BRAC Work Continues At Fort Sam Houston For Eaton

The last round of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) act in the United States moved to consolidate development and training centers. One base that is gaining from this policy is Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, TX. Because it was decided to move most of the military’s medical training to this location much work is being done to expand the facilities there. Eaton Corporation received a further contract addition worth $8 million.

The contract is for electrical services and parts to support the construction of the required facilities. One key component of this is a 425 bed hospital that Eaton Corp. has been working on.

INTELLIGENCE AND LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS TO LEAD INSIDER’S GUIDE CAREER WEBINAR SERIES — Press Release

INTELLIGENCE AND LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS TO LEAD INSIDER’S GUIDE CAREER WEBINAR SERIES

Henley-Putnam Faculty Offers Guidance On Careers in Law Enforcement, Intelligence, Counterterrorism, and Protection

(San Jose, CA, November 3, 2009) – As part of a new, exclusive series, former intelligence and federal law enforcement officers who are faculty members of Henley-Putnam University will host free “Insider’s Guide” webinars to discuss education and career opportunities in federal law enforcement, intelligence, terrorism and counterterrorism, and personal protection. The series launches November 12th at 11am PST with the Insider’s Guide to Careers in Federal Law Enforcement webinar, led by Colonel Michael Angley, former U.S. Air Force Special Agent and Public Relations Officer for Henley-Putnam University.

The webinar series presents an opportunity for those interested in Strategic Security careers to benefit from the unique, hands-on experience of Henley-Putnam’s faculty, comprised of former members of the CIA, Secret Service, FBI, and intelligence and federal law enforcement community.

“Our professors are seasoned professionals who are passionate and knowledgeable about their fields and dedicated to preparing professionals to protect and serve this country,” said Dr. Michael Corcoran, Henley-Putnam president and former U.S. Secret Service agent. “The webinars are designed to offer an insider’s perspective on Strategic Security careers that is really only available from those who have experienced them first-hand. It is the entire premise of Henley-Putnam University.”

During the webinar on November 12th, Col. Angley will provide an overview of the law enforcement community; what it means to be a federal agent; a breakdown of agencies and career options within the field; significant changes to law enforcement following the attacks of September 11, 2001; essential qualifications and skills required by each agency; the best educational and degree options available; and benefits and tuition reimbursement available per the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

“The terrorist attacks of 9/11 brought about significant changes to the structure, organization, and responsibilities of the various federal law enforcement agencies,” said Col. Angley. “With this transformation came thousands of new opportunities for demanding and rewarding jobs. I hope my webinar will better acquaint people the overall federal LEO community as well as help them prepare for a career among its ranks.”

An Insider’s Guide to Careers in Law Enforcement will take place on November 12th from 11:00am – 11:45am PST. Those interested in participating in the webinar should register at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/998553210. The webinar is open to the public and completely free of charge.

Upcoming webinars in the series will provide insider’s information on preparing for and entering careers in intelligence, counterterrorism, and personal protection. Registration information will be announced in the coming weeks and available on Henley-Putnam’s Web site at www.Henley-Putnam.edu.

The webinar series is one of many career resources offered by Henley-Putnam University. The university’s mentoring program assigns degree students with a high-level faculty or an expert mentor to support them in making career decisions. In addition, through its online career portal (www.Henley-Putnam.edu/715-286-d714.htm), Henley-Putnam helps students research careers, explore university programs, prepare for a job search (i.e., develop resume and cover letter), locate potential employers and gain basic knowledge of the Strategic Security field.

Henley-Putnam is a leading, accredited, online university offering degree programs and certificates in Intelligence Management, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Studies, and the Management of Personal Protection. Additionally, the university offers a doctorate degree in Strategic Security, a multidisciplinary approach to understanding security at the local, national, and global level.

For more information on Henley-Putnam University’s certificate and degree programs, please call admissions at 888.852.8746 or visit www.Henley-Putnam.edu.

ABOUT COLONEL MICHAEL ANGLEY

In addition to serving as public relations officer for Henley-Putnam University, Colonel Michael Angley is the award-winning author of the Child Finder Trilogy (http://www.childfinder.us). He retired from the Air Force in 2007 following a 25-year career as a Special Agent with the Office of Special Investigations (OSI). Col Angley has an M.A. in National Security Affairs from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA, and a B.A. in Criminal Justice and Psychology from King’s College, Wilkes-Barre, PA. He is a former National Defense Fellow and Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Florida International University, Miami, FL, and is an Honor Graduate of the Defense Language Institute’s Korean language program.

