Skyway Wire
What the US Government Buys – Part 3
Buying Services The Government buys many types of services. Examples of services include facility support services (e.g., janitorial or food service), administrative support, engineering, and...
What the US Government Buys – Part 2
Previously, I discussed the four basic things the government purchases: Research and Development (R&D), Services, Hardware, and Construction. Purchasing products, from pencils to nuclear...
What the US Government Buys – Part 1
While the Federal Government spends billions annually through contracts with industry, many products and services are purchased, from pencils to spaceships. Most people don't understand that the...
Don’t Drop the Pre-Holiday RFP
As a contracting officer, I remember dropping RFPs on my way out the door for lots of holidays: 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and yes, gulp, even before the Christmas Holiday. In my defense,...
June 2025 Update
The Word of the Year for 2025 could be ‘uncertainty’. Between the FAR, the economy, the politics, the weather, and the global conflicts, there is a general sense of angst about what...
Contracting Officer Communication – What the FAR Now Allows
As a young contracting officer, it was drilled into my head that conversations with contractors were very dangerous. The reason was that any conversation with one contractor could lead to other...
May 2025 Update
In last month’s wire, I mentioned that the volatility in GovCon was starting to settle down a bit…“just a bit”. It looks like I spoke too soon. Not only is the volatility in the economy ramped back...
What?! That’s in my contract?
“What?! That’s in my contract?” That is not a phrase any contractor wants to say. However, that’s exactly what a small business owner realized after I reviewed his contract a few weeks ago. I...
April 2025 Update
As we roll through the 2nd quarter of FY2025, we’re starting to see some of the volatility in GovCon settle down a bit…just a bit though. Some agencies are still in turmoil, the economy as a whole...
Elevate your Results with Functional GovCon Fitness©
What is Functional Physical Fitness Functional Physical Fitness is the ability to safely perform daily physical activities. The idea is to have enough general fitness that we can do more and get...
The FAR is a Rule Book, not a play book.
Every sport has a rule book. It’s hard to win if we don’t know the rules. The pro baseball rulebook is less than 200 pages. The pro football rulebook is less than 100 pages…and within both are an...
The Thinking Part of the (Job)
I enjoy government contracting. The point of a government contract is to meet the mission of the agency through leveraging the resources from the private sector. Contracts do not exist to exist....
GovCon and Tariffs
Tariffs are a tax on goods that enter the country. They are not new. In 1913, the Underwood Tariff Act essentially moved us from using tariffs to raise taxes and instead use federal income tax. This...
March 2025 Update
Government contracting is going through a refresh cycle. That means we all see a lot of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. History buffs may recognize this as “VUCA” (pronounced...
Get Curious before you get Furious (Don’t Curse the Darkness Part IV)
This is the next installment of this post: Navigating the Fog of GovCon Ok, confession time. I got sucked into the flow of the river of news yesterday and ending up following one yet another...
Longest Running GovCon Podcast Reaches 500th Episode
Contracting Officer Podcast Continues to Bring Context to both sides of Government Contracting Clearwater, FL – February 18, 2025 – On March 7, 2025, the Contracting Officer Podcast will...