Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

SBA denies 8(a) status based on applicant’s ability to successfully overcome gender-based discrimination in her field

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OHA recently affirmed the 8(a) status denial of a 100% woman-owned small business performing in the historically male-dominated renewable energy field.  The applicant—who SBA called an “advocate” and “mentor” to women in the industry—detailed specific instances of gender-based-discrimination that plagued her education, employment, and career.  But SBA was unmoved, instead focusing its analysis on the applicant’s triumph over these obstacles—apparently an indication that she was not socially disadvantaged in the first place.  

Continue reading at:  SmallGovCon

VA agrees that rule of two has priority over AbilityOne Procurement List

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In its most recent attempt to strike the appropriate balance between the Veterans First and AbilityOne programs, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (“VA”) issued on May 20, 2019 a class deviation to the VA Acquisition Regulations (“VAAR,” 48 C.F.R. Chapter 8), instructing contracting officers to conduct a “Rule of Two” analysis before procuring from the AbilityOne Procurement List.

The Rule of Two is set forth in the Veterans Benefits Act of 2006 (“VBA”), 38 U.S.C. § 8127(d), which established the Veterans First program.  The Rule of Two requires that VA contracting officers determine whether two or more veteran-owned small businesses (“VOSBs”), including service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses, are capable of meeting the VA’s requirements at reasonable prices.  If two or more qualified VOSBs can satisfy the VA’s needs, the VA must procure those goods through those VOSBs that are awarded contracts.  The VBA also allows contracting officers to grant sole-source contracts to VOSBs under limited circumstances (38 U.S.C. §§ 8127(b)-(c)).

The new VA class deviation revises VAAR 808.002, Priorities for Use of Government Supply Sources, and subpart 808.6, Acquisition from Federal Prison Industries, Inc.—the two provisions that implement for the VA the FAR Part 8 mandatory source priority generally enjoyed by AbilityOne Procurement List and Federal Prison Industries vendors across government procurements.  The deviation instructs that the Veterans First priority displaces the AbilityOne priorities for “all VA contracts,” but that “if an award is not made to an eligible . . . VOSB under VAAR subpart 819.70, the priority use of AbilityOne applies and supplies and services on the Procurement List are mandatory sources.”  In this respect, the new VA class deviation reconciles the VA’s priorities for veterans and the separate, government-wide priority for AbilityOne nonprofit companies.

Continue reading at:  Government Contracts and Investigations Blog

Raytheon and United Technologies plan to merge

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Over the weekend, defense contractor Raytheon and aerospace company United Technologies announced that they plan to merge.  They’re calling it a “merger of equals,” an all-stock deal that would result in a new company, Raytheon Technologies.

If the deal makes it past regulators, the $100 billion company would become the second-largest aerospace and defense company in the U.S., behind Boeing.  The companies say the proposed merger’s important for them to keep their balance in shifting markets.  “They’re looking at it, in this acquisition, truly as a long-term view that this combined company will be able to ride the ups and downs of the markets,” said Doug Gates, head of aerospace and defense for KPMG.

Continue reading at:  Marketplace.org

Why contractor past performance data is becoming both more, less valuable

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When the General Services Administration released the $65 billion Alliant 2 governmentwide acquisition contract for IT services back in June 2016, it was one of the first major procurement efforts to put a premium on past performance.

As part of the self-scoring approach to Alliant 2, GSA determined that 40 percent of the evaluation points would be on how vendors have performed on previous and similar work with the government.  At the time, industry analysts praised GSA for building on this self-scoring approach.  Now three years later, the self-scoring approach where past performance is a significant evaluation factor has grown in popularity.

At the same time, vendors and federal procurement officials alike heed a common call that the current approach to obtaining past performance is problematic and needs to be rethought.

“As the government moves to buying more services and solutions, things are getting more subjective and you want to be able to do a better job of motivating contractors to do more,” said Jim Williams, a former federal executive with GSA, the IRS and the Homeland Security Department, and now a principal with Williams Consulting, LLC and an advisor for GovConRx.  “The forces are coming together to say vendor past performance is a valuable tool.  But it’s not working as it should because it’s too burdensome and not as accurate as it should be.  No one wants to throw it out.  We just want to fix it.”

Experts say the current system, the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS), takes too much time to fill out, lacks important details and isn’t as accurate as it needs to be.

“The time and effort to draft CPARS evaluations is too much, and with most agency contracting staffs pressed to do more with less, that gets pushed out further, especially if there is a need to justify ratings over satisfactory,” said Mike Smith, a former DHS director of strategic sourcing and now executive vice president at GovConRx.  “There needs to be some way to justify anything over satisfactory that is not so hard to track down all the information so it becomes less cumbersome.  Contractors also are not actively engaged in the documentation and support of the ratings.  That has to change too, especially as agencies are paying a lot more attention to ratings.  We have to figure out how to make sure past performance ratings are not done in haste.”

Smith said on average, depending on the type of procurement, it could take a contracting officer a few minutes to a few hours to write an in-depth CPARS review.

New data compiled by GovConRx shows the value of CPARS is dropping dramatically.

Continue reading at:  Federal News Network

Pentagon to unveil new Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) for defense contractors

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The Department of Defense announced that it is developing a new cybersecurity standard and certification for defense contractors.  It is named the “Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification” (CMMC).

Notably, the intent of the CMMC is to improve cybersecurity deficiencies in the defense industrial base and secure the supply chain.

The CMMC is expected to be based on NIST SP 800-171, as is the current Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) rule.  Specifically, DFARS Clause 252.204-7012 requires defense contractors handling sensitive, unclassified information to implement the 110 security controls of NIST SP 800-171.

