Fort Drum contracting office exceeds HUBZone goal

By Ryan Mattox, Mission and Installation Contracting Command Public Affairs OfficeSeptember 12, 2014

Fort Drum contracting office exceeds HUBZone goal
Anthony Sligar, deputy to the commander of the 925th Contingency Contracting Battalion and Mission and Installation Contracting Command-Fort Drum contracting office and Fort Drum small business specialist, Tammy Davis, MICC-Fort Drum contracting offi... (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas (Sept. 12, 2014) -- The Fort Drum Contracting Office awarded a $4.4 million contract to a historically underutilized business zone 8(a) tribal firm in less than 30 days to exceed the office's HUBZone goal for the year.

Officials with the Mission and Installation Contracting Command-Fort Drum Contracting Office, New York, awarded the contract to SCMC LLC, a wholly-owned construction company of the Seneca Nation of Indians, to repair and upgrade a heating, ventilation and air conditioning system in the 10th Mountain Division command building at Fort Drum.

With fiscal end-of-the-year requirements deadline fast approaching, the Fort Drum contracting team of Anthony Sligar, deputy to the commander of the 925th Contingency Contracting Battalion and MICC-Fort Drum contracting office and Fort Drum small business specialist, Tammy Davis, the contracting officer for the contract, and Derek Marriott, MICC-Fort Drum contracting specialist, quickly tackled the requirement and scheduled a capabilities conference with the contractor and public works officials to ensure the contractor could meet the needs of the requirement. They also submitted an offering letter to Small Business Administration officials in order to be able to award the contract directly to SCMC.

"Ms. Davis and Mr. Marriott did an absolutely amazing job on this contract, and it was due to the fact that the customer was confident in their abilities," Sligar said. "This speaks a lot to the relationship they have built with the customer. They successfully negotiated a contract in less than 30 days."

The award also helped the office exceed its 25-percent goal for HUBZone contracts for the year. Fort Drum uses a multiple award task order as a contract vehicle for construction services. However, Fort Drum MATOC contractors are not designated as HUBZone, and the MATOC is an indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract, so the contract vehicle is not a mandatory source.

"Fort Drum works hard on market research reports prior to putting in place any long-term contracts," Sligar said. "More than 50 percent of the dollars obligated at Fort Drum is construction. We have two main ordering vehicles for construction. So we ensured that we set one of them aside for HUBZone contracts. This helps us maintain our HUBZone percentage."

Officials at the MICC Office of Small Business Programs at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Texas, said Fort Drum has some of the highest assigned small business goals in the command. Fort Drum's contracting professionals have obligated more than $22 million to HUBZone contracts this fiscal year. This represents 37 percent of the contracting office's total obligations awarded and exceeds their assigned 25-percent HUBZone goal by 12 percent.

Sligar said the goals are achieved at Fort Drum because the civilian and uniformed contracting professionals are top notch. They understand the importance of the small business program, and they have bought-in, ensuring it's successful.

New for fiscal 2014, Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Gabbert, commanding general of the MICC, issued an operation order to help step up efforts to meet or exceed the 2014 HUBZone goal for the command. He determined that special focus on increasing contract awards to HUBZone firms was necessary to fulfill the promise and achieve increasing goal attainment for the MICC, Army and Department of Defense.

The Historically Underutilized Business Zone Act of 1997 created the HUBZone program. The purpose is to provide federal contracting assistance for qualified small business concerns located in designated HUBZones. The program is also designed to increase employment opportunities, investment and economic development in those areas.

The MICC is responsible for providing contracting support for the warfighter at Army commands, installations and activities located throughout the continental United States and Puerto Rico. In fiscal 2013, the command executed more than 43,000 contract actions worth more than $5.3 billion across the Army. The command has also managed more than 780,000 Government Purchase Card Program transactions this fiscal year valued at an additional $880 million.

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Mission and Installation Contracting Command

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