NEWPORT – A contracts team at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport won a Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare System Team Excellence Award.
The award, given for work performed in the fourth quarter of 2020, went to the following team members: Alison Wicks of the Contracts Department, head of the Procurement Branch in Portsmouth; the Contracts Department’s Kristina Michael; and Sensors and Sonar Systems Department employees Richard Fortgang, Louis Sansone and Scott Laurin, a technical project manager.
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The team is recognized for ensuring seamless operation of the Naval Array Technical Support Center towed array facility. Members “demonstrated a high degree of proficiency and resourcefulness” in responding to a protest of a support contract awarded last fall, according to a warfare center news release.
According to the warfare center, the Government Accountability Office put a stay on the contract until the protest was resolved. This presented a critical situation, in that the existing contract only had enough hours remaining to run through Nov. 6, 2020.
With a goal of keeping work on schedule, the team identified hours left on an early contract line-item number, the center said, performing a de-obligation and re-obligation of hours to a new contract line-item number and extending operations through Nov. 13, 2020. This allowed time to put a bridge contract in place with a request for proposal released the same day – with a base period of performance of about five months, with a three-month option – so the facility could stay operational during the protest.
“This near-impossible task required unparalleled effort and diligence from the contracts team and will result in avoidance of a stop-work situation for personnel supporting Intermediate Maintenance Activity capabilities at multiple fleet sites in the U.S. and overseas,” the award states. “Not getting the bridge contract in place in a timely manner would have negatively impacted … fleet operations,” the award notes.
A virtual recognition ceremony is being planned.
Susan Shalhoub is a PBN contributing writer.
