Tuesday, January 22, 2008

CONTRACTS

ARMY

Textron Marine & Land Systems, Textron Inc., New Orleans, La., was awarded on Jan. 18, 2008, a $227,798,613 firm-fixed-price contract for armored
security vehicles. Work will be performed in New Orleans, La., and is expected to be completed by June 30, 2009. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. One bid was solicited on May 9, 2005, and one bid was received. U.S. Army TACOM LCMC, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity W56HZV-05-C-0470.

Walsh Construction Co., Chicago Ill., was awarded on Jan. 14, 2008, a $61,707,000 firm-fixed-price contract for
military housing. Work will be performed in Whitman Air Force Base, Mo., and is expected to be completed by Feb. 9, 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Web bids were solicited on Aug. 17, 2007, and two bids were received. Corps of Engineers, Kansas City, Mo., is the contracting activity W912DQ-08-C-0015.

Global Fleet Sales, Charlottesville, Va., was awarded on Jan. 18, 2008, $39,924,303 firm-fixed-price contract for 383 dump trucks. Work will be performed in Turkey, and is expected to be completed by June 1, 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Web bids were solicited on Aug. 15, 2007, and four bids were received. TACOM, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity W56HZV-08-D-G096.

General Dynamics Lands Systems Division, Sterling Heights, Mich., was awarded on Jan. 18, 2008, a $17,638,923 firm-fixed-price contract for 204 RESET Abrams Integrated Management vehicles. Work will be performed in Lima, Ohio, and is expected to be completed by April 1, 2008. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. One bid was solicited on Sept. 25, 2007, and one bid was received. TACOM, Warren, Mich., is the contracting activity W56HZV-06-G-0006.

IDSC Holding LLC, Kenosha, Wis., was awarded on Jan. 18, 2008, a $7,770,431 firm-fixed-price contract for shop equipment, contact maintenance lightweight tool load and sustainment items. Work will be performed in Kenosha, Wis., and is expected to be completed by March 15, 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. Ten bids were solicited on Nov. 19, 2007, and three bids were received. TACOM, Rock Island, Ill., is the contracting activity DAAE20-03-D-0087.

AIR FORCE

APM, LLC of Yorba Linda, Calif. is being awarded an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract for $50,000,000 (Maximum). This contract is for broad range of maintenance, repair, alteration, and minor construction projects. The Government shall require contractor delivery of specific construction projects by issuance of delivery orders. At this time no funds have been obligated. 20th Contracting Squadron, Shaw
Air Force Base S.C., is the contracting activity (FA4803-08-D-0002).

NAVY

Raytheon Co., Tucson, Ariz., is being awarded an $18,672,992 modification to previously awarded contract (N00024-07-C-5437) for engineering and technical services in support of the MK15 Phalanx Close-In-Weapon System. PHALANX Close-In Weapon System (CIWS) is a fast reaction terminal defense against low and high flying, high-speed maneuvering anti-ship missile threats that have penetrated all other ships' defenses. The CIWS is an integral element of the Fleet Defense In-Depth concept and the Ship Self-Defense Program. Operating either autonomously or integrated with a combat system, it is an automatic terminal defense weapon system designed to detect, track, engage, and destroy anti-ship missile threats penetrating other defense envelopes. PHALANX CIWS is currently installed on approximately 187 USN ships and is in use in 20 foreign navies. Work will be performed in Tucson, Ariz., and is expected to be completed by September 2008. Contract funds in the amount of $3,624,660 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Sea Systems Command, Washington Navy Yard, D.C., is the contracting activity.

McDonnell Douglas Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of The Boeing Co., St. Louis, Mo., is being awarded a $12,476,160 modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract (N00019-04-C-0014). This modification provides for the procurement of ancillary mission equipment for the F/A-18 E/F and E/A-18G aircraft. Work will be performed in Clearwater, Fla. (89 percent); and St. Louis, Mo. (11 percent) and is expected to be completed in November 2009. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md., is the contracting activity.

Intermat, Biddeford, Maine, is being awarded a $12,177,959 cost-plus-fixed-fee completion contract for further research and development to identify materials for use in Shape Stable Nose Tips (SSNT) for the Reentry Systems Applications Program. This contract is for the development of replacement and alternative SSNT materials for both existing
Navy Submarine Launch Ballistic Missile Reentry Systems (MK4 & MK5) and the development and fabrication of thermal protection system materials and components (including nose tips, heat shields, control surfaces and antenna windows) for new/advanced Navy reentry systems and flight test experiments. The performance efforts include engineering studies, material analysis, material fabrication, material processing, and testing. Work will be performed in Biddeford, Maine, and is expected to be completed in January 2013. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured. The Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Division, Dahlgren, Va., is the contracting activity (N00178-08-C-3004).

