VA $12B Tech Buy on Track

In early September, I reported that Vetrepreneur LLC, a Herndon, Va.-based service-disabled veteran owned business, had filed a protest against the Veterans Affairs Department's humongous Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology (T4) IT procurement, the largest in the department's history.

I believe in follow-up, and called Robert Hesser, president of Vetrepreneur on Tuesday to see when he expected a ruling from the GAO on his protest. But Hesser told me he withdrew the protest on Sept. 15, just 16 days after he filed it.

I guess I need to make follow-up calls before two and a half months go by.

Hesser said he withdrew his complaint because VA told GAO the Vetrepreneur's small size precluded it from filing a protest, an argument he could not dispute.

In his protest, Hesser said the T4 procurement did not fit with requirements of the Veterans First Contracting Program which requires VA to "give priority to a small business concern owned and controlled by veterans, if such business concern also meets the requirements of that contracting preference."

Hesser said even though he withdrew his protest, nothing in VA's response to GAO addressed the contractual and solicitation discrepancies Vetrepreneur protested.

VA closed the window for responses to T4 on Aug. 30, and folks at the Technology Acquisition Center procurement shop now are evaluating responses from enough bidders to crew a good-sized ship.