joel hoffman

I worked for DoD (US Army Corps of Engineers) for many years. I have experience with what I consider frivolous protests. During a period in the 1990’s before the Brooks IT Act was thankfully repealed, the GSBCA had jurisdiction over all protests for contracts that contained Federal Information Processors (FIP). GSBCA held that construction contracts which included even one desktop computer that controlled fire alarms, sprinkler systems, HVAC and other building systems were considered to be FIP. The systems had digital controls or sensors reporting to the IBM or similar desktop. The Army was upgrading controls for such building systems in existing facilities or including the Electronic Monitoring and Controls Systems (EMCS) or Utility Monitoring and Control Systems (UMCS) in new construction. There were three firms with separate proprietary control systems competing for every new or upgraded EMCS installation. We awarded a best value contract for upgrade EMCS to a hospital that had a partial Johnson Controls System. Within 3 hours, of the award announcement, one unsuccessful proposer submitted a canned, fully detailed bid protest. There was no way that any of the three competing firms had any details of the basis of award or other information concerning the evaluations or trade-off that would have been included in a subsequent de-briefing. There was no basis immediately upon award to make specific claims of improper proposal evaluations or favortism I learned soon after the protest notification that every similar type procurement in other USACE Districts for several years had also been protested. This project award was delayed for almost a year, due to the initial and subsequent protests by the firm to GSBCA and then to an Appeals Court. We finally prevailed in Court, when our USACE Headquarters successfully convinced the court that standard digital building systems controls were not “FIP” resources but incidental to and part of the standard building systems, thus not subject to GSBCA protest jurisdiction. The Court also overruled the unreasonable GSBCA holding in our case that every intangible strength in a best value trade-off had to be monetarily quantified in order to justify awarding to a firm with a higher rated/higher priced proposal. Congress soon repealed the Brooks IT Act and GSBCA jurisdiction over DOD procurement protests. Totally frustrating and frivolous protest and dealings with GSBCA, who were way out of their lane.

I’m glad they are finally intending to audit 8(a) contractor entities. Back in 1989-1997, I was the head of a District office in the Army Corps of Engineers which negotiated all sole source SDB and competitively negotiated construction and some service contract for our Engineer District. It was not uncommon for the SBA nominated sole source SDB contractors to be a front for a non-minority subcontractor. We could usually see through that type of arrangement during proposal evaluations and would reject the offered contractor before or during the negotiation process. We worked with the SBA to replace those proposed SDB’s while I was there.

It will be interesting to see how this procurement plays out. According to the Protest Decision, the labor portion of the task order is Fix-Priced, with travel costs being cost reimbursable. Paying almost 1.7 times more money than the lowest task order proposal or 1 1/3 times the next lowest task order proposal (of the three mentioned proposals) would seem to warrant significant justification…

Can’t someone edit this Blog and control the content ? Can any nonmember add comments?

Koprince Law, LLC: Thank you for this Blog Post. Is there anyway to learn how well Marine Diving Solutions (MDS) , the successful offeror, actually performed the contract? It would be very interesting to know if they were successful or not. Thanks.

Thank you, Vern. I was personally able to successfully use the numerical system in source selections but observed and noted the problems mentioned herein at other Districts and agencies.

I once taught a design-build construction class in Portland, Oregon with a Contracting Officer who was involved in that decision, when she worked at Army level. I remember her confirming those reasons being involved in the decision. She said there were numerous protests involving scoring schemes and that the agencies tended to overlook real differences between proposals,, instead relying on scores. Plus Adjectival rating systems allowed more subjectivity in the selection decisions. I’m not sure that many or all of the evaluation teams and contracting personnel have learned to justify the basis (the meat ) first, before assigning ratings or tend to assign ratings first, then find ways to justify the rating..

Yes. Well said. It’s to avoid not being able to see the forest for the trees or however that idiom goes. But we must not overlook the basis for the ratings when making comparisons between competitors. I often saw selection decisions made solely or primarily on numerical scores or solely price/quality (score) or quality/price ratios. IMO that was assuming too much precision in scoring systems. Both in allocating points among the various factors and subfactors and in assigning points during the evaluation. Plus it tended to obscure WHERE (which factors/subfactors) the points were assigned to. I believe that those all were some major reasons for the Army banning numerical rating back in the early 2000’s.

