San Marcos-based Berry Aviation Inc. was awarded a $14.16 million (base) government contract.

The charter transportation provider is tasked with providing fixed-wing aircraft, personnel, equipment, tools, material, maintenance and supervision for passenger and cargo transportation services in Afghanistan. The U.S. Department of Defense contract will begin on January 15, 2011 and will run through May 31, 2011, with four year option periods. 

Berry Aviation, founded in 1983, operates 20 planes that complete more than 13,000 flights annually.

10-year blanket purchase agreement calls for systems integration and other IT work.

CGI Federal Inc. will provide systems integration and other information technology services to the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development under a 10-year blanket purchase agreement that could be worth as much as $395 million.

Under its General Services Administration’s IT Schedule contract, CGI also will provide consulting services and operational support for more than 5,000 of the agencies’ users of the Joint Financial Management System (JFMS) at more than 300 posts and missions around the world.

JFMS is a global platform based on CGI’s Momentum software, which is used by State and USAID to conduct domestic and overseas financial management activities.

CGI Federal is a wholly owned U.S. operating subsidiary of CGI Group Inc.  Reference Article: washingtontechnology.com/articles/2010/01/19/cgi-state-usaid.aspx

The Obama administration has identified $19 billion in contracting savings for fiscal 2010, which is on track to meet President Obama’s goal of saving $40 billion, White House officials said today.

The savings are coming from 24 agencies—including the Defense, Energy and Homeland Security departments—that represent 98 percent of the federal government’s contracting dollars, according to a new report published by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) today.

Federal Chief Performance Officer Jeff Zients, who also is OMB's deputy director for management, said today in a conference call with reporters that OMB will publish an online dashboard in the spring to track and describe the savings in detail.

For example, the money saved includes $87 million from the Homeland Security Department through consolidating purchases of desktop software and $10 million from Defense for using staff engineers to develop a protective coating for shoulder-fired missiles that protects against expensive repairs, he said.

Also, the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration is saving up to 18 percent on its contracting by holding reverse auctions online, Zients said. Calling it a “reverse Ebay,” he said the bidders are encouraged to lower their bids for performing the contract by watching the other bids, anonymously, in the online reverse auction.

Federal spending on contracts more than doubled to $540 billion between 2002 and 2008. Noncompetitive contracts rose by 129 percent over that period, to $188 billion, according to OMB.

To reverse that trend, Zients said OMB is encouraging the agencies to reduce their use of high-risk contracts such as noncompetitive contracts, identify the right mix of contract and federal employees, and build the acquisition workforce.

“In the last six years, contracting doubled and the workforce was flat,” Zients said. “In that process, there was a rush to outsource, with a marked increase in reliance on cost-reimbursement contracts and sole-source contracts,” he added. “We have a lot of work to do. We will save money by bringing in best practices.”

In addition to their savings plans, agencies have identified initiatives to reduce by 10 percent the money spent on new high-risk contracts, which include non-competitive, cost-reimbursement or time-and-materials/labor-hour contracts.

Each agency also has identified at least one pilot project to find where they might be over-reliant on contractors, and will evaluate the best mix of in-house and contractor skills. Results are due May 1.

Fedeal agencies now are required to submit an electronic contractor performance review to a centralized federal database, the Federal Awardee Performance and Integration Information System. It allows agencies to assess a firm’s track record before signing a new agreement. Compliance and quality assessments will begin in February, the OMB said.

The new database is drawing some criticism. A watchdog group says it should be more transparent, while a contractor organization wants it to be more secure. Both groups said the data may not be reliable enough to guide important contracting decisions. Reference Full Aricle.

Like it or not, contractors are an integral part of government operations. The pendulum might be swinging against their use, but they will always play an important role in how the government gets things done.

The following 10 companies are at the leading edge of technology and business trends, and their impact will resonate throughout the government market and beyond.

1. Vangent and Booz Allen Hamilton
An initial public offering might seem like a remote possibility in today’s market, but that’s the direction Vangent is headed.

Owned by Veritas Capital, Vangent already acts like a public company — it’s been issuing quarterly revenue and earnings reports. What better way to pique the interests of potential investors and analysts ahead of your IPO than to dangle financial insights?

