The Department of Energy’s Office of Environmental Management is issuing a no-bid contract to the minority-owned firm, Career Communications Group, to give the nuclear cleanup branch a presence at a black engineering conference later this month and help the office improve outreach to technically-savvy minority recruits.
The DOE’s Cincinnati-based Environmental Management (EM) Consolidated Business Center plans to use the Black Engineer of the Year/STEM conference Feb. 17-19 in Washington D.C. for recruitment and workshop services, according to a Feb. 2 notice posted on a DOE procurement website.
The conference is coordinated by Baltimore-based Career Communications Group, which has been working with big corporations and government agencies for over 30 years, on recruiting and retaining top minorities with needed technology skills, according to the company’s website.
“Over 10,000 of the Nation’s top STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] performers are expected to be in attendance,” according to the Notice of Intent to Award a Sole Source contract. Through participation in the event, the DOE will gain exposure to industry leading professionals, recent graduates, and soon-to-graduate students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU).
The notice also says DOE will be provided with resume matching services “in order to connect with the right attendees at the conference.”
An accompanying procurement justification notice said a $20,000 partnership with Career Communications Group will provide the DOE office with better “brand awareness that enables us to recruit diverse talent at all employment levels.”
The Career Communications Group will also connect the Environmental Management office with the deans of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) accredited (HBCU), which produce more than a third of the nation’s black engineering graduates every year.
Increasing workforce diversity has been a frequently-stated goal of President Joe Biden and Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm.
Anyone wishing to comment on whether holding a competitive procurement in the future would be in the best interest of the government should provide feedback by 4 p.m. Eastern Time Thursday, Feb. 10, by emailing contract specialist Christopher Nettle at [email protected].
