CHALLENGER INSIGHTS Vol. 14:
Federal Protective Services Opportunities
I have to admit that I have a fair amount of trouble saying Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. ATF usually comes out of my mouth as Alcohol, Tabasco, and Firearms. This brings up a good point—when it comes to Federal Protective Services, it’s an alphabet soup of agencies. ATF. FBI. DEA. DHS. ICE. CBP.
Whether you’re talking about U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), the U.S. Customs & Border Patrol (CBP), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), there are plenty of opportunities if you understand the way these agencies plan and purchase.
Most of these agencies have requirements for records storage, evidence storage, and armory/firearm storage in their field office locations. Many of these departments are located in federal buildings, which are managed by GSA. When the agency locates to a new facility, a GSA Project Manager is involved with planning for the agencies.
During one planning meeting for an agency I was involved with, the GSA Project Manager expressed his contempt for the process. Headquarters has their plans, the Field Office has their list of wants, and the Project Manager was always stuck between the two. To make matters worse, he mentioned the threshold for GSA purchasing guidelines was $2,000. Anything over $2,000 needed to be put to bid openly. The Project Manager was in a position to determine solutions that fit both Headquarters and Field Office expectations and finding a way to procure the item—without spending the remainder of his life writing specification requirements for procurement.
The major challenges were designing a solution that met the needs to the field office with Headquarters’ guidelines—and delivering the solution within federal acquisition requirements. Spacesaver fits that role well. An understanding of how to take an inventory list of firearm types, determine accessibility and security requirements, and design a solution—that is our model. Configured-to-order storage solutions.
My purpose in sharing this insight is twofold: 1) We need to identify these opportunities in every location, and 2) when we find them, we need to identify the project challenges in the beginning. Knowing what the challenges are early in the process puts us in a position to align our solution to address those challenges—particularly the one about procurement.
Have you been successful with a Federal Protective Services opportunity? How did you help a Facility Manager with a procurement challenge? Email McKenna Dustman at mdustman@spacesaver.com and tell her your story.