If you work in the Government acquisition world, this podcast is for you. (not just for Contracting Officers!)
Kevin and special guest Alan Apple (applelaw.us) discuss why the government uses Small Business Innovative Research (SBIRs) and Other Transaction Agreements (OTAs). (hint: to find innovation in the commercial world) Listen and learn how Intellectual Property is managed with each of these acquisition tools.
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Kevin Jans and Paul Schauer created the Contracting Officer Podcast to help government and industry acquisition professionals understand more about how the other side thinks. As former government Contracting Officers who have also worked on the industry side, Kevin and Paul share their perspectives in support of the podcast’s mission: Make government contracts better, one contract at a time.
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Transcript Below
Paul Schauer 0:09
Welcome to the contracting officer podcast. It’s not just for contracting officers if you’re anywhere in the GovCon world, this podcast is for you. Today Kevin is talking contracting for innovation with Alan Apple. And this podcast is brought to you by Skyway acquisition, visit Skywayacq.com. To learn more. Let’s get started.
Kevin Jans 0:31
I want to welcome Alan Apple to our podcast. Alan is a retired jag attorney, which is a Judge Advocate General, which is basically he’s a retired military attorney. So to get us started, give us your story, Alan on how you got here.
Alan Apple 0:46
Well, my background, as you mentioned, was in government procurement is a army Judge Advocate. Before that, in a prior life, I was avaiator space physiologist and went to flight school with illustration with the Marines at mag 14. In aviation, I did that with a law school and went into the Army JAG corps and focused on government procurements for my entire career where we trained, you know, I was primary legal counsel for contracting activities and requiring activities both in CONUS. And in expeditionary status, you know, deployed and, you know, essentially help folks with an area they didn’t want to strengthen their portfolio, you know, they didn’t know knew less, I found about senior officers usually know a little bit less about procurement than other things and was able to help them and be of consequences. It’s interesting,
Kevin Jans 1:34
I like I said it helps helps them round out their portfolio, because you’re right, a lot of folks who are in in Mission positions in the military, they don’t spend a lot of time in procurement stuff. And they don’t spend a lot of time and legal towers, learning all these different nuances. So yeah, it can get interesting, which we’ll talk about later. But so right now, now that you’re you have your own law firm, and you’re focusing on companies who are doing business with the government in the innovation space, which is why when you and I had met on LinkedIn, and it’s kind of fun to talk through your specialty has become the SBIR. And I mean, you do other stuff. But your specialty and context of this podcast is SBIRs, which are Small Business Innovation Research, which we’ve done podcasts on, as well as the other transaction authority, which we did a recent podcast on. And these are big topics. I mean, we could do, we’ve done a couple 273 and 380, for those of you are following along. But the value of today really was I want to walk through what you’re seeing from a legal point of view in these two particular areas. If that makes sense.
Alan Apple 2:32
I also love working with these, these type of clients, because they want to enter into the GovCon arena, and they don’t really know how to do it, and they don’t want to run a lot of risk. But they want to engage, you know, in that, in that relationship, you know, whether they’re veterans, they want to, you know, continue that type of service or their folks that didn’t ever serve. And they want to kind of be involved in the solution for the government problem, which is you know, how to find innovation, and get it in rapidly so that they can stay ahead of their near peer competitors.
Kevin Jans 3:01
There you go. And so the baseline of this is the FAR is it’s not super slow, I can make all kinds of arguments that they’re a fast way too far. But they’re not nearly designed to embrace innovation, pay it that way, especially high tech innovation, right. And so the way that far is written out, like I have a far reference so far 1.1 or two dash four talks about the policies and procedures in the best interest of the government. They’re all addressed in the far. But it also says that the far if it’s not prohibited by law, Executive Order, etc, etc, you can do it. In other words, the absence of direction should be considered permission to do new stuff. And so that’s right out of far. Sounds great. However, when I was talking to the officer, that was in the back of my mind, I can still see the risk of like, Oh, you shouldn’t use for our part 15, you shouldn’t use the GSA order you should use, they should fit in some box that we’re familiar with, right? That’s the mindset and because I feel like somebody’s going to going to be, Oh, gotcha, you did it wrong, get back in the box and do it, right. That fear of stepping in outside of the box gets in the way of acquiring things that are innovative.
