FBI hires 10 for tech services

FBI officials recently selected 10 small businesses as prime contractors for a technical support and development project, and they have issued the first task orders under the contract.

The indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract, awarded last month, has a potential value of $42.5 million during a five-year period. It covers various operational information technology support services including: information assurance, cybersecurity, configuration management, technology policy and planning, maintenance, upgrades, Web integration, and application development. The small-business team will support financial management, investigative, intelligence and electronic document management systems.

Vendors chosen include: McDonald Bradley Inc.; Pragmatics Inc.; Alphainsight Corp.; Comso Inc.; Data Computer Corp. of America; Innovative Management and Technology Approaches Inc.; InfoPro Inc.; Staffing Alternatives Inc.; Glotech Inc.; and Project Performance Corp.

"The FBI's Technical Support and Development Project is a standard contracting vehicle in which numerous businesses apply to provide specific technical skill sets to the FBI," according to a bureau spokesperson. "The FBI utilizes these experts to further our information technology transformation."

McDonald Bradley leads a team of seven partners that will perform work at the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., and other FBI-designated facilities. All staff working on the project will hold top-secret clearance credentials, said Kenneth Bartee, the Herndon, Va.-based company's president and chief executive officer. He added that he expects to have more than 40 employees dedicated to the FBI work once all the tasks are moving and the bureau gets past the current transition phase.

Bartee said the companies were notified of the win about three weeks ago and FBI officials have already issued 10 task orders, mostly for operations and maintenance of existing systems.

"There's no new development work in the first 10 tasks," he said, adding that maintenance tasks include financial management and agent field support systems, among other responsibilities.

McDonald Bradley responded to two of the requests and expects the FBI to award the task orders this week, he said. "It's moving pretty quickly from contract to award," Bartee said.

The project is a continuation of previous IT procurements targeted at small businesses, Bartee said. He added that not only did all 10 prime contractors have to be small businesses, so did all of the team members.

Once new development work begins in areas such as information sharing, the small businesses will be able to show the FBI some state-of-the-art technologies that "big integrators are slow to bring to the table," Bartee said.

Caterinicchia is a freelance writer based in the Washington, D.C., area.