EPA taps DynCorp for managed services

The Environmental Protection Agency is the latest federal agency to seek the help of an outside contractor to manage its vast information technology and telecommunications operations.

The agency has awarded DynCorp Systems and Solutions LLC a multimillion-dollar contract emphasizing managed services, a relatively new procurement strategy in which an agency pays a company for technology solutions that help solve a problem.

Just more than one month ago, the Transportation Security Administration awarded a billion-dollar contract to Unisys Corp. to build its information technology infrastructure.

The IT Solutions-EPA (ITS-EPA) task order, which is valued at $867 million for seven years, consolidates two previous contracts. It covers IT operations and telecommunications services at the agency's offices and laboratories nationwide. The EPA has nicknamed the program "IT Solutions," said Kim Nelson, the agency's chief information officer. "It's a significant cultural change for the organization," she said, adding that DynCorp "is taking over the vast management of EPA's infrastructure."

After announcing the award, both parties got together and discussed "moving from time and materials to a managed services, performance-based contract," said Bernie Hoenke, a vice president at DynCorp.

"It's more outcome-based and mission-driven," Hoenke said. "That's the current trend in industry."

It's a trend in government as well, according to experts. "I think we're going to see more of these kind of deals," said Warren Suss, president of Suss Consulting Inc. Agencies are "eager to put as many of the management headaches as possible on to their contractors and [are] eager to purchase in a way that allows them to manage the contract through service-level agreements.

"The old paradigm doesn't work," he continued. "The government is going to be watching what happens on these deals."

ITS-EPA is similar to TSA's IT Managed Services task order, which has received cautious praise from the federal IT community for its approach. "It's a broad variety of services," Nelson said. "As we all look more at enterprisewide solutions, we thought it was important to have a more holistic view."

The EPA selected DynCorp, a lead partner to Unisys on the TSA job, because of the "world-class team [it brought] to the table," she said.

IBM Corp., Unisys' other lead partner on the TSA project, will handle the computer center component of ITS-EPA under a $230 million subcontract. DynCorp has also established a technology business council that will bring in cutting-edge experts from industry, Hoenke said.

ITS-EPA was competitively awarded Sept. 4 through the General Services Administration's Millennia contract by GSA and the EPA's Office of Environmental Information.

Managed services

The Information Technology Solutions-Environmental Protection Agency task order was awarded to DynCorp Systems and Solutions LLC.

The task order encompasses 19 major areas including networking, desktop support, wireless and security, and running the EPA's national computer center in Research Triangle Park, N.C.