CDSI lands $310M tech support pact under FISSP

The General Services Administration last month awarded a five-year $310 million technical support services contract to Computer Data Systems Inc.

GSA's Greater Southwest Region based in Fort Worth Texas awarded the governmentwide contract to CDSI under the auspices of the Federal Information Systems Support Program (FISSP). GSA contracting officer Patricia Mutter said CDSI the incumbent on the bid was selected from a group of eight bidders.

Doug Christianson vice president and a division manager at CDSI's Information Technology Solutions Co. said the contract will allow his company to continue to provide a varied range of services throughout the government.

"We will support virtually anything a federal client might need including Web site development network development financial and accounting systems command and control support we even help the Internal Revenue Service audit taxes " he said. "It's an exciting contract because of the breadth of the work we get."

GSA regions cover 15 states and offer IT services relating to business scientific risk analysis and security audit applications said Lou Ann Prasifka chief of ADP acquisitions at the office. Services will be available predominantly to federal organizations operating in Arkansas Colorado Iowa Kansas Louisiana Missouri Montana Nebraska New Mexico North Dakota Oklahoma South Dakota Texas Utah and Wyoming.

The contract will go into effect June 1 and will run for one year followed by four optional one-year periods. Services offered through FISSP are not mandatory.

The current CDSI contract still in effect has produced revenue of more than $180 million Christianson said. He said the company handles about 180 simultaneous task orders at 50 sites employing 1 060 personnel. He believes the customer base that CDSI built over the last five years will allow the new GSA deal to dramatically surpass the revenue of the existing contract.

Kenneth Douglas director of the Office of Technical Services in the Greater Southwest Region said GSA will add a surcharge to purchases made through the contract to allow the agency to recoup its costs. Douglas added that the percentage varies from year to year and is based on sales.

Douglas also said GSA has not yet determined a surcharge percentage for the new CDSI contract and that surcharge rates for FISSP contracts throughout all of GSA's regional offices are slated to decrease.