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July 17, 2020 By cs

Former HR official steered sole-source $5 million training contract to friends, VA’s IG says

A former top human resources executive at the Department of Veterans Affairs improperly steered a contract to benefit two of his friends, the agency’s inspector general found in a recent report.

Peter Shelby, who briefly served as VA’s assistant secretary for human resources and administration, violated ethics laws and abused his position to award a $5 million contract to two friends.

The contract “resulted entirely in waste,” James Mitchell, VA’s acting assistant inspector general, said.

The contract was for leadership development and training for VA employees and applicant assessment tools. Shelby was friendly with the owner of the service-disabled veteran-owned small business that received the $5 million contract. He was also friends with the vice president of Blanchard, one of the subcontractors on the project, who had endorsed Shelby for the assistant secretary position back in 2017.

According to the IG, Shelby directed his staff to pursue a contract with the small business under a specific VA sole-source authority, which allows the department, under limited circumstances, to avoid the usual competitive bidding procedures. But in this case, those authorities were misused to benefit Shelby and the preferred small business, the IG said.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsnetwork.com/veterans-affairs/2020/07/former-va-chco-steered-5m-training-and-development-contract-to-friends-ig-says/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: abuse, ethics, fraud, HR, SDVOSB, set-aside, sole source, training, VA. IG

October 24, 2019 By cs

Make plans now for your professional development in 2020

By attending Georgia Tech’s hands-on, practical training, you will gain new expertise you can apply the day you return from class.

Staying up-to-date in the field of government acquisition is a challenge.  You can make a positive impact on your career by planning to attend courses now scheduled at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s world-class Global Learning Center in the coming year.  Course registration for 2020 is now open.

Featured courses include:

(Click on course titles for dates and registration details.)

  • Students attending Georgia Tech’s classes work in teams to tackle real-life contracting problems.

    FCN 190: FAR Fundamentals – Designed for both GS-1102 contracting personnel as well as aspiring government contractors, this 10-day course conveys basic knowledge of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), including how to apply the rules in order to make appropriate decisions at each step of the contracting process.  Curriculum supports the latest revisions to the Federal Acquisition Certification in Contracting Program.

  • CON 090-1: Contracting Overview of the FAR – Covers the identification of the basic principles of federal government contracting, including the structure and content of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and agency supplements.  Students learn how to locate, cite, and interpret regulations.
  • CON 090-2: Contract Planning in the FAR – Covers acquisition planning, market research, describing agency needs, the preference for commercial and non-developmental items, contract types, special contracting techniques, socioeconomic programs, special terms and conditions, contractor qualifications, and advertising requirements.
  • Our instructors are experienced acquisition professionals who share practical advice.

    CON 090-3: Contract Formation in the FAR – Covers policies and procedures for simplified acquisitions, sealed bidding as well as negotiated acquisitions, cost accounting standards, special contracting methods and emergency acquisitions, and the filing and handling of protests.

  • CON 090-4: Contract Administration in the FAR – Covers the fundamental concepts of contract administration including the handling of untimely or non-compliant performance, interpretation of clauses, contract modifications, payments, contract disputes and appeals, and complete or partial contract terminations.
  • CON 170: Fundamentals of Cost & Price Analysis – Conveys fundamental quantitative pricing skills, including seller pricing strategies, the Truth in Negotiations Act and how it mitigates government risk, application of Cost Accounting Standards Board (CASB) rules to negotiated contracts and subcontracts, and contract cost principles and procedures.  Covers cost-volume-profit analysis, contribution margin estimates, and cost estimating relationships.
  • Our students tell us our courses go far beyond check-the-box requirements.

    CON 243: Architect-Engineer Contracting – Focuses on contracting for architectural-engineering services, including acquisition planning, source selection, proposal analysis, contract award and work, and contract management. Specific topics and practical exercises convey knowledge of the Selection of Architects and Engineers statue, SF-330, the slate and selection process, the review of government estimates, liability, Title II services, modifications, and contracting officer’s technical representative responsibilities. 

