Our organization attended the NASA Road Tour in Hawaii last month. We were
asked to brief our client’s capabilities within their university, we were also asked to give a brief overview on pricing strategies and discuss our “success story” due to the fact our client received a Phase I, Phase II and Phase III Small Business Technology Transfer(STTR) award. I must say I believe overall it was a successful tour, however we are not there yet.
(By the way, This is me, Latonia Jones, in the photo to the right, giving a presentation on competitive pricing strategies.)
Last month’s blog I stated we could not verify whether NASA was currently meeting their HBCU/MI subcontracting goals. Well, to my surprise there was a slide presented at the road tour by Richard Mann, program manager for the Office of Small Business Programs at NASA Headquarters. He laid this question to rest.
So the answer is NO; they are not even close. The slide showed that as of FY17 NASA’s achievement was a mere 0.14% vs 1%, again not achieving their goal. The next fiscal year does not start until October 1s t and this number was for fiscal year 2017, but I am pretty sure the FY 18 goal has not been met. During the Program Manager’s presentation he also listed the top 10 Prime Contractors, which is where I believe we must began to get to the goal.
As I stated in my last blog the goal lies with the prime contractor so if the agency is not meeting their goal that most likely mean the prime contractor is not. The prime contractor’s pride themselves in having mentor protégé agreements with HBCUs. However, this does not equate to immediate dollars for the HBCUs instead all the money goes to the prime to provide assistance in developing and strengthening the HBCUs capabilities for up to 3 years.
The benefit to the HBCU is that it may enable them to perform successfully as a prime or more than likely a subcontractor in support of NASA’s mission. I must note that an HBCU/MI can provide training to the protégé whether they are a HBCU/MI or small business but it must not exceed 25 percent of the total cost of the developmental assistance to be provided. The question is how many Mentors actually utilize HBCUs to perform this service, and if the answer is small then the next question is why?
Which brings me to the conclusion of this blog, are we there yet; the answer is, NO. I believe that in order to get the government contracting community “there” with more awards to HBCUs/MIs the following things must happen:
Education, of the both the universities as well as the prime contractor.
Communication. On multiple occasions, I have heard the university is non-responsive. But lately I have been hearing that the prime contractor's POC doesn’t follow through with their commitment.
Change the mindset of both entities the prime contractor and the university. The prime contractors need to understand how to be patient with an entity that is evolving in a world they have been in and probably built their business upon for a long time. As stated over and over again, the universities need to understand contracts ARE NOT grants.
As I wrap up this year with three more blogs, I will unravel the aforementioned issues and also possibly expand this blog to a podcast. Stay tuned.
Latonia Jones is the chief executive officer of Phenomenal Management Partners, a consulting firm that specializes in creating and implementing business development strategies for academic institutions that conduct research and development for federal government agencies.
