Skyway Wire
Growing as a Contracting Officer
Being a USG contracting officer is a tremendous responsibility. Becoming a warranted contracting officer entails the responsibility of obligating the government to purchase products and services....
Navigating the SOW Process: A Guide to Collaboration Between Program and Contracting Offices
The Statement of Work (SOW) serves as the cornerstone of acquisition success. It is, in essence, the Government’s detailed guide to contractors on how to fulfill the required services....
August 2025 Update
Labor Day marks the unofficial end of Summer. Vacations are over. Kids are back at school. Summer projects are wrapped up (we hope). The week after Labor Day is often when we look up and realize all...
Targeting Federal RFPs? Don’t fish with a net.
Fishing with a cast net here in Florida is fun. In the right place, at the right time of day (and tide), the net is full of surprises: bait fish, a crab or two, a stingray, or even a mullet....
July 2025 Update
The uncertainty continues… To borrow a concept I learned from a Navy SEAL – we are in a VUCA environment. “VUCA” is Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. In Special Operations...
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...