Government Executive - Authors - Kimberly Palmer

Thinking About Launching a Side Business?

Kimberly Palmer — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 15:00:00 -0500

When Febe Hernandez started tinkering around with beads at a Beadazzled store in 2010, she discovered she had a talent for creating beautiful gem-studded necklaces and earrings. “I was overwhelmed by the desire to create,” she recalls. The 20-year veteran of a three-letter agency in Washington soon started selling her creations. At her first show, she sold nearly $2,000 worth of jewelry.

Hernandez, now 60, soon registered her business as Designs by Febe and started expanding with regular trunk shows and a website. She has plans to open bricks-and-mortar stores in Los Angeles, New York City, and Washington by 2020. Hernandez says that when she retires in the next five to seven years, she’ll focus on her jewelry business full time. “The plan is for it to provide income in retirement,” she says. (While her agency approves of her side business, it asks that she not publicly identify it by name.)

For federal employees like Hernandez, a side business can provide much-needed extra income as well a as a retirement plan. In addition to the financial security, it offers a creative outlet and a deep sense of satisfaction. Hernandez says that as much as she knows that her federal job helps others, there’s nothing like the satisfaction that she gets from hiring young people from her hometown -- the Bronx -- to help her with her business.

She’s part of a growing movement of Americans launching micro-businesses on top of full-time jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 7 million workers -- about 5 percent of the workforce -- hold more than one job. The rate is 7 percent among those with professional jobs and advanced degrees. Those percentages probably vastly undercount the actual number of side-business owners, since the BLS only counts those who reported they held “more than one job” in the last week. Those that do just occasional freelance or creative work are not necessarily counted.

As common as side businesses are today, employers’ policies on outside work aren’t always clear cut, and the rules can be particularly stringent for federal employees. Avoiding conflicts of interest, abiding by all laws and agency policies, and following ethical guidelines are paramount, especially given the additional scrutiny of public sector employees. Still, even within those constraints, there’s flexibility to unleash your inner entrepreneur.

The Office of Government Ethics specifies that federal employees cannot take on any additional work that conflicts with their official duties, or accept money for teaching, speaking or writing that relates to their official duties. Some noncareer employees and appointees face an all-out ban on earning outside income while in office, and agencies can require employees to get explicit approval before starting any kind of business on the side. At least 44 agencies have supplemental standards of conducts, and many deal specifically with outside activities.

That’s why the first step is to check with your agency’s ethics officials to make sure you have the go-ahead. That’s exactly what Hernandez did. “We have a strict internal process. I immediately went to my internal affairs office. They vetted my website and if someone wants to interview me [related to the jewelry business], I have to check with them,” Fernandez explains, adding that employees are allowed to have outside employment as long as there’s no conflict of interest.

Citing the pay gap between federal workers and those in the private sector, the organization Young Government Leaders has called for the Office of Management and Budget to provide a list of approved side businesses that federal workers could pursue, as well as to lay out potential ethical concerns and solutions. That way the process for getting approval could be more streamlined. When Miguel Joey Aviles, a recruitment and outreach strategist for the Defense Department and chief learning officer for YGL, wanted to launch his own side business, he couldn’t find detailed guidance from his agency. “I had to request a meeting with the lawyers of my agency. They had to analyze everything,” he says. In the end, the lawyers told him to get explicit permission each time he started working with a new client.

As more members of the millennial generation join the federal workforce, Aviles’ situation will become increasingly common. A recent survey from the Young Entrepreneur Council found that one in three millennials (who range from late teens to 20s) have launched a side business, and many do so while they’re still in college.

Even with agency approval, running a side business on top of a full-time federal job can be challenging. Hernandez says she works 46 hours a week with a long commute. She squeezes in her creative time in the evenings and weekends. Still, that sacrifice is well worth it to her. Her day job might be about protecting Americans, but at nights and on the weekends, she can focus on making them feel beautiful, too.

Kimberly Palmer is the author of the new book “The Economy of You: Discover Your Inner Entrepreneur and Recession-Proof Your Life” and senior money editor for U.S. News & World Report, where she writes the Alpha Consumer blog. She covered government contracting for Government Executive from 2004 to 2007.

(Image via Tatiana Popova/Shutterstock.com)

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Shooting For Mars

Kimberly Palmer — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Relying on a tried-and-true design from the Apollo program, Lockheed Martin wins its bid to build the next human spacecraft.

On Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2004, President Bush uttered the words Doug Cooke had been waiting to hear for 15 years. "Today we set a new course for America's space program. . . We will build new ships to carry man forward into the universe, to gain a new foothold on the moon, and to prepare for new journeys to worlds beyond our own," Bush told a crowded auditorium in NASA's Washington headquarters. He pledged an additional $1 billion to NASA over five years to get the next-generation spacecraft ready within the decade.

Cooke, who then managed the Advanced Development Office at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, was thrilled. He had been working on plans for missions to the moon and beyond since 1989, when President George H.W. Bush initiated a push to go beyond Earth's orbit. But with the focus on quick and efficient missions to the international space station in the 1990s and early 2000s, plans for manned missions further into space had been put on hold.

Instead of playing with hypothetical design concepts, "all of the sudden, we were in a place where we were going to really . . . make it happen," says Cooke. An engineer with large glasses and a graying beard, he had joined NASA 31 years earlier to work on aerodynamics during shuttle re-entry; he had worked his way up through the space shuttle and exploration programs.

Cooke wasn't the only one moved by the import of the speech. Eugene Cernan, commander of Apollo 17 in 1972 and the last man to walk on the moon, told The Boston Globe, "We now have a goal in life." NASA's Skip Hatfield, who worked at the Johnson Space Center on missions to fly unpressurized cargo to the international space station, said later, "A lot of us had been looking forward to the day when we could break out of suborbital space." Cleon Lacefield, a vice president of Lockheed Martin Corp., said he couldn't remember the last time a president got involved with NASA's mission. "We all said, 'This is what we've been waiting for.' "

What Cooke, Hatfield and Lacefield didn't realize at the time was just how big a role they would play in that new mission.

Getting Into Shape

The day after the president's speech, NASA formed the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate. NASA's administrator at the time, Sean O'Keefe, appointed Cooke to run it as deputy associate administrator. Cooke's first step was to figure out what the new spacecraft-labeled the crew exploration vehicle and later named Orion after one of the brightest and most familiar constellations-should look like. The directorate spent 10 months weighing various concepts and ideas.

In December 2004, NASA released a rough overview of its requirements for the first phase of Orion and asked for feedback. The agency planned to release a formal request for proposals in March 2005 and to make an award to two contractors, which would continue to work on the project for three and a half years until one was eliminated in a "fly-off."

At Lockheed, Lacefield started exploring concepts with a team of 20 that quickly ramped up to 2,000. Initially, the team focused on "lifting-body" shapes, which have rounded bodies with gently sloping wings. Meanwhile, Northrop Grumman Corp., which had teamed up with Boeing Co., focused on an Apollo-like conical shape.

In April 2005, as both teams were racing to put together their proposals, Michael Griffin was sworn in as NASA administrator, replacing O'Keefe, who had resigned. Griffin had a different vision of how the contract should unfold. Instead of keeping two contractors on NASA's payroll for three and a half years, he wanted to more quickly downselect to one contractor and to further refine NASA's requirements for the new spacecraft before handing off the concept to contractors. With the request for proposals still out, Griffin created the Exploration Systems Architecture Study to make recommendations about the best approach. Even the shape of the spacecraft was still open for debate.

The Apollo Model

Griffin enlisted Douglas Stanley to head the study. A visiting professor at the National Institute of Aerospace in Hampton, Va., Stanley had been Griffin's colleague at NASA and at Dulles, Va., space technology company Orbital Sciences Corp. Alongside 400 NASA employees, he reviewed the latest research and technology to decide how a spacecraft should get to the moon and back. Should the crew launch with the moon landing gear, or should they go up separately, and rendezvous in orbit? If they rendezvous, should they "mate" in lunar orbit or Earth orbit? Should the spacecraft look like an Apollo capsule, or a lifting-body vehicle, or something else altogether? NASA wanted a spacecraft that could visit the moon's polar regions, not just its midsection as Apollo had done, and provided space for four to six crew members, not just three, as with Apollo. And NASA wanted it to be ready as soon as possible, because the shuttle was set to retire in 2010, and Congress wanted to minimize the amount of time Americans were Earth-bound.

Because the moon is almost 250,000 miles away and a visit requires a hefty dose of propellant, Stanley and his colleagues knew they wanted to minimize the mass of the new spacecraft. "Big wings don't look attractive; you would need more engines and propellant," Stanley says. (That's why the shuttle design doesn't make sense for trips beyond Earth's orbit.) Team members focused on lightweight, compact structures. They also needed a spacecraft that could stand the intensely high temperatures of re-entering Earth's atmosphere; returns from the moon happen at higher speeds than returns from Earth's orbit. That means engineers had to avoid using sharp edges; a blunt-bodied capsule can better withstand that kind of heat. And because the shape already had gone through extensive testing for missions in the 1960s, an Apollo-like vehicle had the advantage of being well understood. NASA also estimated that the capsule and accompanying rocket, which sits below the capsule as opposed to next to it, is 10 times safer than the shuttle. Launch vehicle debris cannot easily hit the capsule. For all those reasons, the study recommended an Apollo-like shape.

In June 2005, NASA provided feedback to the two competing contractors, Lockheed Martin and the Northrop Grumman-Boeing team, and selected them both for the first phase of the contract. An internal NASA team also began developing spacecraft concepts so the directorate could weigh the contractors' concepts against its own ideas when it came time to choose a winner 12 months later.

The contractor teams still had lots of leeway, including freedom to design almost all the systems used on the vehicle. The launch-abort system, the environmental control and life support systems, thermal systems, electrical systems and navigation control remained unspecified by NASA. "On all these systems, the contractors could use their creativity," says Cooke. Lacefield, who became Lockheed's Orion program manager, was proud of the safety features his team was developing. "We came up with a system with a lot of redundancies and failure tolerance," he says. The design allowed for the capsule to leave its orbit quickly and to touch down on land or in water in an emergency.

On a bimonthly basis, Lockheed Martin and the Northrop Grumman-Boeing team met with NASA to present their concepts for evaluation. They operated under rigid procedures to ensure fairness. Only designated NASA employees could communicate with the two contractors and they couldn't provide much feedback.

Hatfield, who took over as NASA's project manager for Orion in March 2006, decided not to work directly with the contractors during the first phase so he could be involved in the selection of the winning team during the downselect. He and his team jokingly called the strict rules the "cone of silence," a concept from the 1960s television comedy Get Smart.

While the contractors couldn't talk to the people who would be deciding their fate, they could emphasize their strengths in the media. In February 2006, a Northrop Grumman program manager told Aerospace America, a magazine published by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, that his company's partnership with Boeing was "a good marriage and the right alignment." A month later, Lockheed's vice president of space exploration, John Karas, told The Daily News of Los Angeles that his company's proposal was low-risk and low-cost because it used existing technologies.

Meanwhile, the Government Accountability Office was tracking NASA's progress, and it wasn't happy. In a letter to Congress in July 2006, GAO wrote that because the costs for the Vision for Space Exploration program were so high-$230 billion over the next 20 years and $31 billion through fiscal 2011-NASA should take care not to commit itself and the government long term without making it known what it wanted for its money.

Indeed, GAO wanted NASA to rethink its decision to award the second part of the contract for Orion in September 2006. The contract was scheduled to continue through 2019, and GAO didn't think NASA had done enough research to make such a big commitment. There was a risk of cost overruns, schedule delays and overall poor performance, GAO wrote. If NASA did not reconsider its plans, then Congress should consider restricting its funding, GAO recommended.

NASA officials disagreed. In their response letter, they said the agency had done enough preparation to proceed with the contract.

Cooke says NASA did take GAO's advice on a couple of recommendations, such as turning parts of the contract into options instead of including them in the basic contract. Plus, Cooke adds, if the contractor ends up not meeting performance expectations, then NASA can terminate the contract at any time.

Final Poll

On Wednesday, Aug. 30, Cooke woke up in his Rockville, Md., home at 5 a.m., half an hour earlier than usual. He rode the Metro to his office at NASA headquarters in downtown Washington and just before 8 a.m., took the elevator from his office on the 2nd floor to a windowless 9th floor briefing room right outside the glass-paneled doors of the administrator's office. A dozen senior NASA officials, including Hatfield, gathered around the U-shaped wood table. Cooke walked to the podium. This decision was an important one, he reminded the participants. He told them about his lifelong passion for human space flight and that it was an honor to be involved at this critical moment in NASA's history. And he reminded them to ask tough questions and to base their recommendations on the previously established criteria.

Cooke took his place at the center of the table, and Robert Floyd, who headed up the source evaluation team at Johnson Space Center, began a PowerPoint presentation of the two proposals. The source evaluation board had been sequestered for six months in secure offices, nicknamed the "bunker," at the Johnson Space Center. The team of 70, gathered from various NASA centers, evaluated each proposal's technical aspects, management concepts, and health and safety plans. They also reviewed the cost estimates and in some cases corrected the numbers provided by the companies.

Four hours later, Floyd wrapped up and the group took a brief break. When they returned to their seats, Cooke asked each adviser to give an assessment of the proposals. Cooke then gave his assessment. He polled the group one last time. The winner was obvious-it was Lockheed. He announced his decision to the group.

Later he would explain, "both contractor teams were capable of doing it . . . but on performance, management, cost and past performance . . . [Lockheed Martin was] ahead." In the sourcing evaluation document that he signed the next day, Cooke said Lockheed's cost estimate was significantly lower than the Northrop Grumman-Boeing team's. He also said he was worried because the relationship between Northrop Grumman and Boeing did not seem clearly defined. "I am concerned that two very large companies integrating and interacting as prime and sub will be a recurring management challenge," he wrote.

Cooke met with Griffin at 2 p.m. to explain his decision, which still was top-secret. Griffin approved. Now, Cooke just had to keep the secret until he could announce it the next day, Thursday, Aug. 31.

Winner Takes All

Cooke finalized and signed the source selection letter Thursday morning. At 1 p.m., he called the heads of both teams to let them know the results. "One was hard, one was not that hard," he says. The easy call was to Robert Stevens, Lockheed Martin chief executive officer, president and chairman, who immediately called Joanne McGuire, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co. Cooke had told Stevens not to spread the information too widely, so Lacefield had to wait for the news along with everyone else.

The official press conference was scheduled for 4 p.m., and Cooke's goal was to keep the information from becoming public until then. Meanwhile, Michael Cabbage, veteran NASA reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, was working to make sure he could get the scoop for his readers. Cabbage knew the announcement was expected that day, and he had spent his morning calling all his top sources. One of them called him back around 3:40 p.m. and Cabbage quickly got a second source to confirm the news. At 3:47 pm, he posted the Lockheed win on his blog, beating Cooke's announcement by 13 minutes.

Lacefield was in Houston, watching the announcement on television in a conference room with his team. He felt confident with their proposal, but didn't know if it was good enough to beat the competition.