  • CON 244: Construction Contracting – Focuses on contracting issues unique to construction, including acquisition planning, contract performance management, funding, environmental concerns, construction contract language, construction contracting in a commercial setting, the Construction Wage Rate Requirements statute, design/build methodology, basic schedule delay analysis, constructive changes, acceleration, construction contract quality management, and more.
  • Government contracting officials and business executives sit side-by-side to learn acquisition practices.

    COR 206/222: Contracting Officer Representative and the Contingency Contracting Environment – Covers the role and responsibilities of the COR in contract administration, including contract planning support, contract awards, contract changes and modifications, monitoring performance, expenditures and schedules, and ethical situations and cultural differences a COR may experience while deployed in a contingency operation. 

Explanation of Certification Programs

Each Academy course title that contains the designation “CON” or “COR” is DAU-equivalent and satisfies both the FAC-C and DAWIA certification programs.  Coursework with the “FCN” designation is approved by the Federal Acquisition Institute and satisfies the latest FAC-C certification requirements. In addition, continuing education units (CEUs) are granted for these courses by the Georgia Institute of Technology.

  • The Federal Acquisition Certification in Contracting Program (FAC-C) establishes graduated education, experience, and training standards for contracting professionals in all civilian agencies. FAC-C certifications are mutually accepted among all civilian agencies as documentation of accomplishment of these standards.
  • The Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA) established a very similar, but not identical, program for the Department of Defense (DoD). Civilian agencies may accept DAWIA certification as equivalent to FAC-C certification.
Courses Available at Your Location

All Academy courses and workshops are available for instructor-led on-site engagements at your location. To discuss arrangements for your group, please email us at info@ContractingAcademy.gatech.edu.  We’ll be happy to provide you with details.

Filed Under: Academy News Tagged With: acquisition training, acquisition workforce, CON 090, CON 170, CON 243, CON 244, Contracting Academy, COR 206/222, DAU, FAI, FAR, FAR training, FCN 190, federal contracting, Georgia Tech, government contract training, government contracting, professional development, professional education, training, training resources

August 23, 2019 By cs

Georgia Tech Research Institute develops and teaches tactics to defend transport aircraft

Air Force Capt. Courtney Vidt had already spent more than a week in a classroom studying the nuances of aircraft physics, radar theory, and the numerous dangers posed to military transport aircraft like hers.
Master Sgt. Pedro McCabe (left), Lt. Col. Barrett Golden (middle), and Andrew Schoen (right), a GTRI senior research scientist, operate a C-130 flight simulator.

Now, the C-17 pilot was presented with a new challenge: Craft a mission plan for a mock exercise that would achieve the mission objective and get herself and her crew back home safely.

“We fly in a lot of areas where threats can reach out and touch us, and this course helps us be aware of what tools and tactics we have to prevent them from doing that,” Vidt said, “whether it’s flying around it, flying over it, flying under it, or other methods — so they can’t touch us.”

Vidt was one of about a dozen pilots and aircrew from multiple branches of the U.S. military who in March 2019 descended on Rosecrans Air National Guard Base, located about 60 miles north of Kansas City. They came for an advanced training course designed for the mobility air force — service members who fly the large military aircraft that carry people and supplies.

The course was taught at the Advanced Airlift Tactics Training Center (AATTC), which provides the highest level of training in defensive maneuvers, countermeasures, and tactics for mobility forces with the ultimate goal of keeping them safe while flying through potentially hostile skies.

But it’s not just military instructors in uniforms teaching those courses. Working alongside them is a team of experts from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), which for decades has partnered with mobility forces to develop technology to counter the threats that confront the military’s transport aircraft.

The GTRI team plays a pivotal role at the training center, helping students understand the science behind threats such as heat-seeking and radar-guided missiles as well as providing foundational knowledge of onboard aircraft systems and the measures used to defeat the threats.

“The goal of these courses is to save lives in the combat environment,” said Bobby Oates, a senior research scientist and GTRI’s site lead for the program at Rosecrans. “GTRI’s role here is to provide subject matter expertise. We’re all prior military aviators, and all of us have been on some sort of C-130 platform. That gives us a unique understanding of the needs of the mobility air force.”

