Who to Keep Your Eyes On
Tell us about a recent "win."
Our original contract with Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) was for 10 years. We recently went through the re-bid process with them and have been selected for five more years. That is a real testament to our company because our people are on the ground every day with that customer. One of the things I tell staff when I hire them is that our customers are hiring a competency that they don’t believe they have so we can’t go in and be average. We must add value on day one, we have to be exceptional. So for us to be selected for an additional five years says that the customer is extremely pleased with our staff, that our staff has added value and that the customer felt that they wanted to continue in that relationship. It’s a real win for us that the government trusts us as a small business and gives us that work again. That was a big victory.
Another recent win was with U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). We had been the incumbent on a contract that provided resources across several of their installations. That contract came up for re-bid last year and we bid on it, but lost. The contracting officer didn’t establish a best value bid and instead put significant emphasis on the cost factors. Because our team also includes engineers – mostly civil and industrial - we weren’t the cheapest bid received. There will always be people who think they can do project management and they may include more administrative rates in a proposal. That is what happened in this case. Another company was selected and we were told our resources were no longer needed at those installations. Since then, however, that company couldn’t provide the technical expertise, and the USACE withdrew the contract, then the government put it out for bid again. This time we were selected as the successful contractor. It has been a year of transition, but at the end of the day the government came back and saw the value, services and resources we provided. This was a nice win for our team.
Do you serve as a prime or subcontractor and what strengths do you bring to each area?
A lot of our work comes from the relationships we are able to cultivate and from those we are mostly the Prime– for instance in our work at ORNL - but we’ve also subbed to other companies and currently do serve as a subcontractor on several projects. For example, the University of Tennessee currently has a large remodeling effort going on that includes a $120 million renovation to some of the dorms. We are a subcontractor to a prime general contractor – Messer Construction. Why is that good? They needed a woman-owned business on their contract, we are local and we brought some strong project management expertise to them. We understand how to manage teams with multiple companies and are pleased to add this value to the project.
When we try to partner with larger firms, they might ask why they should bring us in on their team when they already do project management work within their large company that may have thousands of employees. They have said that telling the government that they are bringing in a project management company makes it sounds as if they don’t have the competency. What I’ve said for years is it’s quite the opposite. What it says to the government is that you value their dollars so much and the time that they are giving you to perform this product or service and you are bringing in the top project management company in America to manage that since you understand how important those aspects are to them.
Sharing this perspective with others has helped us be selected as a subcontractor on lots of contracts. They use us for our project management expertise, but since most of these contracts have multiple team members and we know how to bring companies together, how to integrate their project management plans and the work that they are doing, we are also able to add technical expertise as well. The prime usually uses us as a deputy project manager to help with the execution and integration of the work with the whole team.
"The most valuable attributes we bring to the table are flexibility and a cohesive team approach that includes our staff, clients, teaming partners, subcontractors & suppliers."
These qualities pave the way for success as a prime contractor or subcontractor.
What has been your biggest challenge in achieving success in the federal market as a woman-owned small business?
Responding to ignorance through successful achievements (and often times meditation) rather than counterproductive retaliatory remarks.
What competencies do you believe are critical to your success?
1. Continuously providing our clients with a project staff that delivers excellent communication,
knowledge and flexibility.
2. Outstanding performance of design build and construction services in mission critical
occupied spaces.
3. Exceptional proposal development and management in response to solicitations between
$1,000,000 - $10,000,000.
We have always “private labeled” for other large organizations, becoming their fast track service development and deployment team under their brand name. Because we have a depth of experience in providing services on behalf of our large partner companies, we understand how to support and add value to large primes and others looking for an experienced, low risk sub-contractor.
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