the end of January.  The certification will be built on existing requirements such as NIST SP 800-171, NIST SP 800-53, AIA NAS9933, private sector contributions, and input from academia.  An independent accrediting body will soon begin training the auditors.

Continue reading at:  Clearance Jobs

More firms will now be eligible for federal government small business contracts

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More companies will be eligible to compete for federal contracts reserved for small businesses, due to the recent implementation of a 2018 law.

On Jan. 6th 2020, the Small Businesses Administration’s final rule to implement the 2018 Small Business Runway Extension Act took effect, increasing the period of measuring small businesses’ annual revenue from three to five years in the contract evaluation process.  This is “going to increase the pool of eligible participants and make a lot more companies eligible to participate for small business set asides,” said Daniel Snyder, director of contract analysis at Bloomberg Government.

The act was signed into law on Dec. 17, 2018.  Snyder said there was a delay in implementation because there were “a small fraction” of companies put at a disadvantage by the change, so the agency wanted to figure out how to best mitigate any negative impact.  The compromise was to “give small businesses the option to choose either three or five years and then there will be a phase-in period, so companies will be allowed to choose…whichever one puts them at a greater advantage until the phase-out period concludes.”  The transition period ends on Jan. 6, 2022.

Continue reading at:  Government Executive

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