A big pay day for a whistleblower from a major government contractor
The White House is creating a new permanent office to fight COVID-19 and all future pandemics. The Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy will take over current…
Marketing strategies to boost small businesses
This week on Amtower Off Center, host Mark Amtower is joined by business strategy advisor Shirley Collier of Scale2Market. Shirley Collier, president, Scale2Market Topics revolved around strategies for…
VA says ‘true independent’ oversight coming to major acquisitions after lawmaker probes
The Department of Veterans Affairs is laying the groundwork for greater oversight of its major acquisitions, following repeated probes from lawmakers. The VA on Tuesday released a draft…
Intelligence community and Defense Department to share classified cloud services
For the first time, classified cloud capacity will be shared between the Defense Department and the intelligence community. The two organizations recently signed a memorandum of agreement that…
Homeland Security is finally off the dime with regulations on sensitive information
It only took six years. But now the Homeland Security Department has new regulations covering how contractors must handle CUI, controlled unclassified information better get ready. They go…
Agencies making ‘substantial progress’ toward higher small, disadvantaged contracting goal
The federal government is setting a new record for overall small business contract spending — with more than a quarter of federal contracting dollars going to small businesses…
No shortage of ideas for reforming Defense Department acquisition
Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution. PPBE has been the way of the Pentagon since the 1960s. Nobody is thrilled with it, but it persists. The latest set of…
The impact of the False Claims Act
This week Peter Hutt, partner at Covington & Burling LLP, joins Off the Shelf for an in-depth discussion of the False Claims Act, including the basics of the…
How governments can better prepare for supply chain disruptions
Supply chain interruptions and slowdowns linger as an effect of the pandemic. They make purchasing and acquisition difficult for both the private sector and government. Recently thinkers from…
Is GSA’s Alliant 3 vehicle tilted too much to small, very large contractors?
Let me riddle you this: When it comes to government contracting, if you are not a small business, what are you? The answer, of course, is “other than…