NITAAC Industry Advisory Council (IAC) Meeting

Thursday December 15, 2005

Bldg. 6100 Executive Blvd., Rockville, MD

Conference Room 6D01

10:00 A.M. – 11:30 P.M.

 

“If you want to be successful, put your effort into controlling the sail, not the wind.”              —  Anonymous

 

 

Attendees:

Diane Frasier, NIH, IAC Chair

Rusty Wall, CSC, IAC Co-Chair, rwall@csc.com

Stuart Kramer, NAC, SRA,

Dennis Dietrich, IAC, DIGICON

Diane McLaughlin, IAC BearingPoint

Polly Seleski, NAC, iDox Solutions

Jim Terry, IAC, PSI

Victor Powers, Program Director, NITAAC, powersv@od.nih.gov

Millicent Manning, CO, NITAAC

Donald Wilson, CO, NITAAC

Greg Holliday, Senior CO, NITAAC

Wanda Russell, CO, NITAAC

Tim Warrington, NITAAC

Bruce Thorner, ASSYST, NITAAC Support

Melissa Scroggs, MITRETEK, NITAAC Support

Belinda Coleman, Coleman Group, NITAAC New Business Development Support

Mary Alice Johnson, Connelly-Works, NITAAC New Business Development Support

 

We had a small Holiday Party during the meeting and everyone brought cookies, snacks, cake to share with everyone.

 

The Meeting Minutes Follow:

 

IAC Agenda

 

Opening Remarks by Diane Frasier, NITAAC IAC Chair

 

Diane Frasier discussed her goals for reinvigorating NITAAC and the IAC and reaching out to the Federal Customer community to ensure they know the various strengths of the contracts managed by NITAAC and incredible value that the NITAAC GWACs bring to the entire Federal Government.

 

New RFQ system and training status

 

On-line internal NITAAC testing is in progress on the new RFQ Tracking System for future implementation of the “exception to the fair opportunity” process.  The internal testing is going well.  Additionally, a new capability for vendors to attach quotes to submission is being developed.  NITAAC plans to solicit volunteers from the vendor community for the next stage of external testing of these two enhancements.  The external testing is tentatively scheduled to begin in February 2006.

 

The NITAAC Marketing Team has prepared a Vendor and Customer Training Plan for NIH approval. The first pilot training session is planned for January 10th at AFCEA West in San Diego to help flesh out any training “lessons-learned”.  The on-line training tutorial and FAQs for these new enhancements are in progress.

 

IAC Membership and Strategies to improve Membership Development

 

The IAC decided to begin a membership push to increase the IAC membership to 5 representatives from each of the three major GWACs run by NITAAC, ECS III, IW2, and CIO-SP2i.  (The IAC Charter is attached.)

 

Accordingly, those IAC members who have missed the last three meetings from the current IAC will be asked if they wish to nominate other personnel from their companies for inclusion in the new expanded IAC.  New members will be solicited to represent the three GWACs.

 

The IAC also decided to make a push to reinvigorate the three IAC Subcommittees for Marketing, Programs, and Government Affairs.  (The charters for these three subcommittees are attached.)

 

Please contact Rusty Wall or Victor Powers for more information.

 

NIH Submission of Executive Agent Report to OMB

 

NITAAC proudly reported that their annual business-size recertification package and report to OMB on their status as an Executive Agent was submitted by NIH Director, Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. This report provided NITAAC’s contract activity status and plans as an OMB Executive Agent.  The Quality Assurance and Risk Management Plan identifies key risk areas noted by NITAAC as well as those mandated by OMB. 

 

All GWAC holders are required to submit a Quality Assurance and Risk Management Plan to OMB.  The report is used by OMB to recertify Executive Agent Designation. There are only three other Executive Agents designated by OMB.  The other agencies are GSA, for several GWACs, NASA for NASA SEWP, and the Department of Commerce, for COMMITS NextGen.