It’s essentially a roll up summary level description or label for the supporting documentation. Why would one write down every detail supporting the ratings in a matrix of all the proposals? When comparing proposals, one can start at the rating level but then would distinguish by examining the underlying details.

Don, the assigned ratings must be supported by documenting “the relative strengths, deficiencies, significant weaknesses, and risks resulting from the proposal evaluation. I always made the SSEB team develop and provide the above (the MEAT of the evaluation) during the CONSENSUS evaluation, and THEN we assigned the appropriate, corresponding “rating”, again by consensus. Non-numerical ratings naturally fall out based upon the supporting data. The underlying, supporting data were also used in the comparative analysis and cost-technical trade-off when applicable.

“An agency shall evaluate competitive proposals and then assess “their relative qualities” solely on the factors and subfactors specified in the solicitation." Does assess “their relative qualities” mean “compare the quality between the different proposals” - solely based upon the specified factors and subfactors ? Oxford Dictionary: Relative as an adjective: …”considered in relation or in proportion to something else.” "the relative effectiveness of the various mechanisms is not known" —-—————————- Or does it mean “assess their [each proposal’s] relative qualities” under the specified factors and subfactors using some type of rating system [e.g., is it relatively weak, meets, exceeds, excels under the factor or subfactor quality requirements]? In other words what is the contextual meaning of “their” [singular or plural] and “relative” [compared to each other or compared to the evaluation criteria]?

Having worked with DBA wage rates dating back to the 1970’s, I sense that this reversion was made to favor Union wage scales. The major controversy back in the pre 1983 revision by the Reagan Administration was that the prevailing wage rates were essentially the local trade union rates. This was to protect and promote union share of construction work, even if union share of the workforce was a small minority (apparently 30%). Im certain that this is a Biden Administration union serving initiative, cloaked by other narrative rationale. I will say that the quality of work on union projects in my experience is usually exceptional. However, union labor practices, such as feather bedding and other restrictions on what each trade can perform on a job, should still result in effective competition for construction project contract awards by non-union construction contractors. One of the worst examples that I personally witnessed was on a highly technical Chemical Weapons Disposal processing plant construction project. Three union electricians would carry 10’ and 20’ PVC, small diameter electrical conduits, grinning as they walked past us. I will also say that, in many areas, the prevailing wage rates, even for non-union contractors often exceed the DBA wage decision rates, due to competition for trade labor.

Moved comment a conversation. I won’t bore everyone with the details. Bob’s Blog articles are fascinating and I can personally relate to them.

Gosh, just saw this tonight! I’d better check the Blogs more frequently. I was still in the Air Force in 1974 but spent 10 years in Huntsville with USACE from 1997-2007 and have several NASA friends there. Your story is fascinating, Bob! Thanks for sharing it. And yes, I remember meeting you at the GAO building - (Also the USACE HDQTRS) actually it was across the street at the Architecture Museum. It was nice meeting you.

Wow, I just saw your Blog entry, Bob. Thank you. It was fascinating. It did raise one question in my mind. It seemed to me that Thiokol’s long term costs could also be effected by a learning curve adjustment . Thus, even though it may not have addressed it in its proposal, the effect should be similar. At any rate, your experience was fascinating!

Based upon the facts presented by the protestor and determined by the OHA, this appears to be yet another SB “front” arrangement like the ones I used to encounter 25 years ago. I can understand the Agency’s clueless ignorance or indifference concerning: the late submission and non-compliant JVA and late, unsigned addendum to the JVA and the fact that the Responsible Manager was an employee of the mentor. But also the SBA(!!!)?? Are they toothless? Sheesh!

Are we now in Year 24? When is WIFCON’s birthday? 🤠

Ah, be careful now. Many early model year Ford hot rods and restorations have Chevy small block V-8’s “under the hood”. I see them regularly at various car shows. See, it can be hard to be precise. 🤠

Thanks, Bob!

The US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville has an A-12 on display outside the Museum. I remember seeing it in an outside storage yard with miscellaneous rocket and missile parts, behind a shed, for many years, awaiting enough restoration to display it.