ABOUT HENLEY-PUTNAM UNIVERSITY

Founded in August 2001, Henley-Putnam University is a leading educational institution in the field of Strategic Security. The University offers accredited online Bachelor, Master of Science Degrees in Intelligence Management, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Studies, and the Management of Personal Protection, a Doctoral Degree Program in Strategic Security, and most recently added new Certificate Programs. Henley-Putnam prepares law enforcement, military, intelligence community, and private industry professionals with the network, skills, and insights to advance in their careers and protect the future. Henley-Putnam University, which is committed to building a student and alumni network that will serve its community, is an accredited member of DETC (www.detc.org) and offers 125 courses taught by hands-on faculty members from renowned organizations such as the CIA and FBI. For more information on Henley-Putnam University, call 888.852.8746.

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AGILITY WINS USAID FOOD ASSISTANCE CONTRACT — Press Release

AGILITY WINS USAID FOOD ASSISTANCE CONTRACT

STRATFORD, Conn., Oct. 22, 2009 – Agility Defense & Government Services (DGS), a leading provider of logistics and supply chain services, won a contract to manage the receipt, warehousing and re-export of food aid and commodities for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

The contract is an Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity award with a one-year base and four one-year options. The potential value of the contract is $10 million a year, or $50 million over five years.

Under the first task order, valued at $4 million, Agility DGS will receive and store food aid at Jacintoport in Houston in preparation for shipment to Djibouti Free Zone in Djibouti, Africa. Agility DGS will be responsible for receipt, warehousing and movement at both locations.

In addition, Agility DGS can be called on to provide regionally based pre-position warehousing in Durban, South Africa; Lome, Togo; Mombasa, Kenya; and Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The USAID award is part of the strategic diversification of Agility DGS. DGS is successfully performing logistics work for international institutions by offering supply chain services in support of humanitarian, stabilization and peacekeeping efforts in Africa and elsewhere.

About Agility Defense & Government Services

Agility Defense & Government Services is the public sector arm of Agility. It provides complete supply chain management, logistics services and commodity services to defense and government customers. With more than 550 offices in 120 countries, Agility DGS and its parent offer a vast network of global land, sea and air transportation capabilities, including warehousing and storage.

For more information, contact Jim Cox, Agility DGS vice president of public affairs and marketing, at +1.703.417.6050 or at jcox@agilitylogistics.com, or visit www.agilitylogistics.com.

AVI BioPharma Gets Contract To Work On Counters To Possible Biological WMD

The United States Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) awarded AVI BioPharma a contract to work on a drug to counter the Junin virus. There are concerns that this virus could be weaponized and used as a biological agent. The contract is worth over $11 million.

The contract is part of a program to develop measures to protect U.S. troops and civilians from Junin, Ebola and the Marburg viruses. AVI BioPharma Inc. is a company based in Washington state that is working on drugs based on RNA. They are also working on treatments for “muscular dystrophy and for the treatment of cardiovascular restenosis” as well as various viruses like Junin.

Obviously over the last several years the U.S. Government is concerned with treating populations as well as their military and civil servants fro these kind of diseases. Not only are their operations in parts of the world where these are more common Ebola and other blood diseases are a threat for use as a WMD. There will probably be many other contracts for this kind of work awarded over the next few decades.

Contractors Good For Something — Being A Force Mulitplier In Afghanistan

For the last eight years one of the biggest complaints from the American left was that George Bush was in the sway of big government contractors. They did too much of the housekeeping services in Iraq and Afghanistan. Companies like KBR lined their pockets at the expense of the troops and taxpayers. They were doing jobs that green suiters or civil servants should be doing.

Unfortunately due to the small size of the military they had to use contractors for those jobs. This has been a trend going back thirty years. Use contractors to wash clothes, cook food and clean latrines. Then there would be more soldiers freed up to do the fighting. Despite a consistent philosophy on the use of support contractors Bush received holy hell about it. True the scale in Iraq was much larger then it ever had been before and the contracts were in some case let quickly and didn’t have enough oversight but people were trying to get things done.

Now the word is that Obama wants to increase the number of foot soldiers in Afghanistan but without increasing the number of U.S. troops deployed to that country. One way to do this is to reduce the number of soldiers assigned to logistic support units, command headquarters, maintenance and so one and do a one-for-one swap with “trigger pullers”. How do you do this and still provide the enormous tail that U.S. forces need? Use contractors.

It might be possible to assign U.S. civil servants to do this but there have been many issues in the past with getting them to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is too dangerous or not career enhancing. Certainly there is a number of people assigned or who volunteer for these positions but to get the kind of capability that is needed it will have to be contractors. Contractors like KBR or other such companies experienced in logistics and maintenance.

This will not be an easy or quick switch. The ground troops will have to be designated from either those in Iraq or in the U.S. recovering from a recent deployment. Then they will have to be trained and equipped up. A plan will be figured out how to deploy a 1000 support troops and replace them with a battalion of infantry. The support infrastructure will probably have to switch first. Contractors taking over for the rear echelon folks.