 

In addition to detailed statistics on each Delivery and Task Order for the three GWACs and justifications for each exception to the fair opportunity process over the past year, the report highlighted that NIH was providing quality services to their customers in keeping with OMB’s guidelines and reflected very favorably on NITAAC’s overall management and oversight of their GWACs.  The report was reviewed, prior to submission, by the Director, Office of Acquisition Management and Policy, HHS and NIH’s Office of Acquisition Management and Policy.

 

Status and Discussion of NITAAC’s outreach and education efforts

 

Belinda Coleman and Mary Alice Johnson representing NITAAC’s new outreach and education support contractor (Coleman Group) reported that the draft NITAAC Business Development Plan is near completion and will be submitted to Ms. Diane Frasier shortly for approval.  Additionally, they reported the hiring of the new Business Development Specialist for NITAAC, Ms. Linda Martin has already hit the ground running.

 

Results from the NIH Tech Expo and eGov Security shows and plans for AFCEA West

 

Mary Alice Johnson reported that their participation in the NIH Tech Expo in early December resulted in 268 leads from both Government personnel and contractor personnel interested in obtaining more information on NITAAC’s GWACs.  The process is ongoing to contact each of these leads personally to provide them with additional information or assistance in using the contracts,

 

Additionally, Mary Alice Johnson reported that at the mid December eGov Security Conference the entire attendee list was provided and they were in the process of qualifying attendees for follow-up.  Additionally she discussed the added value of co-marketing at the conference. Specifically, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman allowed NITAAC to showcase their contracts though signage for CIO-SP2i and IW2 at their booths. This will be a marketing feature NITAAC will request of NITAAC GWAC Prime contractors at future conferences attended by NITAAC.

 

Plans for NITAAC participation in 2006 shows

 

Mary Alice Johnson is already in conversation with a couple of NITAAC Primes for co-marketing and leveraging opportunities at the AFCEA West Conference in San Diego on January 10-12, 2006.  For example, she is discussing co-marketing activities with a CIO-SP2 Prime contractor who is sponsoring one of the two breakfasts at AFCEA West.  Please contact Mary Alice Johnson directly to discuss co-marketing at any conferences you plan to attend in 2006 at johnsmar@od.nih.gov.

 

The Coleman group has already submitted a proposed list of 2006 shows for NITAAC to attend.  That list is being reviewed by NITAAC for approval.

 

Discussion of the agenda for the NITAAC Quarterly All Contractors Meeting on January 17, 2006 at 1:30 PM

 

NITAAC announced their plans for a quarterly business meeting with all vendors on January 17th at 1:30 PM to be held at the Neuroscience Building, immediately adjacent to NITAAC at 6011 Executive Blvd.  The agenda and invitation to all NITAAC vendors will be sent separately and is forthcoming.

 

The Quarterly meeting agenda was discussed by the IAC and all concurred that it was an excellent agenda.  The discussion also extended to future plans for a small business meeting and possible meetings with Government customers at a later date.

 

Contract Reports for CIO-SP2i, IW2nd, and ECS III

 

§         CIO-SP2i – Greg Holliday briefed and announced 418 total orders totaling a potential value of $5.1B.

 

§         Greg noted that the MIPR process within NITAAC has recently sped up and also noted that it was an IAC recommendation that resulted in NITAAC’s successful implementation of a process to accept MIPRs from other Federal Agencies. 

 

§         IW2nd – Donald Wilson briefed and announced a cumulative 42 T.O.s valued at $25M including options. Additionally, cumulative to date, there have been 558 D.O.s valued at $885M.

 

§         ECS-III – Millicent Manning briefed and announced cumulative numbers on the contract are now 55,171 D.O.s valued at $1.1B.

 

 

New Agenda items for the next meeting - Your input is requested!!!!  Please propose any desired agenda items or your desire to participate in the IAC as a new member for our next meeting.  You may send your input to Rusty Wall, rwall@csc.com or Victor Powers, powersv@od.nih.gov.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You will be notified of the next IAC meeting.

We look forward to seeing you at

 NITAAC’s Quarterly All Contractors Meeting

on January 17, 2006 at 1:30 PM

Bldg. 6001 Executive Blvd.

 

 

 

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