With the cameras rolling, Cooke announced Lockheed as the winner. Lacefield's conference room erupted in cheers. Lacefield couldn't talk. "It's one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences to win something as important as this," he says. He got his voice back and called his wife, who also had been watching the announcement on television. That night, they hosted an open house at their Houston home to celebrate.

The losing Northrop Grumman and Boeing team was crushed. The companies declined to participate in this article. Not only had they spent two years preparing a proposal that was now off the table, but because the contract lasts for so long, they were essentially cut out of the manned vehicle market for a decade. "It was a painful learning experience," says a Northrop Grumman spokesman.

Hatfield was relieved that the decision was public. "The cone of silence has been lifted and now we can talk to one another," he joked with his colleagues.

The Clock Is Ticking

Friday, Sept. 1, was a normal working day for Lacefield and Hatfield; their teams met at the Johnson Space Center to figure out the next steps. They first had to cull the best design ideas from the Lockheed proposal and the internal NASA team. The clock already was running; a launch-abort system test was scheduled for the fall of 2008 and Orion was scheduled to blast off in 2014.

Critics also got to work. Many people had expected the Northrop Grumman-Boeing team to win because they have more experience building vehicles to send humans into space, while Lockheed had mostly specialized in unmanned vehicles. Some suggested that Lockheed had underestimated its costs because it didn't realize how expensive it would be to bring a vehicle up to the safety level required for human space travel. (Cooke says he is confident that the cost estimates are accurate.) The New York Times pointed out that the last time Lockheed was hired to build a manned spacecraft, the X-33 in 1996, it failed and NASA shut down the project after spending almost $1 billion. Space entrepreneurs argued that NASA and the federal government should seek innovation by engaging cutting-edge space companies instead of the traditional giants.

In early January, NASA released a request for information for the next big contract, the launch vehicle that will carry Orion out of Earth's atmosphere. "That's where I think NASA will get into trouble," says Howard McCurdy, author of books on space and professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University. The technology likely will require more innovation than a capsule, which relies so heavily on Apollo-era designs, he says.

Another challenge for NASA will be getting Orion off the ground before a new administration shifts the agency's focus. "The next administration will not likely be a significant supporter of this president's vision," says James McAleese, a principal of an aerospace and defense law firm that bears his name in McLean, Va. Some politicians would likely argue for extending the life of the shuttle, especially if Orion gets delayed. Few people, however, would suggest shutting down Orion altogether, McAleese adds.

As President Bush noted in his January 2004 speech, "We choose to explore space because doing so improves our lives, and lifts our national spirit."

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Here's the plan for getting Orion, the spacecraft that will carry astronauts to the Moon and beyond, off the ground. So far, it's on schedule.

Time	Actions
2014	Orion will carry astronauts into low Earth orbit in preparation for Moon landings.
2015-2020	Orion will take astronauts to the Moon for visits of four days or longer.
After 2020	Astronauts will visit the Moon for extended periods - up to several months-in preparation for Mars landings.
Source: NASA Statement of Objectives, March 2005

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Fast Track

Kimberly Palmer — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Aggressive pursuit of customers and preference programs earned Lurita Doan's company big contracts.

The story of how Lurita Doan got her start in business has achieved almost mythical status. Her trip to Kinko's with $25 in her pocket to print business cards and the subsequent escalation of her business to a multimillion-dollar endeavor has been repeated in publications ranging from Washingtonian to Black Enterprise. And when asked, Doan is happy to repeat the story.

"I ran off business cards. I didn't even have enough money for stationery," recalls Doan, now administrator of the General Services Administration. "I said, 'Aah, I'm in business.' " When she sold the company 15 years later, it was raking in $200 million worth of federal contracts a year.

Success doesn't usually come so quickly. As one acquisition professional puts it, "That's not normal."

According to interviews with people familiar with Doan and her old company, New Technology Management Inc. in Reston, Va., Doan succeeded by aggressively pursuing potential customers, working remarkably hard and making use of preference programs run by the Small Business Administration. She also had the good luck to have specialized in security-related sectors that began booming after Sept. 11. "I've been very fortunate to have good timing," Doan says.

A Government Executive analysis of NTMI's prime contracts based on data provided by research firm Eagle Eye Publishers Inc., from which this magazine purchases data for its annual survey of top federal contractors, shows that in 1995, five years after she started her company, all of its $2.8 million in prime contracts were awarded noncompetitively. The number of competitive awards gradually grew and by 2001, when the company was awarded $14.3 million in prime contracts, 98 percent were awarded competitively.

In the early 1990s, when NTMI was starting out, Doan applied for 8(a) certification based on the company's minority- and woman-owned status (Doan is black) and location in a Historically Underutilized Business Zone (at the time NTMI was based in Winchester, Va.). Both SBA programs allow agencies to make noncompetitive awards. Doan says the company didn't rely on the programs. "We never really used them very much, because we didn't need to," she says.

In another oft-repeated tale dating back to 1992, when Doan was nine months pregnant with her second daughter, she says she worked for 70 hours straight on a naval information technology project for a company run by Carleton Jones, now chief executive at Multimax, an IT company in Herndon, Va. Doan says she went into labor on the job but continued working anyway; she gave birth in a nearby emergency room 14 minutes after finishing the project. Jones was impressed. He awarded her a subcontract shortly thereafter, which enabled Doan to get her start in federal contracting. "She made her own breaks, frankly. . . . She didn't need a lot of counseling," Jones says. Her motto, he recalls, was, "We sweat the details." And, he says, she did.

According to Eagle Eye, the majority of NTMI prime contracts was awarded through GSA schedules. In 2003, $13.2 million of $15.1 million in NTMI prime contracts went through the agency. That likely helped Doan's company, since agencies buying through the schedules don't face as stringent requirements to compete contracts among vendors.

Doan also appears to have made use of networking opportunities. She participated in many business groups, including the Young Presidents' Organization and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. A February 2005 article in The Washington Post reported that Thomas Donohue, Chamber of Commerce president, offered to arrange a meeting between Doan, a chamber member, and the commissioner for Customs and Border Protection. "I'll get you in there," the Post reported Donohue telling Doan. (Doan says she never met with the commissioner.)

Doan sold her business to pursue a political appointment with the Bush administration, her former executive assistant told Government Executive in 2006. (Doan says she had planned to retire.) She certainly was well-positioned to pursue a political position. President Bush had singled her out during remarks on women business owners in January 2004. She spoke at the 2004 Republican National Convention on behalf of women business owners.

Doan and her husband have contributed $213,815 to Republican campaigns since 2000, according to Federal Election Commission documents. Their contributions focused heavily on Republican candidates for Senate and Congress, including Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., and former Sen. George Allen, R-Va., as well as national Republican political action committees, such as the Every Republican Is Crucial PAC. Lurita Doan also contributed $1,600 to the Women's Campaign Forum in 2002 and 2003 and $1,000 to the Elizabeth Dole for President Exploratory Committee in 1999.

Doan took care to sever any ties to NTMI that could appear to be conflicts of interest in her new role as GSA administrator. NTMI's new president, Jack Larmer, says he is legally prevented from talking about the company under Doan's tenure. Doan keeps any mention of NTMI out of her official bio on GSA's Web site. When asked about the company, she says, "I haven't followed it, and I actually probably shouldn't be talking about it. I have recused myself from anything to do with it."

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Lurita Doan's company, New Technology Management Inc., initially relied heavily on noncompetitive contracts, which it was eligible for because it was an 8(a) small disadvantaged business and HUBZone company. By 2001, most of its prime contracts were awarded competitively.

	In millions
	Total Contracts	Competed
1995	$2.8	0
1996	$13.3	$2.5
1997	$5.7	$2.0
1998	$26.4	$9.4
1999	$10.5	$4.5
2000	$6.0	$3.0
2001	$14.3	$14.0
2002	$22.8	$21.8
2003	$15.1	$13.3
2004	$45.3	$43.6
2005	$14.6	$11.3
Source: Eagle Eye Publishers Inc.

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Women's Work

Kimberly Palmer — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0500

A Labor Department bureau struggles for relevance and survival.

From her spacious corner office overlooking the Capitol dome, Director Shinae Chun presides over the only federal agency dedicated to promoting the interests of working women. The Labor Department Women's Bureau hosts online mentoring programs, financial management seminars and teleconferences on flexible work schedules.

Unfortunately, few of the 59 million working women in this country know about any of those initiatives. The bureau's teleconferences, held about once a month, typically get about 70 callers. One of the bureau's most popular programs, a financial management course called Wi$e Up, garners only 1,000 participants a year. A Nexis search reveals that the Women's Bureau has been mentioned in few major publications over the past several years.

That's a far cry from the 1940s, when bureau staffers frequently wrote for The New York Times Magazine, Glamour and other popular women's magazines, and the bureau was the go-to resource on working women's issues.

Chun knows she has an outreach problem. During a recent interview, when a reporter asked about the number of teleconference participants, a member of her press team suggested e-mailing women's magazines to alert them to the next event; apparently, the bureau had not yet done so. "I will work on that," Chun said.

She might not want to wait too much longer. The Women's Bureau was created in 1920 to "formulate standards and policies which shall promote the welfare of wage-earning women." At the time, women had just received the right to vote, most mothers stayed at home and working women were, for the most part, poor and underpaid. Today, women make up almost half the workforce and have entered professional fields in large numbers. That has some wondering, should the Women's Bureau still exist?

Gender Gap

"It's sexist," says Warren Farrell, former member of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women's board of directors and author of Why Men Earn More (Amacom, 2005). The mere existence of the Women's Bureau implies that women need some kind of special help, he says. "When you protect something, it usually means . . . you think of it as inferior to you in terms of capabilities."

The bureau was founded on the belief that women did need special help. In the 1920s, most working women held low-paying jobs, such as in the garment industry and factories, says Kathleen Laughlin, author of a history of the Women's Bureau, Women's Work and Public Policy: A History of the Women's Bureau, U.S. Department of Labor, 1945-1970 (Northeastern University Press, 2000), and associate professor at Metropolitan State University in Minneapolis. There were no federal labor standards until the late 1930s, leaving workers vulnerable to exploitation. "Now, when you say 'working women,' it no longer refers to a specific group," Laughlin says, because there are so many professional women who do not face the same kinds of vulnerabilities as their predecessors. That makes the bureau's mission harder to define.

Women's groups are quick to point out that there is still plenty of inequality. According to the bureau's 2005 data, women earn 81 percent of what men earn on average. The most popular occupation for women, with 2.6 million workers, is administrative assistant, typically a low-paid job. Women hold only 14.7 percent of seats on Fortune 500 boards of directors, according to Catalyst, a national research firm. And women are less likely than men to have adequate retirement funds, according to the Labor Department.

Whether or not those statistics are problematic depends on your perspective. "We're talking about [pay inequality] as if it's a bad thing," says Carrie Lukas, vice president of policy at the nonprofit Independent Women's Forum in Washington. But women earn less and hold different jobs, "because women are often looking for more flexible schedules and jobs that let us devote more time to our families," she says. Men, on the other hand, prioritize money, which means they choose jobs that allow them to earn more-but that doesn't mean they're better off, Lukas says. "Women have better lives in many ways. They can do things outside of work."

Olga Vives, executive vice president of the National Organization for Women, on the other hand, attributes pay inequality to persistent discrimination against women. "By any standard, women are not equal-economically, politically or socially," she says.

The reasons for the pay gap are so complex that even an exhaustive study by the Government Accountability Office could not come up with a definitive explanation. The report (GAO-04-35) points out that the wage difference reported by the Labor Department does not account for work experience, education or choice of profession. The report found that women tend to work less than men do (often because of family obligations), which explains part of the wage difference. The researchers attribute the rest to either discrimination or "other factors"; in other words, they didn't know. Other researchers have suggested that much of the wage difference, especially in professional jobs, can be attributed to the fact that women don't negotiate their salaries as aggressively as men do.

While the debate about unequal pay continues, "poor women are overlooked," says Joan Kuriansky, executive director of Wider Opportunities for Women in Washington. While women in professional fields made significant progress during the last century, poor women fell further behind, she says. According to Legal Momentum, a nonprofit in New York dedicated to women's rights, a woman is 45 percent more likely to be poor than a man, and the number of poor women is growing.

And working women across all incomes struggle to balance work and family, especially single mothers, of whom there are more than ever. In 2005, there were 10.4 million single mothers in the United States compared with half that number in 1970, according to the Census Bureau. "The raison d'être for the Women's Bureau is the notion of the breadwinning mother. . . . It is the reason that the Department of Labor really considers maternity and paternity leave, child care and the workday," says Eileen Boris, professor of women's studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Without the bureau, those policy issues would be easily lost, she says.

Leslie Morgan Steiner, editor of Mommy Wars (Random House, 2006), adds: "Seventy percent of moms with kids under the age of 18 have to work, so the fact that the government doesn't do anything to provide child care or encourage child care is crazy. It leaves women out there totally on their own. . . . it's the kind of role government should play."

In other words, many believe there is plenty more work for the bureau to do. "To suggest that the Women's Bureau has accomplished its mission is plainly wrong on its face," says Cynthia Harrison, associate professor at The George Washington University who specializes in women and public policy.

On Probation

The Bush administration partially agrees with that assessment. At ExpectMore.gov, the Web site run by the Office of Management and Budget that displays the administration's ratings of federal agencies and programs, the Women's Bureau has a "results not demonstrated" rating, equivalent to a C-minus grade. The program is on probation while it tries to better define and execute its goals. The administration says the bureau fulfills an existing need, but only barely, and it duplicates the efforts of other federal agencies, such as the Small Business Administration's Office of Women's Business Ownership and the Treasury Department's Financial Literacy and Education Commission.

"They should be quite worried," says Mark Abramson, executive director of the IBM Center for the Business of Government, of the bureau's OMB rating. "If agencies want to stay alive, they should demonstrate results." Otherwise, their budgets could be reduced, leading to a "downward spiral," he says, because they can no longer fulfill their missions as well.

Indeed, that downward spiral already might have started. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao has consistently proposed less funding for the Women's Bureau, which already is one of the smallest government agencies. For fiscal 2007, she recommended a decrease to $9.3 million from $9.7 million. It exceeded $10 million before she arrived. Labor also is running two outsourcing projects that could privatize several jobs in the 60-person bureau. According to a Hill staffer familiar with the matter, the targeted positions include social science advisers, a policy position that includes analyzing data and interpreting laws and policies related to the bureau's mission.

Historically, when an agency outgrows its original purpose, one of two things happens. Either agency supporters scramble to reinvigorate and update its mission, thereby proving the need for continued funding, or the agency dies a slow death, losing funding and supporters until it drops away altogether.

Dwight Ink is all too familiar with that latter fate. In 1981, when he was head of the Community Services Administration, an independent agency established by President Kennedy to respond to the needs of the disadvantaged, Congress decided to stop funding the agency. While he wished he had more time to help his employees in their job searches, Ink agreed the agency should be disbanded. "The longer it struggled to survive, the less strength it had," says Ink, now semi-retired at age 84 after serving in policy positions for seven presidents.

But as those who have attempted it have learned, agencies aren't killed easily. They often have loyal supporters who will protest any attempts at defunding. This is true of the Women's Bureau. In August, more than 200 women's organizations, including the National Organization for Women and the American Medical Women's Association, wrote to Secretary Chao, urging her to devote more resources to the Women's Bureau. In September, 100 lawmakers, including Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., now House Speaker, and led by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., wrote to the Labor Department protesting its outsourcing plans.