Another challenge will be writing and awarding the contracts for this. Unless they plan on expanding existing contracts there will be a several month period of writing the RFP, putting it out and evaluating the proposals. Awards may be protested which could add to the delays. Once awarded the contractors will have to hire their people and get them into place. Expect the almost constant sniping from Congress and the Media about this. See the LOGCAP contract from Iraq for example.

The Obama administration really cannot do anything else. They have reached the fish-or-cut-bait point. Either abandon Afghanistan or pour resources in. At the same time he does not want to “surge” troops there as that will make him and many Democrats look like idiots for opposing the same in Iraq. So he does the next best thing: surge contractors to maximize his troop availability. Good luck to them and the soldiers.

Cross posted at Inane Taskers

U.S. Procures Anthrax Treatment

Human Genome Sciences delivered the first batch of human monoclonal antibody drug ABthrax to the Federal government for storage in case of an out break of anthrax. PRNewswire.com hosts the press release. This is the first contract under the Project BioShield program to deliver a product since 9/11. ABthrax attacks the anthrax toxins in the users blood stream so it can be used post attack and may be more effective then antibiotics. The U.S. government has put a lot of time and effort into developing counters to possible WMD biological weapons, and since anthrax has been used once is one of their focus areas.

U.S. Invests in Water Born Pathogen Detection with ADT

Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc. (ADT) was awarded a contract by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to develop real-time sensors for water born contaminants. Water Technology Online discusses the award here. The full press release for the award is available as well. The contract is worth almost $5 million and will utilize ADT’s nanostructured diamond material to build the sensors. The University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) are collaborating with the company on the program. The goal is to make small sensors that can be used by field personnel to quickly identify and classify the threat in the water.

Telos Awarded Army Biometrics Operations Support Services Contract – Press Release

$497 Million Value Contract Will Include Biometrics Services, Supplies, and Related Hardware and Software

ASHBURN, Va. – January 12, 2009 – The U.S. Army has awarded Telos® Corporation a contract to provide the biometrics services, supplies, and related hardware and software required to assist the Biometrics Task Force, an Army executive agency, as it seeks to develop an enterprise-wide biometrics infrastructure for the DoD.

The Biometrics Operations and Support Services Unrestricted (BOSS-U) contract, a new award worth as much as $497 million, will run for a three-year base period with two, one-year option periods. The multiple-award, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quality (IDIQ) contract has a total of 12 prime contractors that will compete for task orders for both general support and targeted tasks.

The Biometrics Task Force leads DoD activities to program, integrate, and synchronize biometric technologies and capabilities and to operate and maintain the department’s authoritative biometric database in support of the National Security Strategy.

“This contract signifies an important win for Telos because it will give us the opportunity to demonstrate new capabilities that can be fielded in support of the premier organization dedicated to protecting the nation through the employment of biometrics,” said Robert Brandewie, Senior Vice President of Identity and Security Solutions for Telos. “We plan to draw on the capabilities for infrastructure development demonstrated under the Air Force’s NETCENTS contract vehicle, under which Telos is a prime contractor, as we bring cutting-edge solutions to our DoD customers under this contract.”

About Telos Corporation

Telos Corporation has provided innovative IT solutions and services to the federal government for more than 30 years, focusing since 1989 on secure enterprise solutions. Telos solutions ensure that the government’s most security-conscious organizations comply with demanding federal and DoD information security mandates. Offerings include Xacta® IA Manager for enterprise IT security management, enterprise security consulting services, secure networks, secure enterprise messaging, and secure identity management solutions. Solutions are represented to the federal government on Telos’ GSA schedule. For more information, visit http://www.telos.com/.

Australian health care system awards IBM contract

IBM was awarded a contract to extend their services in support of the Australian health care system. The $70 M (Australian) effort will provide internet transactions in support of all aspects of the system by connecting doctors, patients, hospitals and pharmacies. IBM provides the mainframe and support services necessary for the system to process the transactions. This is yet another illustration that IT support and services are a big part of all government and defense spending.

See the press release at Networkworld.com.

DoD buys vaccines

The Department of Defense plans to buy vaccine technology for protection against three bacterial infectious diseases. Syntiron LLC who through a sister company manufactures animal vaccines has been working with the Federal Government to develop and adapt this technology for human vaccines. The tree targeted diseases are anthrax, a variant of the plague and a highly mortal bacterial infection spread through water. The contract is worth almost $4 M and reflects the greater emphasis on protective measures against WMD.

See the press release at PharmaLive.com.

