SPAWAR SYSTEMS CENTER ATLANTIC (SSC LANT) - New Orleans, LA (NOLA) hosted an NOLA Industry Outreach Event on Wednesday, 14 March 2018 from 1400 - 1600 (Central Standard Time, USA) at the UNO Research and Technology Park, Bldg. 3, 3-1 Auditorium.
Purpose: The focus of the event was specific to NOLA and provided an opportunity for industry to engage in an open dialogue with SSC LANT leadership. It was also to assist industry in their efforts to do business with SSC LANT in NOLA. This was not a CDCA SBIOI event rather it was SSC LANT contracts and the Executive forum leveraging the SSC LANT Contracts Industry Council to ensure proper participation.
In attendance (Government): Chris Miller, Bill Deligne, Steve Harnig, Robin Rourk, Pete Reddy, Kathryn Murphy, Mark Krause, Audrey Orvin, and Trent Walker
In attendance (Industry):
Last Name, First Name, Company
Bateman, Brent, aVenture Technologies
Bellant, Ray, aVenture
Bernard, Myles, CoSolutions
Campbell, Gary, Affigent LLC
Cheron, Edward, LATG
Galloway, Scott, CDIT
Hall, Marcus, Omni2Max
Hart, Jeff, M2 Technology
Hartdegen, Kenneth, aVenture Technologies
Logan, Daniel, CACI
Lovgren, Manny, LCE
Maggio, Frank, CT-NOLA
McGettigan, Brian, PWC
Schatzle, Andrew, Colossal Contracting
Schore, Mark, Blue Water Federal Solutions
Sherrod, Prescott, PEMCCO
Thompson, Tyler, M2 Technology
Topics Included:
1) What is the Contracts Industry Council (CIC)
2) Labor Category Working Group update
3) GFP monitoring and tracking
4) Open floor for Questions and Comments which led to additional topics below:
o What can SPAWAR do to encourage industry to do business in NOLA?
o IWRP (OTA)
o Potential Industry Days in NOLA
Topic 1: What is the CIC?
· Manny Lovgren and Steve Harnig spoke to this.
· Forum of Government and industry partners to develop a culture of continuous improvement in order to produce better products/services for the warfighter
· We exchange ideas with the goal of enhancing processes in order to do things smarter, better, and more efficiently
· Our collaboration helps the SPAWAR/Industry team co-evolve our technologies to maintain our competitive advantage and best address Warfighter challenges
· The CIC membership is comprised of SSC LANT Government personnel and six (6) Industry members
· represent small, mid-sized and large business
· Associate Members are invited to:
· Attend planning, ‘post-review, and action item execution’ meetings with the extended CIC partners
· Provide feedback to standing CIC members when solicited for input
· Submit issues/concerns to CIC members for presentation at meetings
· Do not submit issues or concerns related to a specific RFP or Sources Sought. Those should be addressed with the associated SSC LANT Contracts person
· We post CIC meeting minutes on the CDCA and AFCEA websites
· The next CIC Meeting is April 6. 2018
· Will be soliciting topics from industry
Topic 2: Labor Category Working Group Update
· Manny Lovgren and Steve Harnig spoke to this.
· Team is made up of government and industry partners (from the CIC)
· We have closed our industry survey, compiled the results, scrubbed them, and captured the major feedback and passed our recommendations to the government team
· Had some really valid points
· Feedback was fairly clear
· Survey Response Metrics
· 42 responses received
· 66% possess an SSCLANT prime vehicle
· 79% were aware that the SSC-LANT standard labor categories were able to be tailored by government technical leads to align with their requirements
· Education/ Experience/ Certifications Feedback and recommendations
· A significant theme in the suggestion based responses was to consider experience in lieu of a degree in more labor categories where it makes sense
· Industry certifications may be more relevant than degrees in certain cases or for certain labor categories.
· Consider an allowance for an Associate’s Degree for some junior labor categories. More leniency for those that are less technical may be a good starting point.
· Degree requirements for the Program Manager and Project Manager labor categories should be more flexible, particularly when the nature of the work isn’t hyper technical.
· Potential New Labor Categories Feedback and Recommendations
· Consider separating “Engineer” and “Scientist” labor categories. While there is a need for degreed systems engineers on some SSC-LANT programs, the degree requirement is fairly restrictive and doesn’t cover degrees in Management Information Systems, Computer Science, Cloud Computing/Technologies, Network Design/Engineering, etc… Having another professional labor category such as “Computer Scientist” that is more IT centric as a whole would be more relevant and appropriate for many of the various IT/Cyber efforts that SSC-LANT is executing.
· The Security Specialist labor category (all levels) continues to yield confusion. Most of that revolves around whether this labor category is intended to be a Cybersecurity/IT Specialist type of position or a Facility Security Officer (FSO) type of position. The qualifications are generic to the point where there continues to be a high degree of uncertainty as to what the intent of this labor category is. Recommend adding “Cyber” to the title if that is the intent.
· Most in industry associate the Management Analyst position as being a financial type of position (i.e. Project Control or Financial Analyst) so there were multiple comments concerning why this category would ever require a technical degree.
Topic 3: GFP Monitoring and Tracking
· Steve Harnig opened this topic up and turned it over to Trent Walker (TAT Chair).
· Government has requirement to begin tracking all GFP in NERP.
· SSC LANT would like to have a standardized system for monitoring, tracking and reporting GFP.
· Through the CIC, we reached out to industry get a feel for what systems they currently use and its ability to interface with the government’s ERP system.
· SPAWAR is still working to get their hands around this and industry will be seeing something soon.
Topic 4: Open floor for Questions and Comments
· Chris Miller opened this up.
· Requested feedback on the current state of the industry base in New Orleans
· Chris stated there is work in NOLA and the fact that the contractor base supporting NOLA is around 600.
· Mark Krause is the technical lead for NOLA specific requirements, i.e. Data Center
· Kathryn Murphy Suggested a potential industry day that would be held in NOLA – is still TBD
· Said more information would be forthcoming
· Challenges that were shared by the industry attendees:
· Lack of new work being placed or contracted out of NOLA.
· Local culture was also discussed among the attendees.. Most have lived in NOLA since birth and do not venture outside the area.
· Many of the local businesses are not networking with outside businesses both large and small to help go after work.
· Being a member of associations like CDCA, AFCEA, etc… are a good way to network and get information about happenings. However, SSC LANT is open to understand other local non-profits that may help with networking and outreach
· Local talent is going into other industries
· RFI responses came up as a topic.
· RFI responses are limited to only the capabilities of the SB not the team they are putting together for the effort
· Chris explained that he has tasked Steve, Robin, and Manny (CIC) to work the whole RFI concerns
· A couple of folks volunteered to be on this team to look at RFIs
· Prior to Pillars, companies had the ability to add subs but Pillars restricted that
· We have moved away from Pillars so this should no longer be an issue
· Lack of local contracts person
· It was pointed out that there is contract office and a Small Business Representative, Ida Lirette
· On the topic of new work, Bill Deligne spoke to the group about IWRP. Many in the room had not heard about this OT that SPAWAR is putting in place.
· May offer more opportunity for local NOLA businesses
· Based on the dialogue, SSC LANT will continue to explore industry engagements in the area and look for ways to continue to foster collaboration.
We closed the meeting thanking everyone for attending with an action to post the notes.