Protest calls shut down the phone lines when Bob Stone, energizer-in-chief under the Clinton administration's National Partnership for Reinventing Government, tried to close the Railroad Retirement Board, which administers pensions for former railroad employees. "The friends and supporters [of agencies] always seem to have a bigger stake in an agency's survival than the man in the street who doesn't know anything about it but would benefit by getting rid of it," Stone says.

To survive, an agency teetering on extinction needs to create an identity "that matches the changed environment," and to figure out what it is "uniquely qualified to provide" by talking to relevant groups and potentially partnering with them, says Robert Durant, professor of public administration and policy at American University in Washington. Saving the Women's Bureau, he adds, "would take a presidential administration that wanted to take that on."

Searching for Relevance

From her perch at the Labor Department, Chun sounds like a woman committed to the fight against gender discrimination. "Women still have a long way to go," she says. As long as the bureau keeps up with contemporary challenges to working women, it will always be relevant, she says. That's why she decided to focus on financial management, confidence and negotiation skills, and information technology training, which she believes are the chief difficulties that working women face today.

"I look at women as not having self-confidence," says Chun. It remains a pervasive problem that keeps them from

succeeding in the workplace even though young women might be more confident than older generations, she says. She recalls a federal employee she met in Ohio who had been stuck at a GS-11 level for

12 years because she was afraid to ask her boss for a promotion. At a program run by the bureau, she learned how to make the request, and got the promotion.

Chun relies on such stories to show that the bureau has an impact despite the low participation numbers. Although the bureau's Web site gets thousands of hits, the number of women actively participating in its programs is much lower. Working Women in Transition, an online mentoring program, had 231 participants in 2005 and 777 in 2006, and Wi$e Up, a financial management course aimed at Gen-Xers, had 722 participants in 2005 and 1,037 in 2006.

Karen Nussbaum, director of the bureau during the first half of the Clinton administration, said those numbers are extremely low. Under her leadership, the bureau reached 300,000 participants in an extensive survey to determine working women's concerns and routinely gathered hundreds of women at community meetings. "There was a genuine connection between women in the country and [they knew] that the government cared about them," she says.

Some of Chun's efforts to update the bureau's activities have made it vulnerable to criticism from both the right and left. Lukas of the Independent Women's Forum says the government shouldn't be in the business of providing financial management lessons. "There are plenty of financial services companies that try to reach out to women. . . . I don't see that as the proper role of government," she says.

As for teaching soft skills, such as confidence building, books ranging from Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever (Princeton University Press, 2003) to Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office by Lois P. Frankel (Warner Business Books, 2004) teach women many of the lessons that the bureau is trying to impart, albeit to a wider audience.

At the same time, Kuriansky of Wider Opportunities for Women says the focus on financial management "presumes you have money to manage. The reality is, for many, many women, you do not have enough income to make ends meet." The focus of the bureau, she says, should be on helping women earn sufficient incomes to provide for themselves and their families. Under Nussbaum, the bureau focused on job rights, including benefits such as leave and equal pay. "That clearly is not the mission of this Women's Bureau," Nussbaum says. The information she posted on the Women's Bureau Web site about those topics has since been removed. (Chun says publications are removed when they become outdated.)

Nussbaum, now executive director of the AFL-CIO's community affiliate Working America, also worked closely with women's and labor organizations to reach more women. While Chun's bureau reaches out to women's business groups, universities and community organizations, it is largely at odds with women's and labor organizations, which have criticized its priorities. Chun also has shifted away from policy issues.

In the past, the bureau has been a strong advocate for policy changes that would help the working poor such as fair labor standards and a higher minimum wage; Chun says the bureau will stay out of the minimum wage debate. "Our job is to highlight best practices, so that other employers learn from what's been done. . . . We're taking no particular position," she says.

Chun says the bureau simply is giving its customers what they have asked for in focus groups and that it addresses the concerns of all working women, including low-income women. She says most Wi$e Up participants are low-income and the Working Women in Transition program, hosted by the University of Kentucky in Lexington, teams with community groups to target Temporary Assistance for Needy Families recipients in Arkansas, incarcerated women in Vermont and former substance abusers in Kentucky.

Chun, who grew up in South Korea, where at family dinners she received vegetable soup while her brothers received the more precious beef, advises women to be optimistic about their job options. There's always going to be discrimination, she says. She recommends focusing on opportunities, instead.

And sometimes, nice girls do get the corner office. Just ask Chun.

---

Women's earnings as a percentage of men's by age.

Total (Age 26 and over)	81.0%
16 to 19	92.1%
20 to 24	94.0%
25 to 34	89.1%
35 to 44	75.6%
45 to 54	75.4%
55 to 64	74.7%
65 and older	76.4%
Source: The Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2005

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Multiple Award Maze

Kimberly Palmer — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0500

In 2005, the Defense Department clarified its rules for using interagency contracts after reports of widespread fraud and abuse at GSA; other agencies also became wary. GSA fought back with its Get It Right campaign and more transparent processes. In Multiple Award Schedule Contracting (Xlibris Corp., 2006), Washington lawyers and federal contracting experts John W. Chierichella and Jonathan S. Aronie have updated their 2002 guide to the schedules and offer practical advice to companies that sell through them.

The GSA schedule, which encompasses the contracts through which other agencies purchase about $30 billion worth of goods and services annually, is the "most used, yet misunderstood" procurement vehicle available, according to Chierichella and Aronie. That may well be true; GSA officials themselves have called for demystification, which makes Multiple Award Schedule Contracting a useful resource for schedule holders.

"While the government tells you what the rules are, the government does not tell you and won't tell you what kind of infrastructure you need to set up for compliance," Aronie said in a recent interview. Many legal problems, the authors write, are "spawned by the absence of meaningful guidance from the government."

The cons, however, take up more space than the pros and include the potential for extensive audits, time-consuming record-keeping requirements, reduced flexibility, internal costs associated with training employees to work in the government space, and extra staff, including, of course, lawyers.

Before going into a negotiating session, contractors should know how low they're willing to go. They also should be prepared to negotiate nonprice factors, including delivery terms, warranty terms and subcontracting plans.

"While auditors have broad authority to examine a vendor's books or records, their authority is not limitless," the authors write. Tell your employees to be polite to auditors, but not to share too much information. Instead, they should refer questions to a single point of contact. If your company is the subject of a search warrant, don't obstruct the search, but do try to protect privileged documents.

They also provide tips on how to avoid getting into trouble in the first place. Don't charge your lobbying expenses to contract overhead, for example. And be sure to set up a toll-free number as part of your ethics program. (And yes, you do need an ethics program.)

Meanwhile, Emily W. Murphy, GSA's chief acquisition officer, is working on a revamped acquisition manual for her agency to make it easier for employees themselves to understand how the schedules work. She expects to have it done in 2008.

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Convicted procurement executive dies in prison

Kimberly Palmer — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Jones, whose story was featured in the July 1, 2006 issue of Government Executive, maintained his innocence, despite evidence that he had accepted more than $1 million in gifts, including trips to Las Vegas and Rolex watches during his time at GSA and Defense.

In the late 1990s, Jones served as deputy director of GSA's Federal Acquisition Services for Technology program and was a member of the Senior Executive Service. In 1998, he moved to the Defense Department to serve as special assistant in the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization.

In an April 2006 interview, Jones blamed his conviction on racism. "It's not like GSA or DoD had a lot of blacks in procurement situations," he said. "So once that happens, you're going to always be investigated for something." Defense investigators who worked on his case said race had nothing to do with it.

Prosecutors called the investigation the biggest procurement scandal since the famous Ill Wind convictions in the 1980s.

Aside from his involvement in procurement fraud, Jones was generally described as a smart, upbeat person. He grew up in subsidized housing in Northeast Washington and worked his way up the Washington career ladder by taking classes at a community college and joining GSA at the GS-7 level in 1989.

Robert L. Neal Jr., who directed the Pentagon's Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization while Jones worked there, also was convicted of bribery and fraud and continues to serve his sentence in the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Md. Neal, 54, is scheduled to be released May 6, 2011.

Jones' lawyer, David Barger, had argued for a lesser sentence for Jones during the 2003 sentencing because Jones had already suffered a heart attack in his 40s.

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Agencies detail massive effort to evacuate Lebanon

Kimberly Palmer — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Trotter, a senior at the University of Alabama, and Thomas, a junior at Mount Holyoke College, were about seven weeks into their internships at The Daily Star, an English language newspaper that covers the Middle East. That day, Israel had bombed southern Lebanon in retaliation for the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, a militant Islamic group.

"We went to bed wondering what they were going to bomb," Trotter later recalled. Thomas already had decided to go home as soon as possible, mostly to allay the fears of her mother. She planned to exchange her ticket for an earlier flight at the Beirut airport the next day.

At 7 a.m. on July 13, Thomas' cell phone rang. It was her mom calling from outside Kansas City, Kansas, with news that the Israelis had just bombed the airport, making it impossible to fly out. Thomas rushed into the living room to wake Trotter, who was sleeping on the couch. They turned on CNN and saw images of smoke and fire on the runways. As they waited to hear the embassy's evacuation plans for Americans, they went to work at The Daily Star to cover the bombings.

They didn't yet know how hard it was going to be to get out, or that the challenge of evacuating Americans soon would make headlines back home.

When Americans are in danger abroad, it's up to the State Department to get them to safety. State often asks the Defense Department for help. Both coordinate with the Health and Human Services Department, which takes responsibility for evacuees once they land on American soil.

Even before Thomas and Trotter heard the news of the bombed airport, State already was making evacuation plans. By 6:30 a.m. in Washington, State had formed a task force to arrange the evacuation and to communicate with worried family members. The task force had to gather information fast: How many Americans were in Lebanon? How many needed help leaving? What kinds of people were they - mostly young, healthy students or elderly people with special needs? Initial estimates varied widely; State thought there could be as many as 25,000.

"Normally these things build slowly. . . . With this one, all of the sudden, within a day, there was no commercial transportation," says Steven J. Hartman, director of the Office of Logistics Operations within State's Bureau of Administration. In most evacuations, State helps stranded Americans schedule flights on commercial airlines. In Lebanon, that wasn't an option.

By week's end, State officially requested help from the Defense Department. Until that formal request is made, State takes sole responsibility for evacuating Americans, but Catherine Barry, deputy assistant secretary for overseas citizens services within State's Bureau of Consular Affairs, describes the relationship as more fluid. "They're not dumb. They're alerting people from their own institution to help State . . . before we make the formal call," she says.

The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, a rapid response force that was conducting training exercises in Jordan off the Red Sea, immediately started moving five of its seven vessels northwest through the Suez Canal. It sent CH-53 transport helicopters ahead to begin ferrying small groups of people - about two dozen at a time - from the Beirut embassy to Cyprus. The first evacuees were rescued on Sunday, July 16, four days after bombing began. But large numbers of Americans couldn't be rescued until ships with carrying capacity arrived. The MEU ships weren't due for another four days.

To get help more quickly, Defense turned to U.S. Transportation Command, which delegated contracting responsibilities to the Navy's Military Sealift Command and the Air Force's Air Mobility Command. "The secret is the ability to reach out to commercial partners . . . to increase our capacity through commercial contracts," says Col. Mark McLeod, chief of the contingency division within the operations directorate at TRANSCOM.

Ken Allen, branch head for chartering operations at the Military Sealift Command, already had begun checking out passenger ship availability before getting TRANSCOM's call. MSC frequently relies on ship brokers to charter passenger ships. Allen had helped charter cruise ships for victims of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. On Friday, July 14, he started calling brokers, telling them to watch for a soon-to-be-released request for proposals. Even though it was an emergency, Allen still wanted the award to be competitive, if possible.

On Saturday, MSC released the request for proposals on its Web site, with a deadline of Monday. Meanwhile, over the weekend, pressure grew to evacuate Americans more quickly. Allen got a call from the director of MSC contracts at 2:30 a.m. Monday, telling him to sole-source the contract to the Orient Queen, a Lebanese-flagged luxury cruise ship. It would arrive Tuesday.

MSC officials worried that if they didn't make the award quickly, another country would grab the ship for its own citizens. Over the next few days, Allen also made two competitive awards to the MF Rahmah and the Vittoria M, passenger ships that would make multiple round-trips from Lebanon to Cyprus during the coming week.

Stuck

Back in Washington, the State Department task force had been overwhelmed by a deluge of calls from anxious relatives. Calls so clogged the U.S. Embassy in Beirut that many Americans in Lebanon couldn't get through. As a result, the burden of communicating with evacuees and their families fell on Washington task force members. They tried to provide firm information about air strikes and evacuation plans. "When people have something concrete that they can wrap their minds around, it seems to help them," says Barry.

But many Americans in Lebanon still were frustrated by what they perceived as inaction on the part of the State Department, especially as they watched Europeans evacuate on cargo ships. "All the other countries evacuated their citizens and we were still sitting there with an e-mail every other day. . . . We didn't know what to do, how, or when," says Trotter.

On Sunday, July 16, she piled her family into a cab and paid $100 for a ride that normally costs $10 to get to the U.S. Embassy. An embassy employee told her to stay in a Christian neighborhood near the embassy. Letteri could only find space in a five-star hotel, but she stayed, hoping the embassy soon would call with information about how to get out.

With no word on Monday, she moved her family into a cheaper hotel and continued to wait. Her youngest son, Aaron, 2, had a fever and started vomiting. Meanwhile, she saw French and other European citizens being evacuated. "Here is America. I feel I'm in the safest, most powerful country in the world. Where is the help here?" she remembers thinking.

On Tuesday, she went again to the embassy, and this time found a sympathetic employee. He told her to return at noon with diapers, food and one outfit of clothing per person - no bulky suitcases. The family came back as instructed and, after waiting six hours, flew to Cyprus on a military helicopter after signing a promissory note that pledged they would reimburse the United States for the costs of their evacuation. (After protests from Congress and the public, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice later waived those fees.) Their four-bedroom house on a quiet cul-de-sac in Reston, Va., still was far away.

Initially, the university planned to bus the students through Syria to Jordan, but then decided it was too dangerous. Israel already had bombed several major highways. On Tuesday, Thomas got on a bus with students and rode to Beirut's harbor. Working with the U.S. Embassy, university administrators had arranged for students to travel on a Norwegian cargo ship.

About 1,000 evacuees boarded. The ship was built to hold 30. It had only three bathrooms. Thomas managed to avoid using them for the entire 12-hour trip. People crammed onto the hot and fly-infested cargo decks. "For me, being young, it wasn't a big deal . . . but I felt bad for the families and older people," Thomas says. She spent the night lying on deck looking up at the stars.

Trotter, who stayed behind to finish a story for The Daily Star, boarded the USS Whidbey Island, one of the Marine Expeditionary Unit ships, on Saturday, July 22. The sailors and Marines gave up their showers and beds so evacuees could use the hot water and get some sleep. The evacuees also had free rein in the mess halls, which were serving fried chicken, vegetables and plenty of coffee. Trotter spent the night on the deck with a few Marines, smoking cigarettes and talking.