Defense Department Works to Eliminate Gaps in Medical Care

By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

Jan. 22, 2008 - The trauma care that U.S. servicemembers receive is the best in the world, but the Defense Department must continue to eliminate gaps in the medical process as patients move from DoD facilities to the Department of Veterans Affairs and to private hospitals, a senior Pentagon medical official said. Dr. Stephen L. Jones, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said the
military health system's future hinges on how it will become more efficient and how it will be more transparent to patients and families.

The Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs are working closely together to share medical records, Jones said.

"We have been working to ensure we have secure, global reach of electronic health records," he explained. "The DoD and VA records would be integrated so when you saw that health provider in the VA, he would have access to the records from when the patient first entered the system."

Groups appointed to study the system identified the need to fix seams between military and VA medical care, Jones said.

"All of the task forces and commissions said we needed more integration and cooperation between the DoD and VA, and we've made tremendous strides," he said. "Are we where we need to be? No, because health records are a bit more complicated than financial institutions or airlines and such. Many more components have to be included – radiology, nutrition, provider nodes – all of the various aspects that touch you when you are in the health care field."

Record-sharing may be only the beginning, Jones said. "We are looking, for example, at whether it would behoove us to have one in-patient system that would be used by DoD and the VA," he said. "That study is under way now, and we will have recommendations in March."

Another gap that needs to be closed is between government and private-sector health officials, Jones said. Many private health care providers are not as far along as DoD and VA in keeping electronic patient records, he explained, so the records from a beneficiary's visit to a private physician may not make it into his or her
military medical record.

"We need to build a system that will allow the folks working with patients and
military families access to the records – whether it be DoD, VA, the state or a private institution," Jones said. Private-sector health care providers and the government are working to set information technology standards for health care records, he added.

Improved efficiency in Tricare and other third-party insurance payments is another goal for the military health system, Jones said. He also pointed out that Congress has told the Defense Department to address changes in Tricare cost shares. While private insurance plans are indexed to keep pace with inflation, the cost-share portion of Tricare has not changed since 1996, he explained.

As
military medicine moves forward, more and more work is going into how the system treats traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorders. The department is moving out on these and other aspects of psychological health, Jones said, and Congress has funded additional research into these disorders. "Exciting things are happening and will happen in that area," he said.

The department has added specialists closer to the front to help warriors with psychological wounds. Jones said the
military has come a long way toward eliminating the stigma associated with seeking mental health help, but more needs to be done.

"Let's erase the stigma associated with psychological wounds," he said. "Whether it's a wound to your body or a wound to your mind, it's the same thing. You need to get assistance."

Jones said substandard conditions found at Walter Reed
Army Medical Center last year gave the department "a black eye." He noted that the problems at Walter Reed were not in trauma care, but in follow-on care and administrative processes.

"The department has made tremendous strides in trying to improve the care around the wounded warriors and their families," he said.

At the
Military Health Services annual conference here next week, Jones will host a discussion on the future of military health care. This year's conference theme is "Caring for America's Heroes." More than 3,000 attendees are expected.

The conference is an attempt to communicate ideas throughout the force, and also provides an opportunity for DoD leaders to get input from the field, Jones said.

But it all begins with people, Jones said, and the nation's wounded warriors are in the best possible hands. From the medics and corpsmen on the ground to the doctors at the combat support hospitals to the specialists at Walter Reed and the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md., all are providing the best trauma care in the world, he said.

"Without that team, without that system, we would not be able to do the job that we are doing," Jones said. Servicemembers who would have died of their injuries in the past are now surviving, thanks to the commitment, training and medical know-how of those personnel, he said.

MRAP Production Facility Demonstrates Industry's Commitment

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

Jan. 22, 2008 - As Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was just a few miles away in Charleston last week, praising American industry for galvanizing to support deployed troops, modern-day "Rosie the Riveters" here were working around the clock moving mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles through the production line. The factory floor at Force Protection Industries, one of the biggest MRAP producers, buzzed with activity keeping up with demand for the vehicles Gates called "a proven lifesaver on the battlefield."

The secretary spent Jan. 18 touring the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, where teams install radios, sensors, jammers and other equipment in MRAPs fresh off the assembly lines before shipping them to Iraq and Afghanistan. Gates compared workers there, who like those at Force Protection Industries are working 24-7 to speed MRAP deliveries to the combat theater, to their
World War II-era predecessors and praised the nearly unprecedented cooperation he said is enabling the MRAP acquisition effort he moved to the fast track to succeed.

