May 24, 2013 -- By Jim Katzaman, MCSC Corporate Communications
A mix of small business, contract, program, engineering and logistics specialists from Marine Corps Systems Command and Program Executive Officer Land Systems have combined to win the 2012 Department of the Navy Acquisition Excellence Award for Small Business Team.
Dave Dawson, associate director of Small Business Programs, said the award came on the heels of the command’s meeting all of its DON small business targets for the first time for fiscal year 2012.
“This achievement is a testament to the both the command and small business team's strong advocacy and unflagging commitment to small business utilization,” Dawson said. “There is no greater demonstration of our commitment and solid support for using small businesses to obtain the supplies and services required to equip and support Marine warfighters.”
With Dawson in the lead, the rest of the MCSC-PEO LS team included Austin "A.J." Johnson, Small Business Program deputy; Jodie Shifflett, contracting officer; Judy Campbell, contract specialist; Patrick Garrard, program analyst; Lenore Boissiere, project officer; Michael Berry, logistician; and Dung "Zoom" Phan, lead engineer.
In just one instance of their successful collaboration, Shifflett and her Marine Corps Common Hardware Suite, or MCHS, team worked closely with the Small Business Office to establish minimum small-business prime contracting and subcontracting requirements for the planned $775 million multi-award MCHS contracts. This supported the DON's Continuity of Services transition from the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet to the Next Generation Enterprise Network, the top priority DON information technology project. As a result of the small business prime and subcontracting requirements, the MCHS team awarded the MCHS contracts to 10 companies, including four large and six small businesses.
Through this and other team efforts, the command exceeded its DON small business targets by 5.44 percent, awarding nearly $850 million of almost $4 billion total obligated contract dollars or 21.19 percent of the total available to spend for small businesses supplies and services.
Of significant note, Dawson explained, the command awarded more than $126 million to Service Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses and exceeded the federal goal for SDVOSB awards of 3 percent. The previous high marks awarded under the SDVOSB category were $76 million or 1.35 percent of the command's total spent during FY 2011.
“Both of these achievements are significant and mark the first time in the history of the SDVOSB category that the command has reached these milestones,” Dawson said.
The command awarded almost $250 million to Veteran-Owned Small Businesses, or 6.21 percent, and exceeded the federal target of 5 percent for awards to Small Disadvantaged Businesses, awarding almost $287 million or 7.21 percent. The command also awarded almost $120 million, or 3 percent, to Women-Owned Small Business and almost $111 million, or 2.78 percent, of the total spent to Historically Underutilized Business Zone Small Businesses.
MCSC’s effective small business achievement rate of 33.51 percent is based on total prime contract awards to small business totaling almost $850 million.
“This is based on our effective total prime contract awards where small businesses were truly eligible to compete,” Dawson said. “This totals $2.5 billion when removing product and service and North American Industry Classification System codes where small business contributes less than 1 percent of the total obligations.”
He cited another significant accomplishment for the command as its achievement of “Sweet Spot” performance, meeting and exceeding the goal for awarding contracts to small businesses. The command exceeded the DON Office of Small Business Programs target of 80 percent by awarding 81.77 percent of all eligible contracts between $3,000 and $150,000 to small businesses.
“Through strong advocacy and willingness to engage both senior leaders and all acquisition professionals, the MCSC-PEO LS Small Business Team has directly improved the command climate for small business utilization,” Dawson said.