GTRI’s expertise is a key part of the instruction in all of the seven courses provided at the training center, as well as in the development of new tactics and maneuvers.

The team helps craft coursework and serves as a direct link between the training center and GTRI’s research, quickly turning new technical findings about threats or aircraft systems into new course material. Each team member specializes in specific subjects, staying in contact with on-campus researchers involved in those areas of study.

“Two members of our team are focused intensely on the infrared spectrum,” Oates said. “They are fully engaged in the current and emerging infrared threats, such as heat-seeking missiles, and they’re involved with the development of tactics to defeat those threats, whether through maneuvers or implementation of defensive systems and expendables such as flares. We also have two team members very involved in the radar side of the house. They are experts on radar threat technology and the employment of measures to defeat those threats.”

The training center has its origins in the early 1980s, when a Missouri Air National Guard unit flying C-130s at Rosecrans began conducting training to improve pilots’ ability to respond to threats encountered in combat. The school was formally established in 1983, initially focused on teaching pilots and aircrews defensive maneuvers and how to respond to threats while flying.

Those skills come in handy for pilots of the quad-turboprop engine C-130, which, because of its versatility and ability to land and take off in a variety of terrain, is one of the primary airframes the military uses to perform air drops and move cargo within hostile territory. The larger quad-jet engine C-17 provides a similar capability over longer distances.

Rob Walling, a GTRI senior research engineer, highlights the components of expendable defensive measures.

The relationship between the training center and GTRI stretches back to the early years of the program, growing out of the research institute’s role in developing C-130 countermeasure systems such as flares. GTRI researchers would often travel to St. Joseph to provide guest instruction at the training center.

Over time, the partnership grew, with GTRI placing researchers fulltime, onsite at Rosecrans and eventually expanding to its current team of six experts now working side by side with the service members stationed there.

“The mission enhancement that comes with having that team of professionals here cannot be overstated,” said Col. Byron Newell, commandant of the training center. “It’s not inherent in being a pilot or a navigator or a combat systems operator to be subject matter experts on the science behind those systems.

“We are taught to flip switches, follow a checklist, and do things in a certain order and fly an airplane a certain way. But if you’re going to develop constantly evolving tactics and techniques to counter emerging enemy threats that are constantly changing, then you really need to understand the science behind those systems.”

Having the GTRI team on site at Rosecrans helps accelerate the transfer of technical developments and new scientific understandings of emerging threats from the broader GTRI research community into the classroom.

“We’re trying to think of it on our own in the Air Force, and often it is a young kid at college who has the right answer,” said Col. Deanna Franks, vice commandant of the training center. “Getting involved with people outside of our organization, and having the opportunity for them to field those answers to us, is the true importance and why we have such a great relationship with GTRI.”

Rod Orr, a GTRI senior research scientist, discusses navigation concepts inside a C-130 flight simulator with C-130H Navigator Capt. Justin Bigham.

In many ways, the GTRI staff there plays the role of translators between the mobility forces and the researchers in labs back on campus, both in front of the classroom and during the development of new tactics and systems.

“The folks on campus live and breathe this stuff, and it’s a great tool to be able to reach back and talk to them about what they’re doing,” said Rob Walling, a GTRI senior research engineer at Rosecrans and a former C-130 pilot. “We turn around and put it in terms aircrew can understand to go out and execute the mission and execute the tactic that was developed for them.”

The product of that relationship was on display in March for the course on tactics and mission planning, called Combat Aircrew Tactics Studies/Mobility Electronic Combat Officer Course, or CATS/MECOC, which is an intensive two-week course designed to train aircrew members to be tacticians who can help plan missions at their home units.

For the course, researchers from GTRI dive deep into the technical aspects of multiple aircraft defensive systems, such as radar warning receivers, which help alert aircrews of an approaching radar-guided missile. The researchers teach the science of how aircraft systems work, their strengths and weaknesses, how to best use them in a defensive situation, and how each aircraft’s capabilities come to bear from a mission planning standpoint.

