Vendors awarded contracts on the Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading Edge Solutions II are participating in industry groups to learn more about requirements, promoting the vehicle to customers, strengthening their own capabilities to distinguish themselves from competitors, and maintaining partner relationships.
DHS officials continue working toward resolving protests, so they can kick off the last two of nine competitive tracks — functional category 1 unrestricted and 8(a), which is set aside for socially and economically disadvantaged small business.
"We feel that [DHS is] getting closer, and all we can say is we remain ready," said Suzanne Petrie Liscouski, vice president for federal civilian agencies at NCI Information Systems headquartered in Reston, Virginia, an FC1 unrestricted awardee. "I really believe and am confident that a mid-sized company with our knowledge base and experience is going to do very well when the task orders start coming out — when the EAGLE has flown. We've been on the launch pad for quite a while."
In the meantime, NCI and other awardees attend relevant conferences and forums and stay active with groups such as the Washington Homeland Security Roundtable; the Homeland Security and Defense Business Council; and AFCEA International, the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association.
"We're very plugged into the community, and meeting with customers," Liscouski said. "We're as anxious as DHS is to get things moving forward."
Brian Baker, teaming coordinator for Ambit Group in Reston, Virginia, which received an FC2 small business award, said his company also communicates with the department's procurement office about administering EAGLE II.
"Our next steps will be to continue evangelizing the EAGLE II vehicle so that it's more widely used," Baker said, "and also working collaboratively with the Office of Procurement Operations to the extent that they'll welcome our feedback."
Ron Gallihugh, the Transportation Security Administration's deputy assistant administrator for acquisition, said it will take time, even after the protests are over, for his agency to make awards under EAGLE II. "The lead time on awarding a contract, especially if it's of size, necessitates there would be a delay" of about four to five months, Gallihugh said. "If EAGLE II were fully available today, the realistic viability for us to really consider it for an award is probably not until 2nd or 3rd quarter of next year. The stuff we're evaluating now, we solicited months ago; the stuff we're soliciting now, we can't use EAGLE II for."
Plus, TSA and contractors will need time to get know each other, Gallihugh said. "Understanding what's really available on any given vehicle does take effort and time to sit down and actually do the homework," Gallihugh said. "It goes both ways. We need to learn about their capabilities and they need to learn about our needs in order to get really good competition."
DHS, meanwhile, must concentrate on moving past the remaining protests.
"Our focus right now, as you might imagine, is the procurement process," DHS deputy chief procurement officer Dan Clever said. "We need to complete the competitions for those two tracks. In a nutshell, we're extremely happy with where DHS is ending up on EAGLE II, and we're looking forward to really rolling out complete utilization of the vehicle."