Another company to watch in this category is Booz Allen Hamilton, which is owned by the Carlyle Group. An IPO is likely the only way the company can satisfy Carlyle’s expectations and hang onto its unique corporate culture.

2. General Dynamics
Any company that’s about to lose its chairman and chief executive officer to retirement must prepare for big changes.

Nicholas Chabraja has led General Dynamics on an amazing journey of growth, which has included building an information technology business from scratch through a series of blockbuster acquisitions. Chabraja turned over the CEO title to Jay Johnson July 1, and by May 2010, Chabraja will step down as chairman, too.

3. Science Applications International Corp.

A similar process is under way at Science Applications International Corp., where Walter Havenstein will become CEO on Sept. 21 as Ken Dahlberg begins his move out of the executive suite. By SAIC’s annual meeting in June 2010, Dahlberg will resign as chairman.

Both companies bear watching to see where the new leaders will take them.

4. Lockheed Martin
Its position at the top of the government IT contracting world puts all eyes on this company. Despite its size — nearly $15 billion in government IT contracts in 2008 — Lockheed Martin continues to find itself near the front of innovative government trends. A recent example is how leaders have positioned the company for the smart-power initiative that the Obama administration is advocating. The idea is to stabilize countries to avoid situations in which military operations seem unavoidable.

When Lockheed Martin acquired PAE in 2007, it expanded its expertise beyond that of a Defense Department supplier by adding mission readiness, global infrastructure support, peacekeeping and disaster response to its repertoire.

5. Cobham
Cobham is the latest British entrant into the U.S. market, and it has made a series of acquisitions to build a business with more than $1.5 billion in U.S. revenue.
With the acquisition of Sparta, Cobham grabbed significant prime-contracting work in the intelligence and missile defense market. The acquisition was part of the company’s strategy to move up the government contracting food chain.

6. Deloitte and Touche
The accounting and consulting firm made two bold moves this year. First, it hired former Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.) as a director in its federal business unit. Then it acquired BearingPoint in that firm’s fire sale. The $350 million acquisition more than doubled Deloitte’s federal business.
The two major investments sent a clear signal that the company wants to be a major player in the government market.

7. Acquisition Solutions
As pressure grows to address organizational conflicts of interest in the government market, large companies will be forced to get out of the acquisition support business. Thanks to a 2008 investment by private equity group Excellere Partners, Acquisition Solutions is well positioned to acquire business units that larger prime contractors might need to jettison.

Look for increased merger and acquisition activity in this area by Acquisition Solutions and other like-minded companies.

8. Pragmatics
This former 8(a) small business proves that it is possible to be a long-term success after graduating from the set-aside program. Part of the credit goes to founder Long Nguyen’s ability to recruit a management team that has experience building billion-dollar businesses. Of Pragmatics’ 12 senior executives, four are alumni of SRA International, and three come from Titan.

9.TASC                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      The big question raised by Northrop Grumman’s plan to sell off its TASC unit is who the buyer will be: another large private equity group or an existing company. But with the deal having the potential to reach $2 billion, it’s also worth asking what Northrop Grumman will do with all that cash and whether the TASC sale will prompt other large defense contractors to divest themselves of valuable businesses.

10. EDS and HP
The combined companies are entering the second year of their merger, so the evidence of an integrated operation should move from the marketing materials to the field. And with the follow-on contract to the Navy Marine Corps Intranet looming, the stakes are high for incumbent EDS and its parent company. Read Full Article p://tr.im/yEzp

A construction company has an immediate opportunity and is looking for teaming partners with healthcare design/construction experience to respond to the bid!

A veteran design/builder that provides healthcare preconstruction/construction services throughout the western U.S. Their experience includes ground up construction of hospital facilities, major multi-story additions, MOB's, Surgical Suites, Diagnostic Imaging, ER's, OR's, ICU's, Patient Wings, Parking Structures, and complex T/I's; and is looking for small businesses to team with.  They are currently working on an RFP and need subcontractor support. 

Professional services include:

Single Source Responsibility
Integrated Project Delivery
LEED AP professionals
BIM Modeling
LEAN Construction
Architectural/Engineering Design Services
Preconstruction/Planning Services
Conceptual Estimating. 
 

Find out more about this opportunity and how to contact them.

