GovCIO wins $865M CENTCOM communications contract
Gettyimages.com / Harvepino
By
Ross Wilkers
GovCIO unseats an incumbent to take over the work across Central Command's area of responsibility, which covers 20 countries and 90,000 U.S. government personnel.
GovCIO has won a potential seven-year, $865 million contract to act as the main provider of technical support services for Central Command's communications functions.
The Air Force received five bids for the contract that includes an initial five-year base period followed by a pair of individual option years to be awarded on an incentive basis, the Pentagon said in its Friday awards digest.
CENTCOM's area of responsibility includes the Southwest Asia region, where most of the work will take place. At least 90,000 uniformed military personnel and civilian employees are stationed across the 20 countries that CENTCOM operates in.
Proposals for this fifth iteration of the Communication Technical Support Services vehicle were due in May 2023. GovCIO's win also represents a takeaway that unseats incumbent General Dynamics IT, which won the current CTSS III contract in 2015 at an approximate $600 million ceiling.
The path to what is now CTSS V involved an outright cancellation of what was CTSS IV, which the Defense Information Systems Agency awarded to Trace Systems in the fall of 2021.
DISA subsequently pulled back the award in response to three protests including that of Salient CRGT (acquired by GovCIO in 2021), then ended the CTSS IV solicitation entirely in the spring of 2022 and transferred the solicitation back to the Air Force.
The Air Force relaunched the effort with an initial sources sought notice in the fall of 2022 and then a solicitation in March 2023, but evidently skipped the number four and went with five instead.
GovCIO will take over the responsibility of integration, installation, operations and maintenance, and sustainment work in support of CENTCOM's entire communications environment.