Safety vs. Speed

In addition to being crowded, the Norwegian cargo ship that Thomas boarded lacked sufficient food, water, toilets and life vests. "It really wasn't an appropriate conveyance for people and they're lucky somebody didn't get hurt," says Hartman. Barry adds: "We were not simply moving people, but we were trying to move people safely."

In addition, McLeod says TRANSCOM had to get Israeli forces to agree not to bomb the harbor while Americans were being evacuated, and that the Cypriot government required all ships arriving at Larnaca to get approval.

On July 20, two days after the Orient Queen pulled into Beirut to begin ferrying more than 5,000 Americans to Cyprus, the first vessel from the Marine Expeditionary Unit pulled up to the coast of Lebanon. The USS Nashville was the first of the U.S. ships to launch landing gear and begin carrying thousands of Americans to Cyprus.

The arrival of nearly 15,000 Americans quickly overwhelmed Larnaca, and TRANSCOM was faced with its next big challenge: getting Americans safely out of Cyprus.

Pressure was mounting to move evacuees quickly back to the United States, says McLeod. In fact, he says, the U.S. Embassy in Cyprus was warned that the Cypriot government would no longer aid the evacuation unless Americans could leave more quickly. Air Mobility Command found 30 commercial aircraft and 19 C-17 cargo planes to fly almost 9,000 passengers to airports on the East Coast of the United States. Once Americans land in the United States, the Administration for Children and Families within the Health and Human Services Department coordinates food and medical assistance and helps them get to their final destinations.

Martha E. Newton, director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement at ACF, relied on federal employees at regional offices who had volunteered to help. "I was calling people at 3 o'clock in the morning and saying, 'Could you pack a suitcase and get to McGuire Air Force Base in four hours?' And they did," she says.

In Maryland, where 4,492 Americans landed at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, state officials set up federal loans for those who lacked access to cash and helped them find lodging. The American Red Cross provided meals, later submitting requests for reimbursement to ACF, and the International Social Service, a nonprofit organization that contracts with ACF to assist with repatriations, staffed meet-and-greet tables at the airports to help evacuees arrange connecting flights, book temporary lodging and fill out required paperwork.

The Maryland Institute for Emergency Medical Services Systems, a statewide network of health care professionals, summoned first responders to help the 78 evacuees who were in need of medical assistance, largely for minor problems such as dehydration and nausea.

Because it was a federal emergency, HHS covered the costs of the repatriation, which Newton estimates as close to $2 million. (Maryland alone was reimbursed about $440,000).

As the evacuations were ongoing, ACF chief Wade Horn realized the $1 million that was appropriated to the program was not going to be enough. He called Congress for more.

To keep track of expenditures, he also instituted financial reporting every 12 hours to make sure he didn't commit HHS to reimbursing to the states money the department didn't have. Before the evacuations ended, President Bush had signed the bill granting ACF the money it needed.

The State Department, on the other hand, says it cannot yet estimate the cost of the evacuations or the cost of Secretary Rice's decision to waive the reimbursement requirement for evacuees.

The Defense Department pays for much of its assistance with operations and maintenance funds, but some sealift and airlift costs eventually will be charged to State.

The State Department also pays for contracts with airlines and passenger ships. According to the Military Sealift Command, the three passenger ships cost just over $3.5 million.

Getting Home

While Thomas was waiting to get on the ship that would take her to Cyprus, she made reservations on hotels.com for a room in Larnaca, so she didn't have to stay in the crowded fairground arranged by the State Department. After being greeted by officials from the U.S. Embassy, who gave evacuees food and helped them exchange money, she took a cab to her beachside hotel, where she slept and enjoyed a long, luxurious breakfast of eggs, fruit, croissants and multiple cups of tea. At home outside Kansas City, her mom booked her on a flight home, through London and Chicago. Her college later reimbursed her for the $3,000 ticket.

Once Trotter got off the USS Whidbey Island on Sunday, July 23, she took a bus along with other evacuees to the fairground in Larnaca. She slept on a cot and ate bread, cereal, milk and juice provided by the Marines. Trotter boarded an Air Force cargo plane early the next morning with about 100 other evacuees. After a short stop in Germany for refueling, they landed at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. Her fiancé flew to meet her in Newark and they returned to Alabama together. In less than a month, they were married.

Letteri had a rougher time. After landing in Cyprus, she felt abandoned in an unfamiliar country. The fairground had not yet been set up and the food and hotels were expensive; she remembers a cup of coffee going for $7. She bought plane tickets for her family to France, where they stayed in a cheap hotel and waited for their original plane tickets home on Friday, July 21.

She and her family were greeted warmly in Reston. Neighbors met them with bouquets of flowers, welcome home signs and a basket of homemade cookies and fruit. "I'm so grateful for my neighbors," she says, reflecting on the ordeal four months later. She helps Aaron, now 3, eat a spoonful of Nutella hazelnut chocolate spread, his stomach infection long behind him.

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Survey: Agencies lag in procurement practices

Kimberly Palmer — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0500

While companies have long embraced strategic sourcing, or bulk buying, as a way to leverage buying power and save money, only select government agencies have embraced the strategy. Similarly, agencies have been slow to adopt interagency contracts, strategic partnerships with suppliers, and awards based on good performance, all of which can save money and improve the quality of purchases, said Bruce McConnell, president of Government Futures, which conducted the survey.

Unlike other reports that have reached similar conclusions, this survey also asked 100 government and industry leaders to predict the future. Respondents said they believed that by 2012, most agencies would rely on close relationships with select buyers for commodity purchases and that at least half of federal agencies would have adopted strategic sourcing techniques.

If these predictions are correct, federal procurement practices will start to more closely resemble the commercial practices of the 1990s in about five years.

In many ways, that's too late, says McConnell. By 2012, there will likely be newer best practices, he says.

McConnell says Government Futures is starting to look at how agencies could move more quickly to adopt best practices. One factor holding them back is current laws, he says.

Through Government Futures' Web site, McConnell plans to launch a detailed discussion of potential statutory changes for the new Congress. He says recommended changes will include regulations to make it easier to establish public-private partnerships, interagency collaboration and incentives in contracts such as rewards for good work and punishments for bad work. Only about 2 percent of government contracts currently use incentives, he says.

Transparency in contracting can help ensure that public-private partnerships don't develop a dark side, McConnell said. When the public and oversight community can track where money is going and to whom, the risk of illegal or unethical activity is reduced, he said.

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Escape from Lebanon

Kimberly Palmer — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0500

As Beirut was bombed, stranded Americans waited for their government to get them out.

Kristen Trotter and Claire Elisabeth Thomas spent the night of Wednesday, July 12, 2006, staying up late in Thomas' Beirut apartment, watching Israeli fighter jets fly in low over the city. Trotter, a senior at the University of Alabama, and Thomas, a junior at Mount Holyoke College, were about seven weeks into their internships at The Daily Star, an English language newspaper that covers the Middle East. That day, Israel had bombed southern Lebanon in retaliation for the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, a militant Islamic group.

They didn't yet know how hard it was going to be to get out, or that the challenge of evacuating Americans soon would make headlines back home.

Even before Thomas and Trotter heard the news of the bombed airport, State already was making evacuation plans. By 6:30 a.m. in Washington, State had formed a task force to arrange the evacuation and to communicate with worried family members. The task force had to gather information fast: How many Americans were in Lebanon? How many needed help leaving? What kinds of people were they-mostly young, healthy students or elderly people with special needs? Initial estimates varied widely; State thought there could be as many as 25,000.

The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, a rapid response force that was conducting training exercises in Jordan off the Red Sea, immediately started moving five of its seven vessels northwest through the Suez Canal. It sent CH-53 transport helicopters ahead to begin ferrying small groups of people-about two dozen at a time-from the Beirut embassy to Cyprus. The first evacuees were rescued on Sunday, July 16, four days after bombing began. But large numbers of Americans couldn't be rescued until ships with carrying capacity arrived. The MEU ships weren't due for another four days.

Orient Queen, a Lebanese-flagged luxury cruise ship. It would arrive Tuesday. MSC officials worried that if they didn't make the award quickly, another country would grab the ship for its own citizens. Over the next few days, Allen also made two competitive awards to the MF Rahmah and the Vittoria M, passenger ships that would make multiple round-trips from Lebanon to Cyprus during the coming week.

Stuck

Evacuation came frustratingly slowly for Raba Letteri, a Lebanese-American who was visiting her family with her husband and two young children for the first time in 11 years. When the bombs began falling, she and her family were staying with relatives. Letteri didn't feel safe. On Sunday, July 16, she piled her family into a cab and paid $100 for a ride that normally costs $10 to get to the U.S. Embassy. An embassy employee told her to stay in a Christian neighborhood near the embassy. Letteri could only find space in a five-star hotel, but she stayed, hoping the embassy soon would call with information about how to get out.

On Tuesday, she went again to the embassy, and this time found a sympathetic employee. He told her to return at noon with diapers, food and one outfit of clothing per person-no bulky suitcases. The family came back as instructed and, after waiting six hours, flew to Cyprus on a military helicopter after signing a promissory note that pledged they would reimburse the United States for the costs of their evacuation. (After protests from Congress and the public, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice later waived those fees.) Their four-bedroom house on a quiet cul-de-sac in Reston, Va., still was far away.

Meanwhile, Trotter and Thomas had taken matters into their own hands by relying on personal connections. Each knew an administrator at the American University of Beirut, which was making its own arrangements to send students out of Lebanon. After repeatedly failing to get through to the U.S. embassy, the women moved into the university's dorms on Saturday. Initially, the university planned to bus the students through Syria to Jordan, but then decided it was too dangerous. Israel already had bombed several major highways. On Tuesday, Thomas got on a bus with students and rode to Beirut's harbor. Working with the U.S. Embassy, university administrators had arranged for students to travel on a Norwegian cargo ship.

Safety vs. Speed

To explain the relative slowness of American evacuations, Defense officials refer to the "sheer physics" of moving Marine Expeditionary Unit ships from the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal and into the Beirut port, a journey that takes several days. The United States had no commercial or military vessels closer to Lebanon at the time. In addition, McLeod says TRANSCOM had to get Israeli forces to agree not to bomb the harbor while Americans were being evacuated, and that the Cypriot government required all ships arriving at Larnaca to get approval.

The arrival of nearly 15,000 Americans quickly overwhelmed Larnaca, and TRANSCOM was faced with its next big challenge: getting Americans safely out of Cyprus.

Because it was a federal emergency, HHS covered the costs of the repatriation, which Newton estimates as close to $2 million. (Maryland alone was reimbursed about $440,000).

As the evacuations were ongoing, ACF chief Wade Horn realized the $1 million that was appropriated to the program was not going to be enough. He called Congress for more.

Horn had to assure lawmakers that the program did not give away money freely or pay for commercial flights. Evacuees are required to pay for their own flights. If they don't have access to money, HHS could fund short-term loans, but in the case of the Lebanon evacuations, only 75 out of 12,500 repatriates asked for such assistance, Horn says. To keep track of expenditures, he also instituted financial reporting every 12 hours to make sure he didn't commit HHS to reimbursing to the states money the department didn't have. Before the evacuations ended, President Bush had signed the bill granting ACF the money it needed.

The State Department, on the other hand, says it cannot yet estimate the cost of the evacuations or the cost of Secretary Rice's decision to waive the reimbursement requirement for evacuees.

The Defense Department pays for much of its assistance with operations and maintenance funds, but some sealift and airlift costs eventually will be charged to State.

The State Department also pays for contracts with airlines and passenger ships. According to the Military Sealift Command, the three passenger ships cost just over $3.5 million.

Getting Home

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Money Maker

Kimberly Palmer — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0500

The supplier of U.S. currency paper faces little competition.

Rub a dollar bill between your fingers, and even with closed eyes you can tell you're not holding an ordinary piece of paper. Bills feel rough, almost crinkly, while regular paper is smooth. That's because bills are made of excess fabric from blue jeans and T-shirts as opposed to the wood pulp of ordinary paper. That distinctive texture, along with security threads and watermarks, is designed to discourage would-be counterfeiters.

Such high quality comes with a price-and whether or not the United States is overpaying is up for debate. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the agency in charge of making money, spends $115 million a year to buy blank notes from Crane & Co., which the bureau then prints with the familiar images and text. Crane, which operates out of Dalton, Mass., was recently awarded the currency contract again, for the 127th year in a row. For some, so many consecutive awards suggest a travesty of the procurement process. For Crane, it means the company is good at what it does.

To understand how it's even possible for one company to hold a contract for so long, you have to know something about the currency market-specifically, that there isn't one. Aside from counterfeiters, the bureau is the only purchaser of currency paper. As a result, few companies make it. Indeed, since the late 1800s, there has been only one manufacturer, and that's Crane.

Making the paper requires hefty upfront investments in security, high-quality printing mills and technology. Companies don't want to make those investments unless they can be guaranteed enough business to make their investments back, and the bureau can't make those kinds of guarantees because the contract is competed at least every four years.

In an effort to surmount those barriers, the bureau has experimented with different enticements over the years. In the 1990s, Tim Vigotsky, the former associate director for management at BEP, offered bidders money to subsidize their investments. He says it wasn't enough; Crane still emerged the winner.

Lansing Crane, chief executive of the company, says, "Competition exists if the potential for competition exists." Because he knows other companies are out there, he argues that his company is as efficient and low-cost as possible.

Sean Gailmard, assistant professor of political science at Northwestern University, says that the currency contract, because it requires such a specialized product, might be a rare situation in which limiting competition is actually useful. A long-term relationship with one contractor will encourage the contractor to specialize and invest in BEP's needs, he says. "Why would I make investments if I'm going to be outbid the next time around by some other supplier?" he asks.

The Government Accountability Office isn't so sure. In April 2005, it recommended that BEP conduct more outreach to paper manufacturers before issuing solicitations to increase the chances of competing bids. GAO also recommended that the bureau reassess the importance of having a second supplier, and to actively seek one if the benefits are found to outweigh the costs.

In 2006, Jennifer Sellers, the contracting officer for the paper currency contract, tried to restructure it so companies would have a two-year start-up and four-year manufacturing period to give them time to invest in the infrastructure after winning the contract. Crane filed a protest, arguing that the plan wasn't fair. "If they want to be competing in this area, they should make their own investments," says Lansing Crane.

The GAO sustained the protest in January 2006. After a revised solicitation was issued, one company submitted a proposal, but it wasn't technically acceptable. That left Crane. Sellers and Crane are wrapping up their contract negotiations and expect to announce the results this month.

Sellers says she's still looking at other ways to induce competition, but she isn't ready to share them publicly. Meanwhile, she's asking companies that might be interested in the contract after 2010, which is when the most recent Crane contract expires, to submit proposals for innovative strategies that would entice them to enter the market.

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Multiple Award Maze

Kimberly Palmer — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0500

How the GSA schedule really works-and how to stay out of trouble.

Like a bull in a china shop, the sheer brawn of the General Services Administration's Multiple Award Schedules program sometimes causes chaos. In 2005, the Defense Department clarified its rules for using interagency contracts after reports of widespread fraud and abuse at GSA; other agencies also became wary. GSA fought back with its Get It Right campaign and more transparent processes. In Multiple Award Schedule Contracting (Xlibris Corp., 2006), Washington lawyers and federal contracting experts John W. Chierichella and Jonathan S. Aronie have updated their 2002 guide to the schedules and offer practical advice to companies that sell through them.

