Peraton battles on for lost State contract

Peraton is fighting for a lost contract to support the State Department's Consular Affairs bureau though a variety of services under a $164.7 million contract.

Peraton is fighting for a lost contract to support the State Department in a variety of areas through a $164.7 million contract.

The company is the incumbent but lost the recompete to Vistronix, a division of Arctic Slope Regional Corp., an Alaska Native Corporation. But unlike what you typically see with ANC’s Vistronix isn’t part of any small business set aside programs and competes in the full-and-open arena.

The contract in this dispute was competed as a task order under the NIH CIO SP3 contract. It is known as the Service Delivery Outreach and Operations 2 contract or SDO2. The State Department uses it to support the operations of its Consular Affairs bureau with deployments, program and project management, warehousing and shipping, transitions, training and other services.

Obviously, the work is done global given the mission of the State Department.

In its protest, Peraton argues that Vistronix has a conflict of interest and that evaluation was flawed.

Peraton declined to comment on the grounds of the protest but did say:

“Based on more than two decades of mission support, Peraton believes it proposed the best value, lowest risk solution for the Department of State’s SDO2 contract. We remain committed to addressing the global information technology and training needs of Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs. “

Peraton filed its protest Oct. 2 and a decision from GAO is expected by Jan. 10.