“The level of instruction that we’re getting from this course is at a master’s — I would even dare to say Ph.D. level for some of it — just going in-depth with our airframe, in-depth with the threat picture out there, and understanding it,” said Vidt, the C-17 pilot who is stationed at Joint Base Lewis–McChord near Tacoma, Washington. “It’s a lot of information to process, and they know that. But they’re great in that they’re able to sit there, explain it to you if you have questions, and then help you put it into practical knowledge. That’s the most important part, not only learning it but being able to apply it.”

From left, Master Sgt. Amber Meyer, a flight engineer, Senior Airman Kevin Pajor, a loadmaster, Technical Sgt. Jesse Sunde, a loadmaster, and Maj. Charles Francis, a pilot, all from Minneapolis-St. Paul Joint Air Reserve Station, go over the details of a training mission.

The mock exercise was an opportunity for Vidt, who serves as a wing tactician at her home unit, to test whether she had absorbed the course material coming at her like a firehose for days as she sat alongside other pilots and aircrews of C-17s and C-130s.

“We had to figure out, how do I get my cargo from point A to point B when there are these threats out there, and what tools am I given to address those threats,” she said. “It’s thinking about the ‘ifs’ and the ‘whens’ and what could go wrong. And oh, by the way, there are also five teams working simultaneously on this mission, and how do we work together? How does the tanker provide fuel for all of us? How does my aircraft get to my mission when it has two other missions before it? It’s a puzzle.”

The AATTC trains students from the Air National Guard, Air Force Reserve Command, the active duty component of the United States Air Force, the United States Marine Corps, and international crews from across the globe.

Aircrew members have the option of completing multiple courses at the training center, and Vidt already has plans to return for the flying course.

“The more you’re exposed to something, the more you’re going to be able to understand it and apply it,” she said.

From its early years, the original flying course offered at Rosecrans evolved into the Advanced Tactics Aircrew Course, a two-week program designed to take aircrews not long out of flight school and prepare them to operate in a combat environment.

During the two weeks, the aircrews spend time in the classroom learning more about their aircraft, eventually taking that knowledge out to the planes to practice maneuvers while performing airdrops or flying low along mountain ridges during eight training missions split between Missouri and Arizona.

“As aviators, it’s very important to go out and actually practice these things that you’re doing,” said Capt. Will Jones, a C-130 pilot stationed at Dobbins Air Reserve Base near Marietta, Georgia. “The way the course starts, they give you the academics about mountain flying and how to use terrain to evade threats, but it really brings it together when you go out and fly the course and practice the techniques you learn in the classroom.”

C-130H Navigator Capt. Justin Bigham (left), C-130H Loadmaster Technical Sgt. Levi Justic (middle), and Kevin Valasek (right), a GTRI research associate, operate mission planning software.

The training center has designed the flying course to overlap with another offering at the school, a three-week course called the Advanced Airlift Mobility Intelligence Course, which provides intelligence officers advanced instruction on emerging threats. The course also teaches intelligence members and aircrews about gathering intelligence in a combat environment, enabling them to work together on mock exercises.

“When our aircrews fly, we brief them on the things that could potentially harm them and how they can mitigate those threats, stay safe, and return home,” said Lt. Col. Sue Vogel, an intelligence flight commander who helps instruct the intelligence course. “When they come back from that flight, we do a debriefing and gather all the information they got, and put it back out in the intelligence community and Georgia Tech so they have all that information and can update any threat tactics.”

GTRI experts are there to help explain the technology behind the threats and provide intelligence service members the tools they need to evaluate the threat level.

“One of the biggest things our students love about Georgia Tech is they take really hard subjects, like radar theory, and break them down so they’re very easy to understand,” Vogel said. “A lot of our students don’t deal with that on a daily basis, and they say, ‘Now I finally understand how that works, and now I can better support my crews.’”

For Col. Ed Black, the 139th Airlift Wing Commander and base leadership at Rosecrans, the relationship between GTRI personnel and the training center boils down to saving lives.

