Georgia Tech Procurement Assistance Center

MICC unit supports COVID-19 vaccine sites in Florida, Georgia

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Contracting professionals from the 904th Contracting Battalion and Mission and Installation Contracting Command on Fort Stewart continue to support ongoing efforts to vaccinate more than 1 mil­lion people against COVID-19 in Florida and Georgia.

Beginning in late Feb., the 904th CBN contracted life support services for more than 700 service mem­bers.  These joint missions are comprised of Army, Navy, and Air Force personnel who are manning five feder­al vaccination sites in Orlando, Tampa, Miami, Jacksonville, and Atlanta for up to 60 days.

Each contract provides lodging, meals, laundry, and transportation services supporting numerous doctors, nurses, administrative and support staff assigned to each of the vaccination sites.  Federal Emergency Management Agency and state government officials provide overall oversite of daily operations at each of the five vaccination sites.

Continue reading at:  Army.mil

The Army’s newest $21 billion contract is not your typical government contract

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Last week the Army awarded Microsoft the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) contract, a potentially $21 billion undertaking by the Army to develop next-generation night vision and “situational awareness capabilities” in a Heads Up Display.  Unlike Microsoft’s last multi-billion dollar contract award, the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI), which is still pending before the Court of Federal Claims more than a year after Amazon filed its bid protest challenging the award in November 2019, IVAS is unlikely to experience the same fate.  Why?  Because IVAS was awarded under the Army’s Other Transaction Authority (OTA) and is not subject to the same FAR rules as the JEDI contract.

Continue reading at:  The Contractor’s Perspective

Design changes coming soon to beta.SAM.gov

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Come Monday, the General Services Administration’s central procurement website, beta.SAM.gov, will get a new look, shuffling and tightening the image and feel of the site in response to years of user feedback.

The design update scheduled for April 26 is the first of a two-step process that will end in the merger of beta.SAM and the original SAM.gov—the site that hosts the System for Award Management registration function, required for all organizations contracting with or receiving grants from the federal government.  At that time—currently set for May 24—SAM.gov will be retired and beta.SAM will lose the “beta,” become SAM.gov, and subsume all of the legacy SAM functionality.

Continue reading at:  Nextgov

FBI expanding footprint in Huntsville

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The FBI is building out a new, state-of-the-art campus at a popular federal site, part of a multi-year effort to expand its presence at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.

The goal is to strategically realign the bureau, enhance its training programs, create a common space for academic and private sector partners, and tap into top IT talent in the region, FBI officials said Tuesday at the Professional Services Council’s virtual law enforcement conference.

“Our overarching goals with the Huntsville expansion are to enhance operations and create synergies between FBI program areas that are all currently spread out geographically and functionally — and also create resiliency and continuity of operations should an outage or a catastrophic event occur in the national capital region,” said Terry Wade, executive associate director for criminal and cyber at the bureau.

The FBI has been at Redstone Arsenal since the 1970s and has gradually moved more employees to Huntsville in recent years.  The bureau previously planned to move its headquarters from the historic yet outdated Hoover building in Washington, D.C., to a consolidated campus in suburban Maryland or Virginia.

Continue reading at:  Federal News Network

Federal contractor indicted for stealing over $1.2 million from the U.S. Postal Service

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A federal grand jury indicted a construction contractor for stealing over $1.2 million from the United States Postal Service through a more than three-year scheme to defraud through false invoices, Acting United States Attorney Saima S. Mohsin announced today.

Mohsin was joined in the announcement by Steven Suller, Director of the Contract Fraud Investigations Division, United States Postal Service, Office of Inspector General.

Michael Rymar, 59, of Rochester Hills, stands charged with embezzling government funds from the United States Postal Service (USPS).  From 2015 to 2018, USPS engineers awarded Rymar’s company, Horizons Materials & Management LLC, with over $5 million in contracts for repairs on USPS buildings in Michigan and New York.  But the documentation Rymar provided contained false and fraudulent statements, oftentimes dramatically and falsely overstating the amount he paid subcontractors to complete the repairs.  Rymar also falsely inflated the amount he paid his own employees and the cost of materials on USPS jobs.  Over the course of the three-plus-year fraudulent scheme, Rymar stole over $1.2 million from USPS out of the $5 million in contracts he was awarded.

Continue reading at:  U.S. Department of Justice website

CMMC announces new advisory council to collect industry feedback

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The governing body for the Defense Department’s cybersecurity compliance program has launched a new organization charged with getting defense contractors’ feedback on the implementation process.

The CMMC advisory council will “provide a crystallizing, unified voice” for defense contractors seeking certification and “supply key feedback, input, and recommendations for implementing CMMC” said Karlton Johnson, the chair of the CMMC Accreditation Body.

The council is separate from the board of directors and will operate between the defense industry base, the CMMC Accreditation Body, and the Defense Department.

Continue reading at:  FCW

EEOC announces April 26 opening date for the collection of 2019 and 2020 EEO-1 component 1 data

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After delaying the opening of the 2019 EEO-1 Component 1 Data Collection on May 8, 2020, in light of the COVID-19 public health emergency, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced today that the 2019 and 2020 EEO-1 Component 1 data collection will open on Monday, April 26, 2021.

Continue reading at:  EEOC website

Contractors line up to rebuild MARTA’s Five Points Station

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MARTA has started the process of transforming the Five Points Station into a transportation hub to serve the planned mini-city to be built at The Gulch.

The contract to tear down and rebuild the station could prove to be incredibly competitive. The work is being paid for with proceeds of the More MARTA 0.5% sales tax.

Nearly 120 representatives of the biggest names in facilities and mobility construction attended a March 24 pre-bid conference hosted by MARTA, according to a sign-in sheet.

Continue reading at:  Saporta Report

GDOT announces $828.8 million in projects to transform Ga. 316

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Governor Brian P. Kemp and the Georgia Department of Transportation recently announced a series of reconstruction projects that will remove existing signalized intersections, address side road stopped intersections, and replace current at-grade separations with interchanges along 35 miles of Ga. 316 in Gwinnett, Barrow, and Oconee counties.

 

Continue reading at:  AJC

 

America’s depleted industrial base is a national security crisis

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President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s farewell address is most famous for its warning against the “unwarranted influence” of the military-industrial complex.  But Eisenhower also stressed the defense industry’s importance to the country’s security: After all, it helped the U.S. maintain superiority over its rivals, forestall great-power conflict and win the Cold War.

Six decades on, America’s military remains the most advanced in the world — but the industrial base supporting it has deteriorated.  Industry consolidation, domestic manufacturing decline, and dysfunctional federal budgeting have combined to reduce competition throughout the defense supply chain, eroding military readiness and potentially jeopardizing national security.

Continue reading at:  Bloomberg

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