The authors generally believe the schedules work well, but they are quick to warn against "traps for the unwary." Like any good defense lawyer would, they tell contractors how to watch out for possible missteps, such as failing to comply with the many required certifications or being unaware of mandates such as the Buy American Act. "While the government tells you what the rules are, the government does not tell you and won't tell you what kind of infrastructure you need to set up for compliance," Aronie said in a recent interview. Many legal problems, the authors write, are "spawned by the absence of meaningful guidance from the government."

For beginners, one chapter weighs the pros and cons of joining a GSA schedule. The pros include potential revenue opportunities, access to agencies and the implicit "GSA stamp of approval" from getting on a schedule, which can make agencies feel more comfortable buying from a company. The cons, however, take up more space than the pros and include the potential for extensive audits, time-consuming record-keeping requirements, reduced flexibility, internal costs associated with training employees to work in the government space, and extra staff, including, of course, lawyers.

Detailed information on where to find solicitations and how to write a proposal likely will be especially helpful to first-timers. A chapter on negotiating contracts, written by industry insiders Larry Allen and William Gormley, urge contractors to be prepared, because the government's negotiator will have done his homework. Before going into a negotiating session, contractors should know how low they're willing to go. They also should be prepared to negotiate nonprice factors, including delivery terms, warranty terms and subcontracting plans.

Chierichella and Aronie are at their best when they offer advice on what to do when you're in trouble. If you get a notice that you are being audited by the GSA inspector general, first notify your lawyers. Know your rights. "While auditors have broad authority to examine a vendor's books or records, their authority is not limitless," the authors write. Tell your employees to be polite to auditors, but not to share too much information. Instead, they should refer questions to a single point of contact. If your company is the subject of a search warrant, don't obstruct the search, but do try to protect privileged documents.

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Treading in Gray Areas

Kimberly Palmer — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0500

On May 16, the procurement fraud branch of the Army's Legal Services Agency suspended a senior Army director and his friend, a contractor, from doing business with the government.

According to an internal Army memo, Jolley, then-director of the War Fighting Center at I Corps at Fort Lewis, Wash., shared sensitive pricing information with John P. Doran, owner of Walking D Ranch Adventures in Twisp, Wash. In 2003 and 2005, the ranch won two contracts with the Army, worth a total of $65,190, to provide Army personnel with staff rides, or educational tours about historical battles.

The memo states that the bid proposal submitted by Walking D Ranch was identical to the Army's internal cost estimate, a highly unusual occurrence. It also says Jolley served as president of U.S. Cavalry School, which is part of Walking D Ranch Adventures, and he did not disclose that fact.

If what the memo reports is true, then Jolley engaged in criminal procurement fraud. Sharing sensitive information with a contractor can result in a prison sentence of up to five years. Failing to disclose financial interests, especially when they affect one's role as a public official, carries similar punishment. If the accusation is not true -- and there is some reason to believe that is the case -- the memo libels a man who has spent most of his life serving his country.

The allegation that Jolley shared pricing information with Doran is based primarily on two pieces of evidence. First, the Walking D Ranch bid was equal to the Army's internal estimate. Second, in a phone call to Doran from an undercover agent posing as a businessman, Doran allegedly said Jolley had told him how much he should bid on the contracts and the Army wrote the requirements to guarantee that Walking D Ranch would win them.

Now consider Doran's side of the story. He says his bid was equal to the Army's internal estimate because he had previously sole-sourced his staff ride services to the Army. As a result, the Army's internal estimate was based on his own prices, which he used again in the competitive bid. He says he tried to explain that to Army officials, but no one listened.

"The moment it [no longer] became sole-sourced, we said, 'We can no longer speak about this,' " says Doran. He adds that Jolley worked for the U.S. Cavalry School and Walking D Ranch Adventures in a volunteer capacity, in contrast to the Army's assertion in the memo.

An Army spokesman says Doran was suspended as a contractor based on information available at the time. Doran had the opportunity to submit information in opposition to the suspension, the spokesman says, but he did not, so his suspension stands.

The spokesman for the Western District of Washington's U.S. Attorney's Office says that in light of available evidence, the case was handled appropriately. Jolley's lawyer says the procurement fraud allegations were based on inaccurate information.

A bio from a horse riding Web site describes Jolley, a former Army lieutenant colonel, as an avid horseman and frequent participant in historical cavalry reenactments, including Custer's last stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Doran says he plans to hire Jolley to serve as a cavalry instructor for civilians on his ranch.

It might never be clear whether May's Army memo was accurate. But there are some lessons to be learned about the gray areas of procurement ethics.

Jolley appears to have been friends with Doran. While friendship with a contractor isn't illegal, it can raise questions about impartiality.

According to the Code of Federal Regulations, a federal employee should not make decisions affecting someone for whom he has served as an employee or consultant within the last year or someone with whom he actively participates in an organization. Furthermore, he should remove himself from decisions in which "circumstances would cause a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts to question his impartiality in the matter."

The Office of Government Ethics encourages federal employees to talk to their supervisors and agency ethics officials to clarify any confusion and to declare conflicts of interest. Just don't lie to an ethics official. It could result in a felony conviction.

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Treading in Gray Areas

Kimberly Palmer — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Avoiding the appearance of a conflict of interest can be a high wire act.

Sometimes white-collar fraud provides prosecutors with a slam-dunk case involving bribe lists, cash hidden in a freezer and damning FBI videotape. Other times, it's unclear whether the condemned person is a villain or victim. Bobby L. Jolley's case falls into the latter category.

On May 16, the procurement fraud branch of the Army's Legal Services Agency suspended a senior Army director and his friend, a contractor, from doing business with the government. According to an internal Army memo, Jolley, then-director of the War Fighting Center at I Corps at Fort Lewis, Wash., shared sensitive pricing information with John P. Doran, owner of Walking D Ranch Adventures in Twisp, Wash. In 2003 and 2005, the ranch won two contracts with the Army, worth a total of $65,190, to provide Army personnel with staff rides, or educational tours about historical battles. The memo states that the bid proposal submitted by Walking D Ranch was identical to the Army's internal cost estimate, a highly unusual occurrence. It also says Jolley served as president of U.S. Cavalry School, which is part of Walking D Ranch Adventures, and he did not disclose that fact.

If what the memo reports is true, then Jolley engaged in criminal procurement fraud. Sharing sensitive information with a contractor can result in a prison sentence of up to five years. Failing to disclose financial interests, especially when they affect one's role as a public official, carries similar punishment. If the accusation is not true-and there is some reason to believe that is the case-the memo libels a man who has spent most of his life serving his country.

As for the allegation that Doran himself told an Army investigator that Jolley shared sensitive procurement information with him, Doran says he explained to the investigator that he and Jolley discussed the contract when it was sole-sourced to his company. As is typical in sole-sourced situations, he and Jolley had to review costs and negotiate price. "The moment it [no longer] became sole-sourced, we said, 'We can no longer speak about this,' " says Doran. He adds that Jolley worked for the U.S. Cavalry School and Walking D Ranch Adventures in a volunteer capacity, in contrast to the Army's assertion in the memo.

Four months after the Army memo was filed, Jolley pleaded guilty to failure to disclose his ownership of a separate ranch, Woodland Farm. Federal employees are required to disclose financial assets annually. He will be sentenced on Dec. 7; his plea deal advises one year of probation and a $2,500 fine. The plea sheds little light on the more serious charges of procurement fraud. The spokesman for the Western District of Washington's U.S. Attorney's Office says that in light of available evidence, the case was handled appropriately. Jolley's lawyer says the procurement fraud allegations were based on inaccurate information.

Prior to the allegations, Jolley appears to have been respected by his colleagues, especially for training troops on their way to combat zones. According to his lawyer, the commanding officer at Fort Lewis once rated Jolley the best civilian employee on base, and he's been recognized as one of the Army's best trainers. A bio from a horse riding Web site describes Jolley, a former Army lieutenant colonel, as an avid horseman and frequent participant in historical cavalry reenactments, including Custer's last stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Doran says he plans to hire Jolley to serve as a cavalry instructor for civilians on his ranch.

It might never be clear whether May's Army memo was accurate. But there are some lessons to be learned about the gray areas of procurement ethics. Jolley appears to have been friends with Doran. While friendship with a contractor isn't illegal, it can raise questions about impartiality. According to the Code of Federal Regulations, a federal employee should not make decisions affecting someone for whom he has served as an employee or consultant within the last year or someone with whom he actively participates in an organization. Furthermore, he should remove himself from decisions in which "circumstances would cause a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts to question his impartiality in the matter."

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Seeing Spots

Kimberly Palmer — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Contractors place ads where government buyers will read them.

Metro riders in Washington are bombarded with messages about vacationing in West Virginia and buying houses in Baltimore. Now they're getting hit with one more: Buy Unisys software.

This fall, Unisys Corp., an information technology services company in Blue Bell, Pa., wrapped Metro trains in bright red and orange along with the tag line, "Don't take fear for an answer." It's part of a national campaign to associate the company with cutting-edge solutions in IT security.

"It helps our clients see us in a bolder, more creative way," says Ellyn Raftery, vice president of worldwide marketing and communications for Unisys. The purpose, she says, "is to get [clients] talking, to get them more aware of us, and for them to ask, 'What's going on at Unisys?' " Since 50 percent of Washington Metro riders are federal employees, she decided the trains were a good way to reach federal clients.

With tight agency budgets and a competitive market for government business, federal contractors are turning to advertising to rise above the crowd. Their full-page ads appear in The Washington Post and other publications, including this magazine. Sponsorships on National Public Radio and local commuter spots also are designed to catch the eye of federal employees, congressional staffers and senior government leaders with the power to direct contracts.

While the contracting process is designed to select companies based on objective criteria, analysts say advertising can provide an edge over competition.

As the Air Force looks to buy a slew of new planes, the subway routes that pass the Pentagon are covered in advertisements for various options, including Northrop Grumman's KC-30 Advanced Multi-Role Tanker Transport, Raytheon's Joint Cargo Aircraft and Boeing's tanker. "All the companies that are competing have been placing ads," says Murray Bond, director of marketing and sales for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

In September, when the Air Force Association hosted a convention in Woodley Park, a residential Washington neighborhood, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon blanketed the local subway station with images of their latest tanker and cargo planes. With hundreds of Air Force personnel passing through the station daily during the show, the goal was "to get people interested," says Northrop spokesman Gus Gulmert.

Not everyone is convinced the ads make a difference. "I don't pretend to understand why they think putting ads in the subway will affect decision-makers in the Pentagon," says Bond.

But contractors believe it will. In addition to creating "ongoing buzz," Raftery says Unisys places extra ads when bids are due, especially during the period between the solicitation release and award announcement, when contractors are prohibited from lobbying agency officials directly. "We might be in a blackout period where we can't necessarily have day-to-day verbal presence, but we want to stay alive and relevant," she says. And does it help? "My gut says yes."

Gordon Adams, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, says ads amplify larger campaigns that involve lobbying and meetings with congressional and executive branch officials. Bid evaluators "could be reminded of aspects of the technical claim made by the contractor," he says. Or an ad might remind a congressional staffer that he has a meeting with the company's lobbyist later that day.

At the same time, when Adams served as a White House budget official during the Clinton administration, he says he can't remember anyone ever saying, "I saw this great ad, we have to buy this puppy."

Contractors also hope to create general good will through their advertisements. SAP, the global software company based in Newtown Square, Pa., uses advertisements to help make SAP a household name. Booz Allen Hamilton, a McLean, Va., consultancy, buys 10-second sponsorship slots on National Public Radio to promote its brand and boost morale among employees, as well as to recruit new ones.

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Generation Passion

Kimberly Palmer — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0500

More than money, young acquisition professionals seek a mission.

Wesley Beemer woke up at 5:30 a.m. on Oct. 5 with a day of paperwork ahead of him. The contract specialist at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington planned to look for missing signatures, misplaced documents and numerical errors in orders made against a standing construction contract for base maintenance. Most of us might balk at such seemingly mundane tasks, but ginger-haired Beemer rode the Metro to work in good spirits.

The reason for his cheery mood became apparent shortly after he walked through the front gates of the base. There, an old Air Force fighter jet stood on a patch of dewy grass. It was the site of one of Beemer's projects. He recently had approved a delivery order for a contractor to erect poles around the jet to display the flags of the states and U.S. territories. Even as a first-year contract specialist with only five months of experience, he already was in charge of managing contractors, money and projects to improve the base. Such responsibility is largely why he entered the field in the first place. "There were higher pay grades and more opportunities, and you have to constantly stay on top of things," says Beemer, 29.

Federal contracting isn't the most tantalizing of career choices. It involves details, paperwork and lots of rules. Contracting officers, who spend the government's money, are among the most scrutinized of government professionals. Contracting's deadly reputation for being boring yet stressful undoubtedly is part of the reason that procurement people are so hard to recruit. The situation is expected to worsen: The Federal Acquisition Institute reported in August that 54 percent of the current 59,500 acquisition workers will be eligible for retirement by 2015.

Luckily for short-staffed contracting offices, young acquisition professionals see benefits that might not be obvious to outsiders. They see an opportunity to be directly involved in executing agency missions-whether protecting the homeland, keeping a military base running, or promoting public health. They also are eager to learn skills that are transferable to the private sector. They know they'll probably move up quickly because many internship programs have rapid promotion plans and mid-level contracting officers are in short supply.

Kendra Kozak's flagpole moment came while listening to National Public Radio on the way to work one morning. Kozak, a contract specialist in an acquisition training program at the Interior Department National Business Center's GovWorks office in Herndon, Va., heard a story on childhood lead poisoning in Washington. "That's my contract!" the energetic 26-year-old remembers exclaiming. She administers a contract for childhood lead poisoning prevention for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (GovWorks is a fee-for-service organization that manages contracts for other federal agencies.) She says she loves keeping the files for the contract organized and "pristine."

Timothy Cox, a 25-year-old acquisition analyst at the Veterans Affairs Department, wanted to work with veterans. Both of his grandfathers served in World War II and his father is a retired Army National Guard colonel. Cox spent part of his childhood on military bases. "I didn't have the same ambition to go into the military, but I have such respect for those who are. . . . It's good to be part of [helping them] get what they need," he says.

Cox's supervisors know he wants to work directly with veterans whenever possible, and they allowed him to volunteer for the National Veteran Wheelchair Games in Anchorage, Alaska. They also set up field trips for Cox and other participants in VA's Office of Information and Technology internship program to visit medical centers. "You sometimes lose sight of helping veterans when you're just working in the office," he says. Keeping young workers like Cox focused on the mission, which is often the most exciting aspect of their jobs, is a challenge for their supervisors.

Searching for Meaning

Karen Pica, director of the Federal Acquisition Institute, the organization charged with training acquisition personnel, says the youngest generation of government workers, more so than their predecessors, wants to feel connected to public service. Generational experts back up her observation. "This generation places much more value on finding 'meaningful' work than did past generations. . . . partly because so many young adults grew up with workaholic parents, they want to make sure that their jobs provide an emotional reward as well as financial," says Alexandra Robbins, author of The Overachievers: The Secret Lives of Driven Kids (Hyperion, 2006).

