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I HOPE VA AND DOD ENDEAVOR TO WORK EVER MORE CLOSELY TOGETHER AS WE MOVE INTO AN EVER MORE CONSTRAINED BUDGET ENVIRONMENT.
the standing up of the VA Acquisition Academy in Frederick, MD, because none exists outside DoD. DAU was full up. It’s a world-class facility, an award-winning facility, by the way. I am very familiar with [DAU’s] facilities and their profes- sionalism, so we’ve emulated that.
But I will tell you that we have, I believe, a decided advantage over the Army in one area—agility. Because we’re smaller. We have a much smaller budget; we have a much smaller spend, only $16 billion vs. the Army’s $140 billion. We have some 300,000 employees. And our leadership is not as thickly layered. It’s easier for us to get to our leadership with ideas and get ideas implemented if they agree. For instance, when I recommended that we move the headquarters contracting sup- port out of Washington up to Frederick, MD, it took just a matter of weeks to get that approved. Now, why did we do that? You have a constant rotation of contract- ing personnel in the Washington area because jobs are available. My idea was to move it out of Washington, just far enough away where it’s inconvenient for [employees] to come into Washington, and it works like a charm.
It’s refreshing, because as we move into an even more constrained environment than we’re in, there will be further competition for good contracting people.
I think it’s going to be important that the leadership in the DoD acquisition com- munity do everything they can to attempt to become more agile as we move forward,
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even given the numbers of layers that they are required to go through.
Within the last year, we decided to stand up a Strategic Acquisition Center in Fredericksburg, VA, and we’re currently doing that. We’re looking at hiring people who didn’t want to move, perhaps with the Army Materiel Command down to Redstone Arsenal, AL. We’ll have about 150 contracting officers down there to do strategic sourcing of durable medical equipment and medical-surgical products.
Q. VA is, and has been, a leader in pro- curement from small businesses, which many in acquisition view as inherently more agile and innovative. Do you find this to be true? What do small businesses need from the federal government to encourage this agility and innovation?
A. As you probably know, we embrace small businesses here at VA. We’ve met our bogies, our requirements given to us by the Small Business Administra- tion, every year I’ve been here—certainly since I started this cycle in 2006, and even before that. Our experiences show that small businesses provide just as much in many ways as large businesses do. Sometimes small businesses can’t get the financing to do large construction projects, so those are naturally left to large businesses. But the small businesses we contract with are very, very good, by and large. They are agile. Some of them can literally turn on a dime, and some of the larger companies are not able to do that; they’re just not as quick at making
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changes. In the last two years [FY10 and FY11], we have awarded about 20 percent of our total procurement spend to small business—specifically veteran-owned and service-disabled veteran-owned—over $3.5 billion. We have been able to hit the 20 to 22 percent mark for each of those years. So we are by far the leader in awarding contracts to veteran-owned small businesses.
We have every intention of meeting our goals or exceeding goals in the small busi- ness arena, even as we move into an era where we know we have to do more stra- tegic sourcing.
Now, what do small businesses need from the federal government? It’s real easy: They need a chance. If the rest of the govern- ment agencies follow VA’s lead and meet their statutory goals and the goals given to them by the Small Business Admin- istration, we will have infused billions of dollars into small businesses and the economy. It’s often said that these small businesses are the engine of our economy, creating between two-thirds and three- quarters of all new jobs.
Q. You have been called a “change agent.” Army AL&T professionals (and their col- leagues in the other services) are steeped in change. As an experienced public- sector executive, what have you found are the greatest obstacles to change, and the best methods for overcoming them?
A. No doubt about it, change is hard. I see the greatest obstacle as the inability to
Army AL&T Magazine
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