The Energy Department has yet to issue a notice to proceed to the new services contractor selected late last year for the Hanford Site in Washington state, Leidos-led Hanford Mission Integration Solutions (HMIS).
Typically, most new vendors receive the notice to start transition shortly after either winning the award or prevailing in any protest against the contract.
Since late March, most Energy Department sites including Hanford, have dramatically cut staffing levels, curtailed non-essential travel, and limited non-essential travel, in order to limit the spread of COVID-19.
The notice marks the start of transition to a new vendor. Given the COVID-19 pandemic, the Energy Department is still considering when to do that, an agency official said in an email this week.
Transition can be an elaborate process that typically involves multiple face-to-face-meetings between representatives of the exiting and incoming vendors. It can also entail “all hands” meetings with groups of workers as they transfer from one employer to another, an industry representative said Tuesday.
“It would be very difficult” to do all of the typical transition work virtually, the source said. There are commonly physical inspections or “walkdowns” of site facilities when a contract passes from one vendor to another, the industry source said.
A large part of the transition work, such as issuing offer letters to members of the current workforce, can be done electronically, said a second industry source. But the asset inspections are traditionally done on-site, that person acknowledged. The Energy Department is planning to return to more normal staffing in coming weeks and could simply wait until then to start transition, sources said.
A third industry source noted that one vendor transition was actually completed this year during the pandemic, albeit just as DOE sites were switching to minimal operations. Pro2Serve subsidiary Enterprise Technical Assistance Services (E-TAS) commenced its transition on April 1, taking over as technical services provider for the Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office.
That technical support contract is much smaller, $136 million, compared to a potential $4 billion site support service contract at Hanford. The E-TAS transition also started by Feb. 1, before the Energy Department started to familiarize itself with COVID-19 and strategies to prevent its spread.
Other than agreeing no notice to proceed has been issued, the current and incoming Hanford site support vendors largely deferred comment to DOE.
Other members of the venture, which won potential 10-year, $4 billion contract in December and last month withstood a protest from a losing bidder, are Centerra Group and Parsons Government Services. North Wind is a key subcontractor.
The new group has much common ownership with incumbent contractor Mission Support Alliance, which is comprised of Leidos and Centerra. The incumbent is currently scheduled to stay on until Nov. 25 – although it could leave earlier depending on when DOE starts the 120-day transition period.
The new Hanford support services team overcame a bid protest filed with GAO by a venture led by Huntington Ingalls Industries. “We are disappointed that GAO’s decision appears to be inconsistent with some of the facts discussed in the decision” in April, HII spokeswoman Beci Brenton said in a statement Thursday. Huntington Ingalls remains a “committed partner” to DOE, she added. The company is currently a minority partner on legacy cleanup at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
The Hanford services contractor provides landlord-type services including recordkeeping, road maintenance, and site security. The award has a five-year base period, including the transition, followed by a potential option period of three years and a second option for two years.