However, the CMMC may incorporate or rely on frameworks in addition to NIST SP 800-171.

According to news reports, the CMMC will serve as the enforcement mechanism lacking in the current DFARS rule.

Although the draft CMMC has not yet been published, it’s been reported that there will be 5 levels of certification.  The levels will range from basic cyber hygiene to “State-of-the-Art.”  DoD contracts will require specific levels — and awards will be “go/no-go” based on the contractor’s certification status.

This is a fundamental change to how defense contracts are awarded today.

Read more at:  JD Supra

GTPAC launches GoToStage on-demand training channel

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The Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (“GTPAC”) today announced the launch of its GoToStage on-demand training channel.  This channel will be the primary repository of recorded GTPAC webinars and training events.

The channel allows GTPAC clients and prospective clients, including the general public, to receive FREE GTPAC training on-demand at no cost. 

“We understand that it is sometimes difficult to attend our webinars live.  During the past six months I have been regularly recording my webinars and sharing them,” said Andrew Smith, GTPAC Program Manager.  “We wanted to have a place where we could put all our recorded webinars and make them available to our clients and prospective clients on-demand for free.”

GTPAC will also be posting recorded webinars to their new GTPAC Community online platform as well.  The goal of these efforts is to make access to training as simple and easy as possible.

“I’m committed to providing training via webinar and on-demand,” said Smith, “With Atlanta’s traffic, it is difficult sometimes to attend training events in-person, and it is often more efficient to receive training via webinar or on-demand.  I want our services and training to be as accessible as possible.”

New training videos will be continuously posted to the new channel as webinars occur and are recorded – providing a rich and growing resource of GTPAC programming and training videos.

Clients, prospective clients, and the general public can access the on-demand training at the following website:

https://www.gotostage.com/channel/gtpac

GTPAC launches ‘GTPAC Community,’ a dedicated online social media platform for GTPAC clients

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On May 21, 2019, the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (“GTPAC”) launched the GTPAC Community, a dedicated online social media platform for GTPAC clients.  This platform, enables GTPAC clients to connect, communicate, and collaborate.  The primary purpose of the platform is to facilitate greater engagement and collaboration among GTPAC clients in all the activities associated with the pursuit of government contracts. 

“This platform provides a forum where contractors can identify potential teaming partners, and showcase their products, services and capabilities,” said Andrew Smith, Program Manager of GTPAC, he continued, “Clients can also find information related to GTPAC announcements, contracting news of interest, upcoming workshops and events, and other recent developments.”

Clients can access the GTPAC Community by going to: 

https://community.gtpac.org/

To get started by joining the community, clients can click here.  GTPAC clients will need their GTPAC Client ID to create an account and access the system.

For Frequently Asked Questions, clients can click here.

To view a recent slideshow presentation on the GTPAC Community, click on this document:  GTPAC Community Launch Presentation

Update: Fort Gordon open house and forecast forum scheduled for June 12th is now CANCELED

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Unfortunately, we were recently notified that the Fort Gordon open house and forecast forum scheduled for June 12th has now been canceled by the U.S. Army Mission and Installation Contracting Command (“MICC”).  We received the following message from Rufus Gates, a Small Business Specialist with MICC:

“The Open House Forecast Forum has been cancelled due to other official duties.  I am having to go on temporary duty to support other installations during the month of June.  This event will be rescheduled for a date after 1 Oct 2019.  Thank you all so much for agreeing to participate in our event and we look forward to your future participation.”

You can find additional details at our original posting about the event here.

GTPAC hosts Atlanta Government Contracting Day event

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On Tuesday, May 21, 2019, the Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center (“GTPAC”) hosted an event called Atlanta Government Contracting Day.  The purpose of the event was to provide general information and education on how to be a successful government contractor in Georgia.  The event also served as a platform to provide attendees with awareness of resources that could provide assistance to small businesses looking to participate in the government market.

Over 60 small businesses attended the event from a wide variety of industries.  GTPAC wants to thank everyone who attended the event, and our resources partners (SBA, SBDC, SCORE, State of Georgia Purchasing Division) who participated.  The event was a huge success and we could not have done it without the help of our resource partners and the great support that was also provided by our friends at The Contracting Education Academy at Georgia Tech.

For those who did not attend, you can download and review the event slideshow presentations below:

How To Win Government Contracts – Andrew Smith

GTPAC Community Launch Presentation – Khai Edouard

Overview of the Small Business Development Centers (SBDC) – Bart Njoku-Obi

Overview of SCORE Atlanta – Nancy Cleveland 

Doing Business with the State of Georgia – Julian Bailey

SBA OHA: Owners did not have enough managerial experience to qualify concern as a WOSB

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SBA’s socio-economic set-aside programs mandate compliance with multiple control requirements.  An important one stipulates that a woman owner of a WOSB (or a veteran for a SDVOSB or a disadvantaged owner for an 8(a) business) must have the “managerial experience of the extent and complexity to run the concern.”

But what, exactly, does this requirement entail?  A recent OHA case provides some important guidance.

In C & E Industrial Service, Inc., SBA No. WOSB-112 (Apr. 8, 2019), a WOSB was awarded a contract for rebuilding four parking lots at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.  An unsuccessful offeror filed a protest alleging that the women owners did not, in fact, own C&E.  It also alleged that the women owners were not qualified to lead a construction firm.  (Although the protest and subsequent proceedings at SBA and OHA discussed ownership and control issues, here we’ll focus solely on the control issues.)

Continue reading at:  SmallGovCon blog

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