“You absolutely make a massive difference in our ability to survive as a country, and not only us but also our allied nations,” Black said. “There is no research project when we partner with GTRI that is insignificant. In our eyes, when we go for GTRI help on solving a problem, that is a massive problem for us, and your assistance in solving that problem — to put our forces in a better place to survive — has a direct impact on our national security.”


Josh Brown is a senior science writer at Georgia Tech. A journalist by training, he’s spent the past decade writing about economic development, medical research, and scientific innovation.  This article originally appeared at: https://www.gtri.gatech.edu/newsroom/keeping-them-safe

Filed Under: Georgia Tech News Tagged With: Air Force, Georgia Tech, Georgia Tech Research Institute, GTRI, training

May 30, 2019 By AMK

Building a 21st century defense acquisition workforce

Every year, the Department of Defense spends roughly $300 billion to purchase everything from nuclear submarines to accounting services. The defense acquisition workforce is responsible not only for negotiating prices, enforcing requirements, and managing delivery on these acquisitions, but also for addressing issues like interoperability, sustainability, cyber protection, and supply chain security.

And every year, Congress adds complexity to the system, with almost 250 provisions of acquisition legislation changing the rules on types of contracts, contract audits, source selection criteria, commercial items acquisition, data rights and intellectual property, and other issues from 2016 to 2018 alone.

Advocates of acquisition reform have long sought changes in the civil service rules to make it easier to build the talent that the Pentagon needs to meet this challenge, but despite the wide array of legislative authorities now available, little has changed. What is needed is not a new set of rules, but a new mindset: If the Department of Defense wants to develop employees rather than just manage them for immediate performance, it must stop making hiring decisions position by position and establish a system that enables it to rotate future civilian leaders through a series of time-limited, career-building assignments. Instead of managing civil service positions, the Department must start managing its people.

The Call for Civilian Personnel Reform

Sixteen years ago, the National Commission on the Public Service (known as the “Second Volcker Commission”), reported that the federal government was not adequately staffed to meet the demands of the 21st century. Instead of attracting talent, the federal government too often drives it away. “Those who enter the civil service,” the commission reported, “often find themselves trapped in a maze of rules and regulations that thwart their personal development and stifle their creativity. The best are underpaid, the worst, overpaid. Too many of the most talented leave the public service too early, too many of the least talented stay too long.”

Keep reading article at: https://warontherocks.com/2019/05/building-a-21st-century-defense-acquisition-workforce/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: acquisition reform, acquisition workforce, career development, civilian personnel reform, civilian personnel system, DAWIA, Defense Innovation Board, DoD, hiring authority, hiring procedures, leadership development, Section 809 Panel, training, workplace flexibility

May 14, 2019 By AMK

Agencies are ‘stepping up’ to prepare the workforce for AI

The government as a whole doesn’t have a set strategy for how they plan to prepare federal workers for the changes that artificial intelligence will cause in their jobs, but agencies are on board with individual efforts to educate and train their own workforces, according to Lynne Parker, assistant director for artificial intelligence at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

“Agencies are stepping up on their own to create opportunities for people to maybe enroll in a short-term learning course where they can gain skills in IT areas or cybersecurity areas or AI areas,” said Parker at an April 18 National Academy of Public Administration event. “Because each agency knows the kinds of skills and the kinds of work that they do, they’re best suited to create these training programs.”

The Trump administration has been adamant that their pursuit of technological advancement is not designed to displace workers that are already at government agencies, but rather to free up time spent on repetitive tasks so they can focus on problems of greater mission importance.

“It’s quite likely that most of us will have some tasks or parts of our jobs that will be impacted by technology, AI, automation and so forth,” Parker said. “I don’t think most of us need to fear completely losing our jobs, but our jobs will change. Now that’s not to say that there aren’t some areas where AI is particularly well-suited that there may be some impact in the sense at the job goes away. Most studies say that is a small percentage.”

Keep reading article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/it-networks/2019/04/18/agencies-are-stepping-up-to-prepare-the-workforce-for-ai/

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: agency mission, AI, artificial intelligence, automation, cybersecurity, information technology, training

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