Lynne Lancaster, co-author of When Generations Collide (HarperCollins, 2002), says because the United States is an affluent country, people can afford to look for high degrees of satisfaction in their work. "That's a uniquely American thing-to want your work to fulfill the full range of who you are," she says.

So how do managers satisfy those high expectations? For starters, they need to delegate more, says Lancaster. "We've got to get OK with . . . letting them handle projects," she says.

Not only does early responsibility give younger workers greater satisfaction, it also leaves the organization better prepared to weather baby boomer retirements.

Bruce Tulgan, an expert in young workers and a management trainer for the Army and the Education and Veterans Affairs departments, says organizations are suffering from chronic "undermanagement." He says he's talked to thousands of employees who say they don't get enough guidance from their supervisors. "It's a myth that people want to be left alone. People want guidance, direction and support. They want someone to help them succeed," he says. His upcoming book, It's Okay to Be Boss (HarperCollins, 2007), teaches more active supervision.

Finding Mentors

Pica also has noticed that younger workers are drawn to formal training, mentoring and structured programs that clearly lead them up the ladder. At the same time, many senior staffers find it motivating to share their knowledge and mentor younger colleagues. She encourages older employees to pair up with younger ones, which she says energizes both generations.

Kelly Lael, 32, a contract specialist at the General Services Administration, found a mentor in her contracting officer, who plans to retire in about a year. "He'll explain everything I ask him, and I help him out with software," she says.

Sandra Rivera, 34, a contract specialist at the Environmental Protection Agency, made a similar deal with her contracting officer. "Because my skills came more from business technology, and she'd been in contracting for a long time, I said, 'I'll teach you how to be more resourceful with technology if you teach me about contracting.' " The two women continue to mentor each other.

Older and younger employees don't always have warm relationships. A 39-year-old who managed contracts for a program office and asked not to be named says older workers tend to resist new technology and training, as well as new people. Another contract specialist, who also requested anonymity, says he senses that his elders resent the many incentives-such as quick promotion and time for training-put in place to attract younger workers. "They think of us as spoiled," he says. Kozak says participants in her training program sometimes are treated like interns and given minimal responsibility, even though they are capable of overseeing contracts.

Lancaster writes in When Generations Collide that older workers tend to complain that younger generations expect to move up quickly without having to first pay their dues. At the same time, younger workers complain that older workers treat them as lazy slackers. The authors urge managers to learn about how employees of different generations tend to feel and accept that there will be occasional friction, but to recognize that workers of all ages can teach each other.

Money Matters

An article by two young Government Accountability Office analysts in the summer 2006 issue of The Public Manager, a civil service journal, points out that federal employees in their 20s and 30s often are frustrated by promotion cycles that don't keep up with those of their friends working in the private sector.

"Contractors make more money," says Ryan Dickover, 30, a contract specialist for the Navy in Washington. He still has college loans to pay and when he started in his acquisition intern program in June 2001, he was making about $30,000 a year. "If a Beltway bandit will throw cash at me, I really have no choice," he says.

Some young acquisition workers, including Kozak and Beemer, are in intern programs that promote participants every year. They typically start as GS-7s at salaries ranging from $31,200 to $40,500. The following year, they are promoted to GS-9, where salaries run from $38,200 to $49,600. The third year, they rise to GS-11 with a range of $46,200 to $60,000. In some cases, after four years they are promoted to GS-13 with a range of $65,800 to $85,600. That often means 20 percent increases each year.

According to www.salary.com, which collects nationwide pay information, an entry-level buyer (equivalent to a federal contract specialist) at a private sector company earns $40,800 on average. Two to five years' experience brings about $51,000, and five to eight years averages $63,000. Those salaries are comparable to the General Schedule, but the private sector does not typically guarantee advancement each year. Depending on educational background and experience, the government might actually pay more early in one's career.

After federal acquisition workers complete their intern programs, however, they no longer can expect such rapid promotion, and their salaries tend to rise much more slowly. That's when the private sector starts to look more appealing.

But companies can't always offer the perks of a federal position. Job security is all but guaranteed, and federal employees typically enjoy better benefits and more flexibility than their private sector counterparts. "You can make more money somewhere else, but what is the quality of life once you go there? I don't see myself leaving anytime soon," says Patrick Breen, 28, contracting officer at the Internal Revenue Service. He adds that his job also comes with more responsibility than similar ones his friends hold in the private sector.

That's just the kind of benefit Tulgan calls a "unique value proposition," one other employers can't match. If managers do what they can to give workers what they want, whether it's working from home or bringing their dogs to work, then they're more likely to keep them, he adds.

Tulgan says 20-somethings have come to expect such customization. They grew up in an era where their religion, living situations and even bodies could be designed just the way they want them. The popularity of tattoos and piercings serves as a metaphor for young people's expectations that they can design the kind of life they want. A manager will really turn off a young worker if he tells him just to be quiet and play by the established rules, Tulgan says.

Creative Recruitment

Most people interviewed for this article joined the acquisition workforce by accident. For example, before Rivera was hired as a contract specialist for the Enivronmental Protection Agency, she attended a career fair in September 2005 and stopped by EPA's booth. She had a business background in commercial consulting and dropped off her résumé. Two weeks later, she got a call from the acquisition office in the agency's emergency response service center. Until then, she had never even heard of acquisition.

Jillian Matz, 27, a contract specialist at the Labor Department, applied for dozens of federal job openings after she graduated from college in May 2001 because she had heard the government would help finance post-graduate coursework, and she eventually wanted to attend law school. Matz ended up in acquisition because Labor's acquisition office responded to her online application.

Steve Orloff, 24, purchasing and supply management specialist at the U.S. Postal Service, took the advice of his older brother, a consultant. "He said, 'There are a lot of people retiring; why don't you give it a shot?' " he recalls.

Orloff says his college coursework in government law and business helped land him the job-not that he had been thinking about a procurement career when he decided to take those classes.

Myria Carpenter, 31, a contracting specialist and presidential management fellow at the Broadcasting Board of Governors for the International Broadcasting Bureau in Washington, says she was drawn to the field because she knew there would be high demand for acquisition workers. "People are retiring, and they're going to have to hire more people," she says. Carpenter loves the legal aspects of contracting and the flexibility that comes with working for the government.

In an effort to lure young, ambitious workers, agencies are expanding their intern programs. The Transportation Security Administration recently launched "boot camp" for about 20 aspiring contracting officers. Participants practice their trade before taking on real responsibilities. Trainees are given simulated procurement requests, for which they conduct market research, determine appropriate prices and even negotiate with real vendors.

The Interior Department runs a three-year internship program (Kozak and Lael are participants) that allows about a dozen contract specialists to rotate through different agencies for six months at a time. Beemer is part of Air Force training for contract specialists called the Copper Cap Program.

Tulgan says intensive training is just what new workers need. Like boot camp for the Marines, intensive upfront training helps new workers feel connected to their agency's mission, bond with co-workers and prepare to take on real responsibility. He says that, like the Marines, federal agencies should continue to provide hands-on coaching until the day employees retire.

While small, competitive programs train dozens of new contract specialists annually, fear of worker shortages remains. Earlier this year, a panel created by the 2003 Services Acquisition Reform Act recommended that the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Office of Management and Budget create a governmentwide acquisition internship program and that OFPP take steps to make it easier for agencies to hire quickly. OFPP is collecting information about existing internships.

Lancaster says this is an especially good time to recruit 20- and 30-somethings who experienced the dot-com boom of the late 1990s and since have suffered through downsizing and mergers. "They're looking for a place to call home. . . . It's really good timing for government agencies to go back to Generation Xers and say, 'Are you feeling disappointed about some of the organizations you worked for? Why don't you come work for someone with values, ethics and standards?' "

Meanwhile, Kozak, who found a professional home at GovWorks, is fielding questions from contractors, keeping careful notes about how contracts are progressing and writing up solicitations to post on the FedBizOpps Web site of agency requests for proposals. She devised her own template to track inter-actions with clients and contractors, which lists award information, points of contact and phone correspondence logs. "You run into more problems the worse your record-keeping is," she says. That diligence, combined with a gray suit, hip librarian glasses and a nose stud make her the epitome of the next generation of acquisition workers.

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FEMA's Makeover

Kimberly Palmer — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Deidre Lee disagrees with much of the criticism levied against her agency. She is deputy director of operations and chief acquisition officer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"The contracting shop down here, the Katrina folks, should be applauded," she says. Sure, there were mistakes, but they also helped a lot of people, she says.

Lee came to FEMA in April after a short stint as assistant commissioner at the General Services Administration. She's held a variety of senior procurement positions in government, including head of the Office of Management and Budget's Office of Federal Procurement Policy during the Clinton administration.

The following is an edited transcript from a September interview with Government Executive.

Q: What would you do differently if Hurricane Katrina were to happen today?: A: The key is to have many pre-positioned contracts. FEMA has put in place individual assistance, public assistance and technical assistance contracts, [as well as] purchasing methods for tarps, tents, water, ice and others. The second thing that's really important is teaching people how to use them. It's not enough just to hang a contract out there and hope. You've got to have good contract management and administration. You've got to have people know what you've contracted for and do a visual inspection. You can't do that if you don't know what the contractual agreement was.
Q: Have you been able to hire more people to help with that?: A: Apparently there were only about 50 contracting officers in FEMA at Katrina time. We've now been authorized to add 40 slots from the fiscal year 2006 supplemental, and there are about 40 more slots which we hope we'll get in 2007. [FEMA currently has about 40 vacancies for contracting-related positions.]
Q: During Katrina, FEMA was criticized for awarding large no-bid contracts. Would you want to avoid no-bid contracts in the future?: A: I just do not like that term (laughing). But it's very understandable for the general public, so I understand why it's taken on life in the press. For years and years, we've had "competitive" and "noncompetitive" contracts. It could be noncompetitive for a number of reasons. One of them is urgent and compelling [need].

What happened under these contracts that are referred to as "no-bid" is that FEMA was beginning a competitive process and Katrina hit. We said, "Based on our market research and what we know now, these people can do it. We've got a big issue on our hands." They said, "This is urgent and compelling," which is perfectly allowable under the law. Not preferred, but allowable. They said, "Based on that, we're going to go to these people, and we're going to help our victims. We're going to say that's the most important thing."
Q: Would that happen again?: A: Well, now we've pre-positioned these contracts. So for example, now we have six individual assistance and technical assistance contractors in place [Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure of Baton Rouge, La.; Fluor Enterprises Inc. of Irving, Texas; Partnership for Temporary Housing in Falls Church, Va.; the Disaster Solution Alliance in Tampa, Fla.; Bechtel National of San Francisco; and CH2M Hill of Englewood, Colo.]. When we have an emergency or a disaster, we would compete among the six. So, they almost have to win it twice. At the time of a disaster, you don't want to be sitting there going, "What are our payment terms and conditions? Do you have the number of people you need cleared?" You want to be able to have people up and ready who can respond.
Q: Even in an emergency, you would hold a mini-competition with those six?: A: That certainly is the plan, to go among the six. There might be one who says, "I just can't respond in that time frame." That's fine, but the other five are in the game, so let's go.

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‘Buy American’ compliance tricky in increasingly global economy

Kimberly Palmer — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Rapiscan, a manufacturer of baggage- and cargo-screening systems in Hawthorne, Calif., was up against a British-based company and a U.S. company that had paired with a Chinese firm and planned to manufacture its equipment in China.

But Chemonics, the prime contractor managing the U.S. Agency for International Development's $40 million contract to screen cargo leaving and entering Palestinian territories and Israel, awarded the subcontract to the American-Chinese team. USAID had opted not to include a clause in the contract that would have required the supplier to assemble the equipment in the United States.

That decision, and Kant's ensuing disappointment, illustrate the growing debate over "Buy American" regulations as agencies struggle to comply with the complicated, decades-old legislation in a world driven by global supply chains. As agencies and contractors grow increasingly frustrated with the high costs of compliance, industry groups are pushing to liberalize the regulations.

The 1979 Trade Agreements Act, which governs most large government contracts, requires agencies to buy products that undergo "substantial transformation," or final assembly, in the United States or one of 30 approved countries that have trade agreements with Washington.

The 1933 Buy American Act, which has been altered over the years through a variety of exemptions, now applies mainly to smaller contracts and gives preference to products that originate in the United States or approved countries. The Defense Department is also restricted by the 1941 Berry Amendment, which governs the military's purchase of food, clothing, specialty metals, and other materials.

Forcing companies to comply with domestic-sourcing requirements runs up costs, said John Douglass, president of the Aerospace Industries Association, an Arlington, Va.-based group. "People are concerned with the rising cost of Defense Department weapons systems, and we have all these special rules that require [contractors] to specially build things in very small quantities," he said.

Because contractors often have large commercial businesses, too, which do not require domestic sourcing, companies end up building products separately for the Defense Department. This makes the products more expensive, Douglass said.

To comply with the Trade Agreements Act, IBM installed an expensive, industrial-strength computerized system to track where its products are assembled, which also runs up the cost, said Bruce Leinster, senior adviser to IBM and former director of the company's public-sector contracting.

The company gave up tracking the origin of all the components for smaller contracts, as the Buy American Act requires, because doing so would have been prohibitively expensive. IBM discloses the limits of its tracking abilities and lets agencies decide whether or not they're acceptable, Leinster said.

"It's become very difficult to create an IT product that is 51 percent American-sourced, simply because of the global marketplace of the industry," said Trey Hodgkins, director of defense programs for the Information Technology Association of America. In the IT sector, companies usually burn software and assemble products overseas, because it's cheaper, he said, adding, "It makes no sense for companies to do that here.... It's done wherever labor is cheapest."

Angela Styles, former head of federal procurement policy at the Office of Management and Budget and now a contracts lawyer at the Washington law firm Miller & Chevalier, said, "It's costing the government a lot to comply."

Styles said that departments and agencies would often prefer to buy a cheaper product that's made in China, for example, but the law forces them to buy the more expensive supplies made in approved countries.

Without spending a lot of money on audits, it's also difficult for government officials to verify the source of the items they purchase from companies. As a result, Styles said, some agencies simply looked the other way as contractors began doing more of their work in other countries during the 1990s and early 2000s.

A report last year by the Homeland Security Department's inspector general revealed that neither the department's contract database nor the Federal Procurement Data System was able to track data about the origin of purchased products. A 2002 Defense Department inspector general audit of military clothing purchases found that 67 percent lacked the required domestic-sourcing requirement clauses.

But evidence shows that agencies are getting stricter about compliance -- because they anticipate greater enforcement. In 2005, the Justice Department announced three major settlements with office-supply companies that had reportedly purchased supplies from China and Taiwan and then sold them to government agencies through contracts with the General Services Administration. Staples, Office Depot, and OfficeMax paid $7.4 million, $4.75 million, and $9.8 million, respectively.

"It was a wake-up call," Styles said.

As Justice was wrapping up its investigations of the office-supply companies, GSA began reminding contractors about the Trade Agreements Act through its newsletters, trade association outreach, and one-on-one discussions with contractors.

