Bid protest pits challenger versus incumbent
By
Nick Wakeman
ManTech and and a small business incumbent are both fighting for a $50 million Army training contract that a new joint venture has captured twice.
ManTech International and a small business, Research Analysis & Maintenance Inc., are embroiled in a bid protest fight for an Army training contract to support the Operational Test Command at Fort Hood in Texas.
The $50 million contract was originally awarded in April to Combined Technical Services LLC, a joint venture formed by Westech International and Trax International.
ManTech and Research Analysis & Maintenance, which goes by the acronym RAM, filed separate protests shortly after the award was made.
According to Deltek, RAM of El Paso, Texas, is the incumbent on the contract and has pulled in $191 million in task orders since 2007. The solicitation for the new contract says that the contract has a ceiling of $50 million over three years.
The Army withdrew the award to Combined Technical Services, so the Government Accountability Office dismissed the protests.
In November, ManTech and RAM again filed protests presumably after the Army awarded the contract again to Combined Technical Services.
This week, GAO again dismissed the protests. So, it looks like the Army is again taking a second look at its award decision.
Interestingly, Combined Technical Services was formed solely to support the test command at Fort Hood, according to its website.
The joint venture makes no bones about going after an incumbent contract, saying that it “looks forward to meeting with all incumbent employees.”
The contract in the dispute is for data management, data collection, instrumentation and logistics support to “operational tests events,” according to the solicitation.