The General Services Administration is looking for Internet-based IT services to offer federal agencies through a proposed cloud-computing storefront service. Last month, the agency issued a Request for Quotation for providing cloud services to government agencies.

The document describes a GSA-run storefront portal in which government agencies can purchase commercially offered infrastructure IT services using a credit card or other approved payment option. Specifically, the GSA is looking for three broad categories of services to offer through this portal: Storage services, virtual machines and Web hosting.

To serve the government, service providers will need to have the following in place:

* The ability for customers to procure and provide service without vendor review.
* Two separate facilities within the continental United States that offer the service. Internet bandwidth for each location should be no less than 1 Gigabit per second.
* Virtually unlimited storage.
* The ability for the customer to scale up or down service on an as-needed basis.
* A dashboard for each customer to convey usage, as measured on a weekly basis.

Each service will be accessible remotely by dual-factor authentication. Trouble tickets should be able to be submitted by application programming interface (API), and all services should be maintained at 99.95 percent uptime. For outages lasting longer than one hour a month, the provider must provide a written description of the cause of the outage.

Federal chief information officer Vivek Kundra has stated that GSA is planning to set up a cloud-computing "storefront," that federal agencies can use to procure IT services.

For the RFQ, GSA adopted the definitions of cloud computing that were authored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Read full article...Washington Technology  tr.im/vJFA

Three contractors will compete for $600 million in software support and information analysis tasks to support the National Air and Space Intelligence Center over five years, the Air Force has announced.

Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems Inc., and Northrop Grumman Space and Mission Systems Corp. were selected by the Air Force to compete against each other for tasks to support the center’s Advanced Technical Exploitation Program under the indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract, Air Force officials said July 8.

The contractors will compete for tasks such as intelligence analysis, software systems development and support, and research and development of space-based and airborne sensor data, according to a General Dynamics statement on June 9. The tasks will support contingency operations in the war on terror, missile defense and similar initiatives.

The National Air and Space Intelligence Center processes, analyzes and disseminates measurement and signature intelligence data collected from radar, electro-optical sensors and infrared sensors. The information collected is provided to the Defense Department and intelligence agencies.

Tasks include intelligence analysis, software systems development, and sensor data analysis.  Original Article posted at tr.im/sDkl

Four contractors will compete for $389 million in task orders over five years to support the Homeland Security Department’s Office of Cybersecurity and Communication.

Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., General Dynamics Corp., Science Applications International Corp. and SRA International were picked to compete against one another for tasks to enhance and maintain the National Communications System, according to a July 10 award notice on the Federal Business Opportunities Web site.

Under the contracts, the companies will provide scientific, engineering and technical assistance. The scope of work also includes project planning and program management support.

NCS is the cornerstone of the country’s ability to provide key communications services to support government functions during emergencies. The system comprises the Government Emergency Telecommunications Service and Wireless Priority Service, which give authorized users top priority on congested networks during national emergencies. Reference Article tr.im/sBVl

Department taps 35 small businesses to provide professional services. The Homeland Security Department has named 35 winners of its $1.5 billion small-business set-aside contract for professional services that was announced a year ago. Competition was limited to businesses owned by service-disabled veterans.

The Program Management, Administrative, Clerical and Technical Services (PACTS) contract is designed to provide a broad range of professional support services, except information technology services. The indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract has a maximum value of $1.5 billion.

Future task orders under the PACTS contract might be among the first to be subjected to the mandatory reviews announced May 28 by Secretary Janet Napolitano, said Jeremy Potter, a senior analyst at Input Inc., a market research firm in Reston, Va.

Napolitano said officials will review all new professional services contracts worth $1 million or more to determine if the work was inherently governmental or involved core functions that government employees should perform. PACTS is one of the largest professional services contracts expected to generate task orders in the coming months, Potter said.

On June 19, DHS published a list of “apparently successful” offerers that responded to a solicitation issued in June 2008. The 35 winners include eight companies in Functional Category 1-Program Management, 10 companies in Functional Category 2-Administrative, seven companies in Functional Category 3-Clerical and 10 companies in Functional Category 4-Technical Services.