"This has been a team effort, with many moving parts in the
military and industry (and) elsewhere in the private sector," he said. "Suppliers of steel, tires and other materials have stepped up, as have manufacturers – firms in the United States and in 10 foreign countries."

"Since
World War II, this really is the largest mobilization of industry to support the military that anyone has ever seen," agreed Tommy Pruitt, public relations director at Force Protection Industries.

Pruitt pointed to the broad range of players involved: steel mills, automotive component manufacturers, parts fabricators and others. "They really have mobilized the country to do what's best for the troops," he said.

Support for deployed warfighters supersedes political beliefs about the war, Pruitt said.

"There's an understanding that if we're going to send these folks to do a job, we have to make sure they have the equipment they need to do it," he said. "When it's time for them to come home, let them come home. But we need to make sure they come home the way we sent them. So there's a sense of urgency about getting MRAPs into the hands of the people who need them."

One would be pressed to find more concrete evidence of that collaboration or sense of purpose than on the production lines at Force Protection Industries.

Since the company's founding in 2001, when it began building Buffalo route-clearing vehicles and Cougar engineer vehicles – the first MRAPs – its work force has grown exponentially and its output has skyrocketed, Pruitt said.

Production began picking up in 2005 and "really ramped up in 2006," when the company produced about 300 MRAPs. By 2007, that number had increased more than three-fold. Force Protection Industries celebrated the roll-out of its 1,000th Cougar vehicle in November. And while he hasn't yet seen fourth-quarter production numbers for 2007, Pruitt said, the year's overall MRAP production figures will reach "well over 1,000."

Pruitt said he expects that trend to continue. Force Protection Industries, along with two other major MRAP manufacturers -- International
Military and Government and BAE Systems Land and Armaments, are under contract to produce almost 12,000 more MRAPs.
Churning out those vehicles at Force Protection Industries is a work force that's grown from about 10 in 2001 to more than 1,500 today. In addition to ramping up its work force and production capabilities, Force Protection Industries did something almost unheard-of among competing defense contractors to ensure it could keep up with demand, he said. It entered into a partnership with General Dynamics so the two companies could share resources and technical know-how to speed up production.

"That's not always normal for defense contractors to work together like that," Pruitt said. "But in this case, everything that's being done is for the benefit of that soldier or
Marine or sailor or airman. We're all working together because we want people to be able to come home to their families, ... and we want them to be able to come back in one piece to the same quality of life they had before they deployed."

The MRAP's distinctive V-shaped hull that deflects underbelly blasts has proven to be a lifesaver in protecting troops from improvised explosive devices. Until this past weekend, not a single servicemember in an MRAP had been lost to an IED. That perfect track record was broken Jan. 19 when an MRAP operating south of Baghdad was attacked by a powerful, deeply-buried IED, and its gunner was killed. Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters today the attack only reaffirmed the MRAP's survivability.

"The powerful blast did not penetrate the crew compartment, but the force of the explosion blew the MRAP into the air and caused it to overturn," Morrell said. It's not yet known whether the gunner, who was perched atop the vehicle, died from the explosion or the rollover.

What is clear, Morrell said, is that the three soldiers inside the vehicle escaped without life-threatening injuries. "Commanders on the ground estimate they would not have been so fortunate had they been traveling in a less-armored vehicle," he said. Stories like this motivate workers at Force Protection Industries as they work two shifts a day, six and sometimes seven days a week to keep up with the demand for MRAPs, Pruitt said.

"We love hearing back from
Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen who write to thank us saying, 'This vehicle saved my life,'" he said. The company circulates e-mails it gets from deployed troops and posts notes they send in the break room. "We share these stories with every employee who works here," Pruitt said.

Earlier this month, a
military medic just back from Iraq who was passing through Charleston gave the factory a call and asked if he could stop by to thank the workers personally. "He said the Buffalo had saved his life 13 times," Pruitt said. "His call just came out of the blue, but that happens a lot with this company.

"That's really why we're here," Pruitt said. "And that's why industry has mobilized the way it has, because of stories like that."

Workers on the production line said they get genuine satisfaction knowing they're making a difference for troops in harm's way. Rachel Blouch, a 21st-century version of
World War II's Rosie the Riveter, put her welding torch aside to say she feels a personal connection to deployed troops.

"It feels good working here, knowing that I'm helping make safe vehicles for them," said Blouch, who's married to
Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Bradley Blouch.

"There's a big sense of pride in this job," agreed Ryan Griffin, a former Marine who joined the Force Protection Industries work force about six months ago. "I've got a few friends over there. The work we're doing here could save my buddies. And even if I don't know them, they're still family."