In June, Kenneth Krieg, undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, acknowledged that some Pentagon contracts were not in compliance with the Berry Amendment but contended that delaying the contracts could "seriously impact our ability to meet military needs." He told the four armed services to go forward with the contracts but to withhold payment on any parts of the contracts that violated the amendment until the problem could be fixed.

Some government procurement officials would like to see compliance made easier and less costly. "The world has changed, and the act just has to be overhauled," said one procurement official who asked not to be named.

In partial response to that sentiment, Congress eased restrictions on the Pentagon's sourcing requirements this year. The 2007 Defense Authorization Act excludes commercial electronic components from the Berry Amendment.

An aide to Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee until the Democrats take over in January, said that despite the exception, the new language will have the overall effect of strengthening domestic-sourcing requirements, because it clarifies exactly what contractors need to do.

Hunter has been the chief Buy American proponent. "Folks at the prime and subcontract levels now understand that they need to comply, and there's a realistic way for people to get into compliance," the aide said.

Hunter and other lawmakers, including Rep. Don Manzullo, R-Ill., have backed tighter restrictions for several years. Last year, Manzullo amended the Defense Authorization Act to require the Defense Department to buy only products with at least 50 percent of their components made in the United States. The amendment would also have prohibited the Pentagon from exempting a country from the Buy American Act without congressional approval.

At the time, Manzullo said that the amendment would "help restore the struggling U.S. industrial base and create jobs for Americans." The amendment was deleted from the final bill, however.

Not all Republicans share Hunter's views. David Marin, staff director for Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, said that Davis believes sourcing restrictions prevent agencies from buying the best available goods and technology.

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Judge stays ex-procurement chief’s sentence

Kimberly Palmer — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Safavian filed an appeal in September challenging his conviction on four counts of making false statements to General Services Administration employees and obstructing an investigation by GSA's inspector general. The charges stem from Safavian's relationship with lobbyist Jack Abramoff while serving as chief of staff at GSA, and focused on a Scotland golf trip the men took together, along with other officials, in 2002. Appeals can take several years, so Safavian's sentence of 18 months -- if upheld -- will not begin until after that ruling.

In his opinion granting the request, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman cited the section of U.S. Code that says that if a person is not likely to flee, and the appeal raises a substantial question of law likely to result in a reversal, new trial or different sentence, then the judge can grant a request for release on bond.

Safavian's lawyer, Barbara "Biz" Van Gelder, raised numerous legal issues before, during and after the trial, including questions about the admission of controversial e-mails between Safavian and Abramoff as evidence.

Friedman noted in his opinion that if one or more of the legal questions raised are decided in Safavian's favor, then a new trial is likely.

Justice Department prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg declined to comment. In a filing, prosecutors agreed that Safavian was not at risk of fleeing.

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Acquisition managers: We're overwhelmed with oversight

Kimberly Palmer — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

They feel berated by lawmakers and inspectors general who don't always understand how contracting works, according to survey results released Thursday by the Professional Services Council, an Arlington, Va.-based industry group, and Grant Thornton, a global consultancy.

"They feel completely under fire," said Stan Soloway, president of PSC.

The survey, which entailed in-person interviews with 37 federal acquisition managers, found that "pressure from oversight organizations [is] creating a palpable tension and frustration among even the most seasoned procurement professionals." Managers complained that lawmakers take audit reports from the Government Accountability Office and inspectors general "as gospel," when in reality the auditors often have little experience with the contracting field. They might portray an innovative practice as suspicious, when it is well within federal regulations, for example.

PSC performs the survey every two years; the frustration with oversight reflected in the latest results is markedly heightened from that expressed in previous surveys. Part of the reason seems to be increased oversight, especially surrounding contracts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and Iraq reconstruction contracts.

As of July 2006, the 109th Congress had held more than twice as many hearings on acquisition as the 108th had, the report stated. Moreover, those hearings tended to be increasingly contentious, contributing to a growing chasm between acquisition officials and overseers.

Soloway said procurement officials do the majority of their work correctly, but one mistake, or even a failure beyond their control, can lead to a congressional hearing. Such heightened oversight lowers morale and hinders recruitment, the report stated.

It also means procurement officials will use less innovative methods, said Soloway. "If I see a colleague pulled before Congress, I'll bury my head a little more deeply," he said.

The survey also suggested that procurement officials feel stretched by the various procurement initiatives being pushed throughout the federal government. For instance, the Office of Management and Budget's competitive sourcing effort to allow contractors to bid on some federal work, and its lines of business initiative to consolidate back-end systems in areas such as financial management, can conflict with one another. And strategic sourcing can be at odds with performance-based contracting initiatives, Soloway said.

Procurement officials also feel detached from agency leaders and are spending less time on strategic thinking and more time on mundane activities, according to the report.

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Guilt by Association

Kimberly Palmer — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

David Safavian, former head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, pays a heavy price for his poor choice of friends.

Monday, Sept. 19, 2005, started out as a typical morning for David Safavian, then head of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at the Office of Management and Budget. As he drove his daughter to day care, that quickly changed. Sirens blared, forcing him to pull over. It was the FBI. After letting him drop off his daughter, agents arrested him on charges of making false statements and obstructing a federal investigation.

Almost a year later, Safavian, 39, was convicted on four counts of obstruction, lying and making false statements. The jury found he had obstructed an investigation by the General Services Administration Inspector General into a 2002 overseas golf trip that Safavian had taken with former lobbyist Jack Abramoff. At the time, Safavian was chief of staff at GSA. He also was convicted of concealing Abramoff's GSA-related business dealings before receiving permission from a GSA ethics officer to go on the trip. Jurors likely were influenced by e-mails in which Abramoff asked Safavian for information about GSA property. Safavian used a personal e-mail account to forward information about the property.

He had requested probation, home detention and community service in lieu of prison time, but prosecutors asked for two and a half to three years in prison. On Oct. 27, Safavian was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Since his arrest, Safavian vigorously has denied wrongdoing. He argued in court that he believed his $3,100 check paid for his full cost of the trip, even though it entailed international plane fare, luxurious hotels and playing golf at one of the most prestigious courses in the world. Prosecutors put the cost of the trip at $17,500 per person. In September, Safavian appealed the guilty verdict; the process could take years.

Whether Safavian used his official position to help Abramoff in an illegal or unethical way is unclear; the jury didn't examine that question directly. Before official requests for proposals for government contracts are released, the Federal Acquisition Regulation encourages government officials to talk with contractors and to share information and ideas. Still, business-related e-mails sent via a personal account to a lobbyist who recently provided a lavish junket looked bad, and Safavian knew that. In one January 2003 e-mail, he warned Abramoff not to forward to anyone else his e-mail containing information about a GSA lease.

Other senior administration officials who have engaged in similarly questionable conduct have not faced prosecution. In July, U.S. News & World Report said that the Interior Department's inspector general had found that David Smith, then deputy assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, was given a buffalo's preserved remains by a taxidermist friend in December 2004. The previous month, Smith had designated Houston as a port of entry, which enabled his friend to import dead game animals without paying large permit fees. After the IG began his investigation, Smith paid $3,170 for the animal. The Justice Department declined to prosecute.

Safavian's and Smith's cases appear quite similar, except for the involvement of Abramoff, a disgraced lobbyist who is at the heart of one of the biggest Washington scandals in decades. Prosecutors have doggedly pursued Abramoff and those connected with him. He pleaded guilty to fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials in January 2006, faces at least six years in prison and currently is cooperating with the FBI. His colleagues have suffered similar fates: Tom DeLay, who resigned in June as a Republican congressman from Texas, was indicted on campaign finance-related charges in September 2005; Robert Ney, R-Ohio, agreed to plead guilty in September to making false statements and faces up to two years in prison; and Ney's former chief of staff, Neil Volz, pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy and faces up to five years in prison.

Safavian's prison time will take him away from his 3-year-old daughter and wife, an attorney on the House Government Reform Committee. Most people who have worked with him say he's a friendly, charismatic and ambitious person. It's not hard to believe that Safavian believed he and Abramoff were friends, even after reading the lobbyist's e-mail to someone else describing Safavian as a "total business angle."

A few days after his conviction, Safavian e-mailed friends and family. Roll Call, a newspaper covering Capitol Hill, published the message. "To be honest, I am not sure how to react," Safavian wrote. "I find myself disappointed, angry, scared, frustrated and hurt."

A year and a half ago, Safavian proudly displayed a bullet-riddled target poster on the back of his office door at the Old Executive Office Building. It was there to remind visitors that he volunteered as a reserve officer with the Washington, D.C., Police Department. Now, as a convicted felon, he is prohibited from owning firearms. He cannot vote or hold public office.

And he won't be playing golf again anytime soon.

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Making It Count

Kimberly Palmer — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

The Census Bureau ramps up to tally each and every U.S. resident in 2010.

The Census Bureau is preparing for its biggest event of the decade. To get ready, the bureau is compiling a massive address list, signing contracts with the best available vendors and planning a dress rehearsal of the 2010 census.

The Constitution requires a federal census once every 10 years to determine the number of congressional seats per state. The bureau reports its findings to the president within nine months of counting where residents reside on April 1. The census also determines how $200 billion in federal funding, including Medicaid, is distributed. Businesses and local governments use the information to decide where to open schools, hospitals, factories and stores.

Unlike most surveys, the census is not based on extrapolation from statistical samples. Instead, the bureau tries to interview every single person living in the United States on April 1 of the decennial year. "We don't give up," says Preston Jay Waite, associate director for the decennial census. In 2010, the bureau will mail two rounds of questionnaires before sending enumerators door to door. If no one answers the door after three visits, the bureau employee leaves a note asking residents to call the local census office. If there is still no response, then a census taker calls up to three times. If there is still no response, the enumerator interviews neighbors about who lives in the house. Waite says this is less accurate than interviewing residents personally, but better than no data at all. The bureau estimates the 2000 Census missed about 2.7 million housing units out of a total of 116 million.

Residents are getting worse at responding to the census. In 1970, 84 percent of people who received questionnaires in the mail responded. In 2000, 64 percent did. The bureau is trying to improve response by making it easier. In 2010, the bureau will ask people to fill out a short form, asking only questions about the number of people in the house and their gender and ethnicity. In-depth questions about the number of bathrooms and how well educated residents are will be relegated to the American Community Survey, which the bureau conducts on an ongoing basis. For the first time, the bureau will mail a second form to those who do not respond to the first. Waite expects this to boost the response rate by 7 percent. Because the costs of going door to door are so high, each percentage point gain in mail response saves about $75 million.

The Government Accountability Office and Congress want the bureau to look into additional money-saving methods, including using the Internet to collect data. For now, Waite says, the bureau couldn't guarantee security on the Internet and wouldn't be able to tell who was actually filling out an online form. What he doesn't want, he says, are census crashers.

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FEMA's Makeover

Kimberly Palmer — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

Acquisition chief Deidre Lee is getting ready for the next Katrina-just don't ask about those no-bid contracts.

Deidre Lee disagrees with much of the criticism levied against her agency. She is deputy director of operations and chief acquisition officer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "The contracting shop down here, the Katrina folks, should be applauded," she says. Sure, there were mistakes, but they also helped a lot of people, she says. Lee came to FEMA in April after a short stint as assistant commissioner at the General Services Administration. She's held a variety of senior procurement positions in government, including head of the Office of Management and Budget's Office of Federal Procurement Policy during the Clinton administration. The following is an edited transcript from a September interview with Government Executive.

Q: What would you do differently if Hurricane Katrina were to happen today?: A: The key is to have many pre-positioned contracts. FEMA has put in place individual assistance, public assistance and technical assistance contracts, [as well as] purchasing methods for tarps, tents, water, ice and others. The second thing that's really important is teaching people how to use them. It's not enough just to hang a contract out there and hope. You've got to have good contract management and administration. You've got to have people know what you've contracted for and do a visual inspection. You can't do that if you don't know what the contractual agreement was.
Q: Have you been able to hire more people to help with that?: A: Apparently there were only about 50 contracting officers in FEMA at Katrina time. We've now been authorized to add 40 slots from the fiscal year 2006 supplemental, and there are about 40 more slots which we hope we'll get in 2007. [FEMA currently has about 40 vacancies for contracting-related positions.]
Q: During Katrina, FEMA was criticized for awarding large no-bid contracts. Would you want to avoid no-bid contracts in the future?: A: I just do not like that term (laughing). But it's very understandable for the general public, so I understand why it's taken on life in the press. For years and years, we've had "competitive" and "noncompetitive" contracts. It could be noncompetitive for a number of reasons. One of them is urgent and compelling [need].

What happened under these contracts that are referred to as "no-bid" is that FEMA was beginning a competitive process and Katrina hit. We said, "Based on our market research and what we know now, these people can do it. We've got a big issue on our hands." They said, "This is urgent and compelling," which is perfectly allowable under the law. Not preferred, but allowable. They said, "Based on that, we're going to go to these people, and we're going to help our victims. We're going to say that's the most important thing."
Q: Would that happen again?: A: Well, now we've pre-positioned these contracts. So for example, now we have six individual assistance and technical assistance contractors in place [Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure of Baton Rouge, La.; Fluor Enterprises Inc. of Irving, Texas; Partnership for Temporary Housing in Falls Church, Va.; the Disaster Solution Alliance in Tampa, Fla.; Bechtel National of San Francisco; and CH2M Hill of Englewood, Colo.]. When we have an emergency or a disaster, we would compete among the six. So, they almost have to win it twice. At the time of a disaster, you don't want to be sitting there going, "What are our payment terms and conditions? Do you have the number of people you need cleared?" You want to be able to have people up and ready who can respond.
Q: Even in an emergency, you would hold a mini-competition with those six?: A: That certainly is the plan, to go among the six. There might be one who says, "I just can't respond in that time frame." That's fine, but the other five are in the game, so let's go.

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Straight Shooter

Kimberly Palmer — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

The new procurement chief, Paul Denett, offers an inside view of competitive sourcing and contract management.

Paul A. Denett, recently confirmed as Office of Federal Procurement Policy administrator at the Office of Management and Budget, is the first procurement veteran to become OFPP chief in the Bush administration. Denett was senior procurement executive at the Interior and Treasury departments before joining the private sector. He comes to OFPP from ESI International, a contract management training company in Arlington, Va. Denett sat down with Government Executive in late August to talk about his priorities. The following is an edited transcript.

On competitive sourcing, where federal workers compete with private sector employees for their jobs:: I certainly want to advance competitive sourcing. It's really good for our country, it's good for the taxpayers, and we have achieved some success, but I'd like to increase the pace.