Absolutely!!! The plane at the Battleship Alabama aircraft pavilion in Mobile, AL is said to be a CIA operated, A-12 (according to their website). My USAF Academy Squadron sponsor in 1969-1971 and afterward was the SR 71 Wing at Beale Air Force Base, CA. Although I wasn’t crazy about Robert STRANGE McNamara, I wanted to put his decision to cancel the F-12 production into some context that may have justified it. We needed the SR-71, regardless of the affordability but couldn’t afford and didn’t put a priority on an advanced interceptor aircraft at the time.

Yes sir! Indeed, Robert STRANGE McNamara hugely impacted history. I would agree with those that said that a force of YF-12’s as USAF Air Defense Command Interceptors would have been prohibitively expensive to operate and maintain and operationally impractical due to the complexity of the plane, the crew having to don and wear what amounted to space suits, the resources and time involved in launching the planes, etc. I was at the Air Force Academy at the time. We were taught a lot of information about capabilities, limitations of the Air Force, including Air Defense operations, enemy capabilities, strategic war scenarios, etc. One must put that timeframe into more perspective. At the time, the Air Force was very strapped for funding and had higher priorities than more advanced defense against enemy bombers, which were mostly propeller driven “Bear” aircraft. ADC was shutting down radar sites and bases and consolidating their command and control centers, shifting to satellite detection systems, etc. We had F 106’s as the prime Interceptor fleet with some F-101 sites. Viet Nam and NATO were sucking up most of the total Air Force and DOD budget along with with the Strategic Air Command missile and bomber resources, nuclear submarines, etc. Defense Interceptors would have to be capable of quickly launching and perhaps relocating ASAP if there had been a missle launch. Air Force bases were listed targets. Many ADC aircraft sites were co-located at B52 and other SAC bases. An SR 71 or F12 couldn’t operate out of just any conventional, alternate airfield for survivability between missile attacks and Arrival of Soviet Bombers. SAC was so strapped for cash that many base support organizations didn’t have sufficient funds to effectively operate. Our snow removal fleet barely limped along throughout the long Upper Michigan winters with lack of spare parts - we had hangar queen snowplows and big blower trucks that were stripped down to the cabs and frames each year and had to be completely rebuilt - we couldn’t afford to scrap them because there would have been no replacements. The Bomb Squadrons even had a couple of Hangar queen B-52’s! SAC facilities, which were already essentially basic concrete block buildings didn’t get maintained, military housing was in the same boat. Then there was the energy crisis with skyrocketing energy prices. Priorities shifted to save and convert energy sources. I discovered that Redstone Arsenal, for example, covered many of their brick and block buildings with insulated, corregated metal sheeting in the 70’s to save energy. We often have a perspective from the Reagan years, starting in 1980. He literally spent the Soviets into near bankruptcy and breakup. i agree that Kelly Johnson and the Skunk Works were geniuses and an American Treasure. But before Reagan tripled the Defense Budget in two years, the Air Force was literally cash broke. With widespread opposition to the Vietnam war and with other national priorities during the 1970s there was no will to adequately fund The Department of Defense, especially with the huge cost of the war, nuclear Air Force and Navy needs, soaring energy costs, inflation, etc.. Thankfully, Nixon essentially doubled military salaries, which were pitiful as of 1971 but that further strained the Defense budget for other needs. The answer to hypersonic flight might be technically available to us based upon the 60 year old capabilities of those planes. They depended upon large quantities of titanium due to the expansion, contraction and heat capabilities needed for high speed flight. The leading producer countries of titanium are - China and Russia, followed by Japan.. Bob, you may have written about how the US obtained enough titanium to build the planes by deception and by using cloak and dagger means...

Wonderful analysis and story, Bob. I once read an article where it was said that we couldn’t recreate a Saturn V rocket and deploy it without re-engineering it because the original design documentation had been destroyed. There are, of course, some Original examples still in existence. Once upon a time, my neighbor in Hartford, WS was a design engineer at the Chrysler Outboard factory down the street. He told me that he quit to go to work at Harley Davidson because all Chrysler did was to buy Johnson, Evinrude and Mercury outboards and reverse engineer them. Too bad that those “guys” are now all retired and possibly dead. Most all of the Saturn program designers and technicians are, including my ex-father-in-law. 😁

Thanks for Including the clarification in the last sentence: “Of course, bear in mind, that the pass-through only works if the prime contractor would ultimately be liable for the subcontractor’s damages.”.

I noticed that this entry isn’t on the WIFCON Homepage..Edit: Now added to Homepage listing.👍.