The winning companies in the four categories are:

Category 1-Program Management

• Best Value Technology
• Klett Consulting Group
• Loch Harbour Group
• Longview-FedConsulting
• Markon Solutions
• Savvee Consulting
• Teracore
• Winbourne and Costas

Category 2-Administrative

• CTI Resource Management Services
• DS3 Computing Solutions
• HCI
• Kingfisher Systems
• Longview-FedConsulting
• Patricio Enterprises
• Strategic Alliance Enterprises
• Veterans Enterprise Technology Solutions
• Vet-Fed Resources
• Winbourne and Costas

Category 3-Clerical

• Addx
• Centuria
• imPACTS
• Kingfisher Systems
• Szanca Solutions
• TAPE
• Winbourne and Costas

Category 4-Technical Services

• Best Value Technology
• EmeSec
• imPACTS
• KMEA
• LRS Federal
• Serrano IT Services
• Solute Consulting
• Strategic Alliance Enterprises
• Ursa Navigation Solutions
• Vetco

Original article via WashingtonTechnology.com: DHS Awards PACTS Contract

Lockheed Martin Corp. has won an Army contract with a potential value of $203 million over five years to provide an array of services to the Field Logistics Readiness Center at Fort Bragg, N.C.

Under the terms of the contract, the company will furnish maintenance, material and logistics services to Army Forces Command units and the Army Materiel Command, which supports troops stationed in the United States and deployed overseas, company officials said June 25.

The contractor will be responsible for maintaining in a state of readiness wheeled vehicles, weapons and power generation and engineering equipment for the Army Sustainment Command and the 406th Training Support Brigade, the officials said.

Lockheed also operates Field Logistics Readiness Centers at Fort Stewart, Ga., and Fort Benning, Ga., the officials said.

The Army awarded the work through the Field and Installation Readiness Support Team indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract. Click here for original news release.

Wanted: A contracting team that can build roads and remote campsites, maintain information technology systems and complex scientific equipment, support laboratory and field research tasks, efficiently transport cargo, fly fixed-wing aircraft, prevent and fight fires, cook meals, cut hair, and plan fun and morale-building activities while working in a sometimes sunless environment at sub-zero temperatures.

Does that sound appealing? Maybe not for everyone, but the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Support Contract has drawn the attention of a large number of traditional defense and IT contractors. The contract is in the competition phase and is scheduled for award in early October.

Although NSF won’t divulge the names of the bidders, Computer Sciences Corp. has formed a joint venture with EG&G to pursue the contract, and incumbent contractor Raytheon Co. is bidding, too. Other major contractors that have expressed interest include Lockheed Martin Corp., Science Applications International Corp., ITT Corp. and KBR Inc.  Read More  click http://tr.im/pSWr

 

One of the perennial issues for contractors in the government market is partnering.

For small businesses it is about connecting with large companies, and for the bigger players it is about finding partners to fill a variety of customer and technology niches as well as comply with small business goals.

I co-hosted a panel on partnering on Tuesday with Shawn McCarthy of Government Insights. The panel at the FOSE trade show in Washington, D.C., (disclosure – Washington Technology and FOSE are owned by 1105 Government Information Group) brought executives from large, small and midtier companies.

The panel consisted of Tracy Denny, vice president of strategic capture management at Serco, Cari Dorman, director of business development, IT infrastructure solutions at CSC, Heidi Gerding, president and chief executive officer, HeiTech Services Inc., and Michael Mullen, vice president, Indus Corp.

Gerding’s company and Serco are in a mentor protégé relationship that Serco inherited when it acquired SI International last year.

While the turnout could have been larger, the advice was stellar.

Here are some highlights.

If you are a small business looking to partner, focus on particular areas of expertise; don’t say you do everything. “You need to be able to say why you are better than any other partner we could bring in,” Denny said.

Small businesses need to be ready to deliver right away, Mullen said.

In looking at both large and small business partners, Gerding said she uses tools such as Dun & Bradstreet. “I check their credit; do they pay bills on time; will they pay me on time,” she said. “I can’t afford cash flow problems.”

For a small business, approaching a large business is similar to approaching a government agency. “You need to understand their needs and their pain points,” Mullen said.

If you can identify a specific opportunity where your small business can help win, you need to highlight that when you approach the large business, Dorman said.

