Some time before the new year, the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is scheduled to award a new protective forces contract to guard its Albuquerque Complex at the Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, N.M.
The three-year contract will include a one-year base period and two single-year options, according to a Nov. 19 solicitation from the semiautonomous Department of Energy nuclear weapons agency. Bidding closed last week.
The new deal will be a couple years shorter than the one the NNSA cut in 2014 for incumbent Whitestone Group, of Reynoldsburg, Ohio.
Work under the new contract is scheduled to begin on Jan. 19, after a three-week transition, according to answers the NNSA published last week in response to questions from prospective bidders.
The contract covers patrolling and guarding the complex that is effectively the NNSA’s western administrative headquarters. The group of about a dozen buildings encompasses mostly classified, limited-access facilities that hold just over 1,000 federal and contract employees.
The contract was open for bids from small businesses. The value of the contract would not be determined until the NNSA selects a winning bid.
Whitestone did not reply to an email requesting comment on whether it is bidding on the follow-on award. The incumbent’s deal is worth just over $4 million.
The next contract will spread more than 36,000 annual hours across 11 different positions, according to the solicitation. The NNSA did not reply to a request for comment about the staffing requirements of the current contract.
In the question-and-answer exchange with the agency, one interested party said “the manpower requirement under this new [solicitation] is much greater than the manpower requirement under the previous contract.”
The NNSA’s Albuquerque Complex is located near the Kirtland Underground Munitions and Maintenance Storage Complex: a massive secure facility that houses nuclear weapons on their way to and from servicing elsewhere in the country. The Air Force, not the NNSA, is responsible for the storage complex.
