Hanscom program officials take center stage at state-sponsored small business forum

  • Published
  • By Justin Oakes
  • 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs
WALTHAM, Mass. --  Air Force officials announced upcoming Hanscom AFB contracting opportunities and highlighted the importance of increasing small business participation during a state-sponsored small business forum in Waltham, Mass., Dec. 18.

U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, kicked off the forum with a few statistics on businesses within the state and how they support the government.

According to Tsongas, there are approximately 2,500 companies in Massachusetts that contribute to Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security missions; that translates to more than 130,000 individual jobs. For the state as a whole, there has been an 83 percent rise in businesses since 2003.

"Government contracting is very complicated," said Hanscom's Small Business director Bill Donaldson, whose office works with small and large businesses as well as nonprofit organizations. "But here at Hanscom, we recognize the value that small businesses play within our acquisition programs, and we work to facilitate that partnership."

Donaldson emphasized that there are nearly 170 Air Force small business specialists across the country at various installations.

"We are the liaisons to all industry," he said. "When companies have a question on how to become a supplier or subcontractor, they should ask a small business specialist."

Hanscom is home to the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center's Battle Management and Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence and Networks Directorates, which have a combined total of approximately $3 billion in annual contract obligations. Within the directorates, there are several different types of business opportunities, such as contracting for development and production, IT products and services and consulting positions for advisory and assistance services.

During the forum, Steven Wert, Battle Management program executive officer, mentioned several programs in particular that had possible opportunities for smaller businesses.

The Joint Environmental Toolkit was one such example. JET is a standard forecaster toolkit that ingests weather data and delivers information to the warfighter worldwide. The program office held an industry day earlier this month to discuss the sustainment of the system's capabilities and modernization efforts. A draft request for proposal is planned for February and the estimated contract value is between $40 and 60 million.

Another program of note with multiple contract opportunities was the Air Operations Center-Weapon System.

The AOC-WS program provides hardware, software, technical documents and technology updates for more than 48 systems that form a single command and control weapon system. Multiple draft RFPs will be released from October 2014 to September 2015. Interested companies will be able to compete for net-centric/IT contracts on networking equipment, servers/routers, software and maintenance and services.

According to Wert, there are more than 22 small business opportunities that have the potential for more than $300 million in new contract awards in fiscal year 2015 within the Battle Management portfolio.

The C3I and Networks Directorate also has several programs that could possible result in business contracts. One of which is the Installation Processing Node Pathfinder.

The IPN Pathfinder consolidates multiple data centers and server farms on a base into one service/processing node. The RFP is anticipated for March 2015 with a firm fixed price contract expected that summer.

Interested small businesses should also be on the lookout for opportunities with other cyber-related programs, such as the Airborne Network Global Information Grid Interface, Air Force Wideband Enterprise Terminal and Base Information Transport Infrastructure.

The forum concluded after both Hanscom PEOs and Small Business and Contracting directors answered questions from participants.

"Small businesses play a vital role in the development and cost-effectiveness of our programs,"
said Maj. Gen. Craig Olson, C3I and Networks program executive officer. "By encouraging and increasing small business participation, it requires us to compete more contracts, which in turn promotes ingenuity among competitors and reduces the overall program life cycle cost."