I don't know this for a fact, but I may be the only administrator in the history of OMB who actually was involved with a competitive sourcing, though they didn't have the term "competitive sourcing" back then. [Denett oversaw what would now be called an A-76 competition when he was head of contracts at the U.S. Geological Survey.] There's a lot of angst among employees when you do competitive sourcing, but I know firsthand what that's like and I know proactive steps you can take to alleviate it. Interestingly enough, federal employees have won 80 percent of [A-76 competitions]. That's fine with us. We're just looking for a better deal for the taxpayers.
On contract management:: Too often, with limited resources, people focus on getting the contract award [and not post-award contract administration]. What I've found, having been in charge of various procurement shops, is that the leaders of the procurement shops have to be conscious of this. . . .We'd rather police ourselves . . . than wait until an inspector general or someone else says, look at this, it's two years behind schedule and it's costing twice as much money. Defense has actual agencies that do nothing but contract management. And they make themselves available to civilian agencies. Historically, there's a reluctance on the part of most civilian agencies to use them. Too often it evolves into a we-they scenario, as in, "We want to manage our own contracts, why would we want to turn it over to them?" But I'm going to work with the Defense Department to make sure people are reminded of the availability of that kind of help. We've got to do something about it, because it's embarrassing sometimes, the lack of attention we give to contract administration.
On the acquisition workforce:: We need to answer for ourselves, "What's the right number?" It's not a universal answer. Some want to say there's a magic number, a ratio of how many contract people you need per contract transaction or dollar, but my experience is there is no magic formula. It just depends on the complexity of the contracts.

There are a lot of private companies doing some great training. I came from one . . . so between the Defense Acquisition University, Federal Acquisition Institute and all the private sector companies, we have most of the training we need. It's getting people into it.
On small business:: We're going to do what we can to raise its visibility. We're going to work with [the Small Business Administration] to come up with a score card system where we can rank agencies' accomplishments in terms of supporting small business. One of the main elements of that is moving toward counting legitimate small businesses as small businesses. We're going to require periodic recertification.
On ethics:: I believe the overwhelming majority of contracting officers are extremely ethical. They know the difference between right and wrong. Unfortunately, there are a few bad apples, and by the nature of reporting, they get a disproportionate amount of ink. I'd like to get more upbeat stories to counter some of the negative stuff on the ethical questions.

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Cargo-scanning subcontract spurs ‘Buy American’ dispute

Kimberly Palmer — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Last year, Congress gave the U.S. Agency for International Development $50 million to provide security systems to scan commercial cargo leaving and entering the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The prime contractor recently eliminated two firms as potential subcontractors, leaving a partnership of Chinese and American companies that the rejected firms say violates the spirit, although probably not the letter, of "Buy American" laws.

USAID awarded the prime contract to Chemonics International Inc., a global consultancy, and in April, Chemonics began receiving proposals from subcontractors who could sell it mobile X-ray scanners. That's when things got complicated.

In June, one of those subcontractors, Rapiscan Systems, a Hawthorne, Calif.-based security systems company, received a letter from Chemonics that said its proposal did not meet minimum mandatory requirements. Rapiscan had offered to provide its new product, the Eagle Mobile scanner, and Chemonics required the equipment to have been around at least two years.

"We were pissed," said Peter Kant, vice president of government affairs for Rapiscan. He said the two-year requirement doesn't make sense, because companies usually offer their most recent models. Moreover, he argued the decision violated the intent of various "Buy American" laws. He said he wants lawmakers to address the issue.

While Chemonics would not discuss the details of the procurement because it is ongoing, it appears that a Chinese company, Nuctech, which paired up with Billerica, Mass.-based American Science & Engineering, won the subcontract. A third subcontractor, Smiths Detection, also was told it was rejected about three weeks ago, leaving AS&E/Nuctech as the only remaining competitor. AS&E/Nuctech declined to comment for this article because the procurement is ongoing.

Executives at Rapiscan and Smiths Detection both said they have seen evidence that the AS&E/Nuctech team will manufacture its security equipment in China, an assertion AS&E would not comment on. Kim Nilson, director of the project for Chemonics, said all potential subcontractors, including AS&E/Nuctech, complied with sourcing requirements.

While building the equipment in China appears to be legal, Rapiscan and Smiths Detection said it is unfair to force them to compete for federal dollars against a Chinese company that can offer lower prices because of lower labor and regulatory costs.

"Where I have a problem is in the rules…. I have a problem with my taxpayer money going to a Chinese company," said Brook Miller, vice president for Smiths Detection. Miller's company is based in Britain but does significant manufacturing in the United States.

Smiths Detection would have made the security equipment for the subcontract in Tennessee, Miller said, adding he would like USAID to enforce a minimum U.S.-content requirement for its equipment. In this contract, the only sourcing requirement appears to have been that products will be shipped from the United States.

Kant added that allowing foreign companies to provide security equipment can create vulnerabilities at home. If hostile companies get their hands on the equipment being used by the United States and its allies, they can figure out how to fool the machines, he said. Partly for that reason, American companies are prohibited from selling such equipment to certain countries. Chinese companies, on the other hand, face no such restrictions.

Rapiscan and Smiths Detection also complained about the way Chemonics handled the procurement. After Miller received a short message informing him that his company was rejected, he said he could not get further details despite repeated requests. "We've been given no information on why," he said. Usually, he said, prime contractors offer a more detailed explanation with their rejections.

Nilson said she was aware that some of the subcontractors were unhappy with the results of the procurement. "Unfortunately, that happens a lot," she said.

Companies like Rapiscan and Smiths Detection, which lose procurements to prime contractors managing federal dollars, have little recourse.

"We protested," Kant said. "[Chemonics] said you can't protest, it's not a [Federal Acquisition Regulation] procurement." He said he complained to USAID as well, and the agency declined to take any action. The Government Accountability Office, which handles protests from prime contractors over disputes with federal agencies, does not have jurisdiction over subcontracting disputes.

USAID directed all questions about the subcontracting procurement to Chemonics.

"We haven't given up; we just have to go politically," Kant said. He is sending letters and meeting with staff members of the House and Senate appropriations committees, in hopes that they will review the contract and, if it turns out Chemonics has violated the intent of Buy American laws, ask USAID to revoke the contract.

"If you're intending companies to buy U.S.A., and this is a loophole -- you should look at it," Kant said. "If USAID can go around the [Federal Acquisition Regulation] and buy from the Chinese," he said, "then as a U.S. company, I will move all my stuff to Malaysia and make it low cost… But I don't think that's what [Congress] wants."

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Slow Start

Kimberly Palmer — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Three years after their creation, chief acquisition officers are hard to find.

Don't ask an agency to name its chief acquisition officer and expect a straight answer. While 15 of the biggest federal agencies are required by law to have a political appointee whose primary duty is acquisition, only two-the General Services Administration and the Energy Department-actually do. Most agencies assign the CAO title to an appointee who spends most of his or her time on other management issues while the actual responsibility for acquisition falls to a senior career official. As a result, if you want to talk to someone about acquisition, the agency probably will send you to the senior procurement executive.

While it might seem strange for so many federal agencies to be violating the law, many people in the business say it's the best way to respond to a bad piece of legislation. Requiring CAOs to be political appointees strikes some as insulting to the career officials who formerly held the most senior positions in acquisition. Moreover, no money was appropriated to fund additional appointee positions, making it impossible for agencies to comply with the law without swiping resources from other parts of the budget. When appointees, who often lack acquisition backgrounds, act as CAO in addition to holding other high-level positions, such as chief financial officer, they spend only a fraction of their time on procurement issues, rendering the CAO title virtually meaningless.

As a result, most agencies are in a state of happy noncompliance. "Joe Neurauter is our chief procurement officer who has the functions of our CAO, so if you list a person who is the CAO, it is Joe Neurauter, and no one else," instructed Antoinette Perry-Banks of the media relations office at Housing and Urban Development. But there is someone else. Deputy Secretary Roy A. Bernardi, an appointee, is the official chief acquisition officer at HUD. Apparently the department doesn't want to advertise that.

At the Transportation Department, Maria Cino serves as CAO-as well as the acting secretary of the department, which means she is unlikely to consider acquisition a primary duty. We can't be sure, because she declined an interview on the subject. Glenn Perry, director of contracts and acquisition management at the Education Department, says the actual CAO, Lawrence Warder, who also is CFO, jokes that Perry is the real CAO. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lee J. Lofthus, CAO and CFO at the Justice Department, says, "My understanding [of the law] is that it's OK to have someone in a multifunction role, and that's what we do here."

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the House Government Reform Committee and author of the law that created the CAO position, the 2003 Services Acquisition Reform Act, has begun asking departments why they don't have CAOs and what they're going to do about it. Committee staff director David Marin says it is important for the CAO to be an appointee so the position is as senior as that of the CFO and CIO. He says Davis believes the position "has served to bump up the acquisition function in the agency management hierarchy and has provided a focal point for leadership and responsibility for agencywide acquisition."

Paul A. Denett, the recently confirmed political appointee who heads the Office of Management and Budget's Office of Federal Procurement Policy, agrees with Davis. Denett says that when he calls an agency seeking participants on the Chief Acquisition Officers Council, appointees are likely to be more involved than senior procurement executives, who tend to be swamped with the day-to-day activities of managing acquisition.

The two agencies that are complying with the law tout the importance of the position. "It does give you one source for policy. It makes someone directly responsible for addressing the issues of the acquisition workforce and being an advocate for competition," says Emily Webster Murphy, CAO of the General Services Administration.

The other law-abiding agency, Energy, recently filled its chief acquisition slot with Frank C. Spampinato Jr. He also is unlike other CAOs, because he served as a contracting officer at the CIA and worked his way up on the career side before becoming a political appointee. When asked whether being an appointee makes a difference, Spampinato says, "Even in a short time, I'll be able to accomplish more at this level because I have more authority."

To some, putting an appointee in charge of procurement decisions gives the impression that contracts are awarded based on politics. While CAOs usually are not involved in procurement decisions, they set acquisition policy and strategy.

One former procurement executive, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal in his post-government life, says it was a huge mistake to make the position political. "You're taking a job that requires expenditure of public funds. It should be above politics, and you're making it political," he says. He added that it will further discourage young people from entering acquisition careers, because after working hard for 30 years, the most they will be able to achieve is the No. 2 slot.

A second former procurement executive, who also asked not to be named for the same reason, says most responsibilities of the CAO already were being performed by the senior procurement executive, a position that dates back to the 1980s: "For most people involved in procurement, when they looked at the CAO position, they scratched their heads and said, 'Don't we already have that?' "

Still Hiring

With the official CAOs busy with their other duties, insight about acquisition priorities comes from procurement and other executives and the few CAOs who do handle acquisition issues. The shortage of contracting professionals tops their worry list.

At the National Archives and Records Administration, Allen Edgar, director of acquisition services but not CAO, has five vacancies on his staff of 18, which handles about $90 million in procurements each year. "We don't let [work] suffer. What suffers are initiatives," he says, such as efforts to promote technology and automation. He lacks the time or resources to devote to such projects.

"It's getting tougher and tougher to recruit . . . the more seasoned contracting officers," says Ronald C. Flom, associate director for management services, who handles CAO duties at the Office of Personnel Management. When he puts out a job announcement, fewer people respond than used to, he says. He tries to hire people with master's degrees and train them with the aim of quickly promoting them to contracting officer positions.

Darryl Hairston, deputy associate deputy administrator for management and administration but not the CAO at the Small Business Administration, says many people apply in the hope of getting an offer they can use to bargain for more money at their present agency, he says.

Where acquisition personnel must have technical expertise connected with the agency's mission-such as at the Agency for International Development-additional training is required. Michael F. Walsh, USAID chief acquisition officer, says many of his contracting professionals also need to be Foreign Service officers, which means they must speak a second language. He often sends them to study Spanish, one of the easier languages to learn, for four to six months.

The shortage of workers is especially pronounced in Washington. Elaine C. Duke, chief procurement officer at the Homeland Security Department, says 15 percent of the department's 900 procurement positions are vacant. Many are in Washington. She's trying to fill the openings by building a DHS fellows program, which people will enter at the GS-5 or GS-7 level and then get promoted each year, eventually reaching GS-12.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has faced a large number of vacancies since Congress more than doubled its acquisition workforce after Hurricane Katrina, has filled nearly 90 percent of its positions. "That is something we've been working on for a year now, building up headquarters staffing and local staffing in the Gulf Coast area," Duke says.

Rajkumar Chellaraj, chief acquisition officer and assistant secretary for administration at the State Department, says because procurement at State is decentralized throughout regional offices, including two big ones in Frankfurt, Germany, and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., recruitment has been easier. Neither of those locations has as tight a market for acquisition professionals as Washington does. "We haven't had to scramble for people at this point," he says.

Rodney Benson, CAO and director of acquisition and grants management at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, says being in Baltimore is a huge benefit because there's less competition for acquisition professionals. But at the same time, there's a smaller workforce. He has about five openings among 106 positions.

Money also talks. Efrain J. Fernandez, who is associate deputy assistant secretary for acquisitions, though not the CAO, at the Veterans Affairs Department, says tuition reimbursement, recruitment bonuses and relocation expenses can help lure people to the Washington area. "It's something that others might not be offering, so when you're trying to sway people, it helps [them] make a decision," he says. He's also trying to set up an industry-government exchange program so acquisition professionals from the private sector can serve for a time in federal agencies.

Boyd Kevin Rutherford, assistant secretary and chief acquisition officer at the Agriculture Department, would like to create internship programs similar to the type he helped oversee while serving in Maryland state government. "Unfortunately, people don't generally come out of college saying I want to be a procurement officer," he says, so agencies have to create programs that draw them in.

An additional challenge has been recruiting people for a profession often painted in a negative light. During the past few years, several high-profile white-collar fraud cases have beaten down morale. "There's been a lot of negative talk within the community. . . . We want to focus on all the things going on every day that are benefiting taxpayers," says Education's Perry.

What's Working

A few agencies are automating parts of their procurement process, so announcements, bids, awards and post-award contract management can be tracked through a Web-based system. SBA expects to launch such a system in fiscal 2007 and Justice will introduce its new integrated finance and procurement system next year. EPA plans to replace an aging system with one that would enable more automation by fiscal 2009. The State Department already relies on a logistics management system that tracks procurements from start to finish.

Contracting officers at the Treasury Department will begin rating contracts according to performance and cost this October through a new software system. "It will give me the status [of contracts] and help me understand what's working well and what's not," says Tom Sharpe, Treasury's senior procurement executive.

Luis A. Luna, EPA's chief acquisition officer and assistant administrator for administration and resources management, says he would like to "greatly increase" the use of performance-based contracts over the next five years. Performance-based contracts offer monetary or other types of rewards for outstanding performance by contractors. In fiscal 2005, about a third of EPA's $1.3 billion in contracts were performance-based, an increase of almost 10 percentage points over the previous year.

Meanwhile, a number of contracting shops are focusing on improving their own performance. State's Chellaraj has worked with acquisition models that emphasize customer service in the private sector. He would like to bring that "customer is king" approach to his department. He measures quality and length of time to award a contract in judging how well contracting officials are performing their duties.

"We are a very global organization and so consequently we've got to ensure that the acquisition practices are uniform throughout the department," he says. State spent $6 billion through contracts in fiscal 2005 and has more than 200 procurement offices worldwide.

The ultimate goal, Chellaraj says, is to deliver procurement services in a timely, transparent manner for as little cost as possible. That's what he focuses on when he's not overseeing his office's other responsibilities, which include property and facilities management, diplomatic mail services, publishing and library services, translation, setting allowance rates for government personnel abroad, supporting schooling for the dependents of those abroad, reporting on workplace safety requirements, and providing support for the president, vice president and first lady when they travel overseas.

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