Stephen Hancock

Each era in technology seems to bring the same critique to government: It takes so long to buy things, by the time they’re delivered they’re out of date. While not entirely accurate, the charge does reflect the ponderous way federal agencies ingest new technologies and capabilities.

It really is a long cycle - request for information, development of requirements, then a request for quotes, then a long evaluation of those - eventually there is a contract, possibly a protest. And then come the constantly changing requirements, delays and cost overruns.

There’s gotta be another way that’s legal.

For several years, the Homeland Security Department’s Science and Technology Directorate has been developing a an alternate method. Stephen Hancock is deputy director for Research and Development Partnerships at S&T. He gave a nutshell explanation of how it works from the vendor standpoint:

“If the government could provide requirements in a way that makes sense, and give a rough estimate of the market for a product, could I make a profit there?” He adds, “So maybe industry would build it at its own expense.” And be free to market and sell it to other entities such as state and local government and commercial customers.

Hancock and Pete Ladowicz, the industry liaison, drive what DHS calls the System Efficacy through Commercialization, Utilization, Relevance and Evaluation Program - SECURE. It identifies a gap in some homeland security imperative, then launches a streamlined effort to develop into products technologies that are at the readiness level (TRL) 9 phase.

The TRL system of evaluating technology was developed at the Defense Department. NASA has its own system, as do different industries. Anything at Level 9 has shown it works under real-live conditions.

Ladowicz said, “We establish a CRADA (cooperative research and development agreement) so they can share sensitive data as we go down the path together.” To assure that a technology is TRL-9, he said, the vendor must show it has been tested properly and by a certified, third-party entity. For its part, the Science and Technology Directorate provides the vendor with a realistic estimate of the federal market for the product, together with what it calls a commercial applications requirements document, or CARD, which describes the requirement arising out of a capability gap.

“We won’t put out something that says, ‘I’m not really sure what we need,’” Ladowicz said.

The gaps themselves may be generated from DHS operating units, critical infrastructure requirements elsewhere in the country, or the first responder community.

So far, SECURE has signed three CRADAs, one of which has resulted in a product. An inexpensive video camera has shown its memory can be recovered even after subject to a nearby bomb blast, such as it might experience aboard a bus or subway car. DHS and the vendor tested the camera using explosives inside a discarded city bus at the Army proving ground in Aberdeen, Md. The device is now marketed as SecurEye from the company Visual Defense.

SECURE is next developing a mobile water purification system capable of producing 30,000 gallons of potable water per day. Such a system is frequently needed in areas recently hit by disaster.

Hancock said, “Industry isn’t used to doing business with the federal government this way.” He pointed out, “S&T doesn’t guarantee any sales, we just certify the vendor meets a requirement we know exists.’

SECURE’s success, he said, depends on three things: “Number one, a well defined, understood and explainable requirement. Number two, there has to be a profitable market. And three, the technology has to be mature enough there won’t be exorbitant costs required to pursue it. This doesn’t need government research money.”

Hancock and Ladowicz expect testing on the portable water production system to start this summer or fall, and it will be a year from conception of the gap to the finished product. The blast-resistant camera was prototyped in five months, and tested on the explosive bus a couple of months later.

Hancock added, “We expect this to go faster when we reach maturity of the program.”

President Obama has declared that the “cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation” and that “America’s economic prosperity in the 21st century will depend on cybersecurity.”

Hear from DHE S&T Directorate, NATO, and other cyber experts discuss technology, tools, and oversight techniques being utilized to protect the critical systems that support our way of life.

Federal contractors are justifiably concerned with how the market may be shaping up and whether there will be any real growth in their business. So many forces have converged on the market, it’s not easy to figure out.

But a few truths are emerging, and some of the fundamentals haven’t changed.

First of all, the sequester is not turning out to be the bogeyman that the administration warned it would. For the most part, fears that agencies would take it out on contracts haven’t materialized. One reason is that contracts are awarded for a purpose, and often a critical one. Another is that the percentage of budget cuts wasn’t all that big. The predicted calculations are based in part on dollars by which the budget would have otherwise grown. The real reductions for the fiscal were closer to 4 percent than the 7 percent OMB said using Washington math.

Secondly, IT budgets are not falling. They’re not rising as in the go-go years of the PC revolution, but they aren’t falling. For 2014, the White House is requesting a 2 percent increase, or about $1.7 billion dollars more.

Third, IT remains an important priority for both the administration and Congress. Cybersecurity, mobile computing, cloud, shared services, infrastructure rationalization and better use of data are today’s priorities. For traditionalists, yes, the environment is very different from when the buildout of LANs, data centers with all their switchgear and servers, and big client server application development seemed endless. The market – public sector and commercial – has simply changed quality. But that evolution never stops.

The 2014 budget documents show how the federal market is changing from a hardware-software oriented one to a services oriented one. Infrastructure, Platform, Software – they’re all increasingly available as services. IT support, document and print management, HR, accounting and finance are just some of the functions more and more enterprises want to acquire as managed services.

Recently I met with managers of a large, publicly traded company that wants to increase its share of the federal market for services. The discussions brought to mind some things that haven’t changed.
Success in the federal market still requires sustained commitment, with the patience to put in 18 months to two years for success. True, veteran federal marketers who, for instance, graduate from the 8(a) program and then launch a new 8(a) can get contracts quickly. High level officials who leave can often get consulting contracts in a hurry. But for new services from existing companies, or existing services from newcomers – that still takes time.

It’s also a market where contractors need to mind the peculiarities of federal budgeting, because three years are always in play. The one you’re in, the one being debated or about to be debated, and the one being formulated deep inside agencies that in theory won’t be enacted for another 18 months.

Therefore winning isn’t so much a matter of knowing which budgets are going up or down as it is understanding individual agencies’ long term requirements and getting on their radar before budgets are formed. And it means knowing the wild cards in the procurement reforms and in federal strategies such as Smart Buy. But understanding how agencies work, their culture, their key people, and the mission requirements are fundamentals to always keep in mind.

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