US Department of Defense contracts for dentists

The DoD awarded United Concordia Companies, Inc. a five year contract worth over $600 M contract to provide dental care for active duty US military members. The contract provides special dental services to US military who have access to a dental clinic on their base, or general services to those who do not. The contract also requires the company to track the dental health of the members to make sure that they meet deployment requirements. The US Military has over the last thirty years moved to out sourcing a great deal of their medical care for retirees, dependents and members due to the growth in requirements and cost.

See a press release at MarketWatch.com.

US awards threat reduction contract for Former Soviet states

October 14, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Black & Veatch, Contract Awards, DTRA, logistics, medicine 

Black and Veatch won a contract from the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to provide services to Ukraine in the area of defenses against bioterrorism and bio weapon proliferation.  The contract is worth $175 M and is part of much larger contract worth up to $4 B.  Black and Veatch has worked with DTRA for several years in the Former Soviet Union (FSU) on threat reduction.

For more see The Kansas City Business Journal.

National Cancer Institue contracts for basic research

September 29, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Contract Awards, S&T, SAIC, development program, medicine 

The National Cancer Institute contracted with SAIC to run the Federal Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) in Frederick, MD. The 3 year contract will allow SAIC to conduct basic research on cancer and HIV cures and treatments. While SAIC is known primarily for supporting the US military they have been doing this work for over 10 years.

See the press release at IT News Online.

Army contracts for emergancy equipment certification

September 29, 2008 by Matthew Potter · Comment
Filed under: Contract Awards, SoBran, U.S. Army, logistics, medicine 

The US Army signed a five year contract with SoBran to provide testing and certification of chemical protection equipment. The work will be done at the Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center. SoBran is a leading expert in design and engineering to defend against chemical and biological attacks. Under this contract they will test and certify breathing apparatus used to act in contaminated environments. While the threat moving from large scale types of attack on the battlefield to potential limited terrorist attacks there is still a need for this type of equipment.

See MarketWatch.com for the press release.

Further contract for Cleveland BioLabs

Cleveland BioLabs, who won a DoD contract earlier this year, was awarded a further contract from the US Department of Health and Human Services to work on their drug to counter the effects of radiation exposure. This contract is worth over $13 M and builds on the $9 M one from earlier this year.

For more see Buffalo Business First here.

DoD awards TRICARE omnibus contract

General Dynamics was one 23 companies awarded a possible right to get work under a large ID/IQ contract for planning and support. See a press release here. The contract if all options are exercised could be worth up to $5 B. Like all of these contracts, though, there is no guarantee that any company will get work, or that any will actually be exercised. This contract again demonstrates that DoD is paying a great deal of money to support its soldiers, retirees and dependents.

DoD invests in automated medical diagnostic equipment

CombiMatrix received a contract from DoD to continue development of hand-held diagnostic equipment for use in the field. See the press release here. The contract is worth over $900 K. DoD as well as other government agencies are evaluating products based on CombiMatrix’s systems to detect bacteriological and chemical systems. This contract builds upon those earlier efforts.

DoD buys drugs

Express Scripts corporation was awarded a one year contract with four option years to provide prescriptions to DoD members, retirees and dependents. See an article here. If the full value of the contract is executed it will be worth about $2.8 B. DoD has been moving steadily to outsource a great deal of its medical care over the last thirty years and this is a continued part of that. This is continuation of work that Express Scripts has been doing since 2004.

DoD awards health care management contract to Axiom Resource Management

Axiom Resource Management announced that the DoD had awarded it and its partners a contract to support the management of the military health care program. See the press release here. The contract is a 10 year ID/IQ with one base and 9 option years. No value was given. This shows that the DoD spends money on a lot more things then just boots, bullets and beans. This is in many ways is a logistics function – providing your soldiers, their dependents and your retirees quality health care. This is key to maintaining the force as it is a benefit that attracts people. Of course, screw up the medical care of these people and it significantly effects morale, retention and recruiting.

Cleveland BioLabs Loses Out to Osiris For Radiation Treatment Contract

As we reported earlier today, Osiris Therapeutics won a Department of Defense contract to develop a treatment for radiation sickness. Unfortunately, Osiris’s gain was Cleveland BioLabs’ loss. Cleveland’s “shares plummeted nearly 60% after the Buffalo, N.Y., company’s proposed treatment for the gastrointestinal effects of radiation sickness, Protectan CBLB502, wasn’t chosen.” More details at The Street.

Osiris Therapeutics wins contract for development of radiation treatment

The Department of Defense awarded Osiris Therapuetics a contract that might be worth $224 M dollars to utilize a stem-cell therapy drug to treat radiation caused gastrointestinal injuries. See CNNMoney.com story here. The initial funding of $4 M is to develop the treatment, with another $200 M possible if the DoD decides to purchase units. This is an example of how diverse DoD spending is. It is not just for bullets, beans, gas and soldiers.

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