That kind of information is critical in mapping a proposal strategy. Dorman said she maps that information to statements of work in a request for proposals to determine who the best teammates should be.

Some specific technologies the companies are looking at include: Cloud computing, which is big at FOSE this year; cybersecurity; and social media, particularly collaboration tools, which are starting to gain traction.' Click here for original news release http://tr.im/pSiS

QinetiQ North America will supply military first-responder robots to the Navy under a $56.4 million indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract.

The award from the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Indian Head, Md., calls for the company to deliver an unspecified number of Talon Gen IV robots, repair parts, spare kits and other related equipment and services to the Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technical Division, the single-service manager for all EOD equipment.

QinetiQ North America has been manufacturing Talon robots since 2000. More than 2,800 Talon robots are deployed around the world.

“Robots help protect our warfighters, a fact that is demonstrated every day when a robot accomplishes a dangerous assignment while the warfighter controls it from a safe distance,” said William Ribich, president of QinetiQ North America’s Technology Solutions Group, which will oversee the contract.

Work is expected to be completed in early 2010.

QinetiQ North America, of McLean, Va., ranks No. 34 on Washington Technology’s 2009 Top 100 list of the largest federal government prime contractors. Click here original news release  http://tr.im/pSbt

The Department of Energy (DOE) has selected a team led by Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) to manage and operate the new Mission Support Contract at its Hanford site in south central Washington State. The latest DOE determination was made following a protest lodged by a competing bidder and a review last fall by the Government Accountability Office.

With a total program value of $3.059 billion over a 10-year period, the contract includes a five-year base contract period and options to extend it to an additional five years. Lockheed Martin is joined in the limited liability company, Mission Support Alliance (MSA) by partners Jacobs Engineering Group, Inc., and Wackenhut Services, Inc. They will also be supported by several small teammates. MSA LLC had been notified in September, 2008, that it had won the contract.

Under the leadership of Lockheed Martin’s Frank Figueroa, MSA LLC President, the team will provide integrated site-wide services to the DOE and other contractors at the Hanford site, such as safety, security and environment, site infrastructure and utilities, site business management, information resources and content management and portfolio management.

The existing Information Resources Management services work at Hanford, now being performed by Lockheed Martin under a subcontract to Fluor Hanford, Inc., will continue under the Mission Support Contract. Frank Armijo, who has successfully led Hanford IRM and other Tri-Cities, Washington-based technology programs, will remain in his role supporting MSA and leading the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Solutions unit in Richland.

“We are gratified that the U.S. Government has made its determination, and we are ready to begin,” Tom Grumbly, Vice President of Lockheed Martin Energy and Security Services in Rockville, Md. “The team has maintained a high state of readiness to effect a smooth transition and an efficient, progressive path forward for the DOE, its contractors, and the community in the Tri-Cities,” he said.

In addition to mission support for energy labs, Lockheed Martin is working with its customers to address the nation’s energy and climate challenges in the areas of energy efficiency, management and storage, next-generation alternative energies, and climate monitoring.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 146,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2008 sales of $42.7 billion. www.lmco.com

On June 15, 2009, the U.S. Department of State awarded DynCorp International (NYSE:DCP) a task order to provide aviation and aviation support services in Iraq. This task order is under the Worldwide Personal Protective Services (WPPS) contract with the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Diplomatic Security to provide protective security for U.S. diplomatic personnel. The task order is awarded for a base year plus four one-year options, and has a total potential value of $915 million if all options are exercised.

Under the task order, DynCorp International will provide personnel, ground and flight operations, basing and maintenance of rotary wing and fixed air assets. The award is effective June 15, 2009, with a transition period and then full in-country performance beginning September 4, 2009.

“This award is a tremendously important opportunity for DynCorp International to support the safety and security of U.S. diplomatic personnel serving in Iraq,” said DynCorp International CEO William L. Ballhaus. “It’s an honor to contribute to our government’s efforts to promote peace and stability in Iraq, for us as a company and for every person who serves with us."

About DynCorp International
DynCorp International is a provider of specialized mission-critical services to civilian and military government agencies worldwide, and operates major programs in law enforcement training and support, security services, base operations, aviation services, contingency operations, and logistics support. DynCorp International is headquartered in Falls Church, Va. For more information, visit www.dyn-intl.com .