Alan Apple 4:14
Freedom is scary, right? The more freedom you have, the more scared you are that you’re gonna make the wrong decision that applies almost in every aspect of life. For me, it really, you know, most of the contracting officers that I’ve ever worked with, because, you know, within a for acquisition, you have, you know, define limits, right, and where you can go, what you can negotiate and how you can approach it and all that sort of stuff and what used to really kind of piqued my interest and, and, and got me listening to almost every single leader was talking about other transaction authority, which, you know, subject to this, this podcast, and we get out there and they say, Well, you know, the government now can do terms with innovative tech providers or small businesses, on the terms that they’re used to, you know, we can take two blank sheets of paper, and we can do a contract, you know, with, you know, X or you know, whatever company that we’re talking about it or you know, whatever. And, and in my mind, I would always think, well, first of all, but you know, I’m not sure. Exactly right, I’m not sure you can do it in two pages. And the notion of taking blank sheets of paper, and just starting from there is terrifying. It would be absolutely terrifying. mortifying for you know, any of the contracting officers that, that I’ve been around because of, you know, their experience level, right. You know, they’re not used to doing that most people, you know, are great at whatever they’ve been working on for a little while, and contracting officers, and they’re different.
Kevin Jans 5:40
Yeah, I found that blank sheet of paper. It sounds great. But I’m not trained to go from the black sheet blank sheet of paper. It’s one of the challenges with innovative acquisition is that it? I’ve been through all the gau courses, I’ve Paul and I, we can make the forest sing. And as it turns out, I have now that I’ve been on this side of negotiating contracts with with our customers can now I know what a commercial contract looks like. But 10 years ago, when I was a contracting officer, if you’d asked me to negotiate a commercial contract with anybody, I’m thinking, I learned all this stuff. That’s if I know how this stuff works, you’re asking me to just go Oh, yeah, blank sheet of paper, it’ll be fine. Yeah, that doesn’t sound fun for me.
Alan Apple 6:25
Guess what shows up a lot of times in that negotiated other transaction, right? Unit, actually, the agreement, the written agreement, so a lot of those terms, and concepts that are utilized within, you know, the FAR and normal government procurement processes, you know, show their selves, you know, within that bad agreement, and it’s not uncommon, and, you know, other than the risk of, you know, if it’s too much like a far contract, then it can be, you know, really a far contract, you know, it’s titled OTA and, you know, be subject to protest, and, you know, a lot of different other things that government go kind of go along with it. There’s a little bit of lateral transfer of knowledge, it almost has to be there. Because if you think about it a little bit, I mean, those people that are agreements, officers for other transactions, you know, they got their experience somewhere. And it’s all far based, right? I think, historically, you know, back about five or six or seven years ago, when you know, OTAs, were starting a incredible proliferation of close gaze was rabbit. The challenge that government has is okay, well, how do I find a acquisition staff, right, that can accommodate that, a professional group of folks that know about this particular process, and what we want to do and how we want to deploy our program and how to negotiate these things. And so it would take contracting officers that had, you know, unlimited warrants that had the most experience and for contracts, and sort of as a grievance officer there and so, I don’t know what to inquire about that about a year and a half ago, I reached out to a couple of friends that that, you know, we’re still in service kind of, to ask about, you know, what training do they get, you know, because I know, early on, they didn’t get a lot of training and outside commercial contracting, you know, as far as you know, how to negotiate you know, what provision is actually required. And, you know, as it were kind of put together. And now there’s, there’s more some, a little bit of templatized version that dau utilizes, and, you know, Army applications, lab, and F works and all that. So there’s a little bit more of a little template template help for them. But where’s the training coming from? And what training was there five or six years ago, or even, you know, a couple of years ago, it’s not as much as you think it would be. But it takes awhile to generate and establish processes. And so I always thought that was fascinating, because the assumption is, and tell me if you agree with this, the assumption is on the outside is that the government knows everything. You know, everybody who talked to them, the government pretty much knows everything about the government contracting process, where the issues are, what they can and can’t do, you know, their authorities. And therefore, everything should be consistent all the way through. Is that the way that you you’re seeing it here?
Kevin Jans 9:01
Well, there’s a reason that we have 10 former contracting officers on the Skyway team, because they all have different backgrounds, different experience. And you know, the running joke, like no, Paul and I were making a podcast episode. He knows how to buy a satellite, he knows how to buy all kinds of really complex, innovative stuff. He couldn’t buy a car that you had, that the Navy SEALs were gonna blow up during a testing run, which is something I learned how to do, right? Likewise, I don’t know how to buy satellites, but I can buy, I can buy professional services I have I bought all kinds of different stuff. And so there are parts of the far that I know really well. And the person further he knows really well and take that same principle and apply it to our whole team. And you’ve got all these different backgrounds, right? Well take that same principle and apply it to all the contracting officers. And some of them have a lot of experience in one tower. So I’m having a little experience at all towers. I mean, it’s the ability to navigate the far know where to look for things and how to put dots together. I’d say that’s common. But if you asked me to do something I’ve never done before. I know how to figure it out. But I I can’t give you an answer today. It’s gonna take me a few days to figure it out.
Alan Apple 10:01
It’s not fast, right? You know. And so probably one of the themes of innovation acquisition is trying to go fast. You know, and if you’re, you know, if you’re reaching Bobby fan is Talladega Nights, going fast as the name of the game right now in the dialogue for public procurement, it is all about figuring out how to move at the speed of relevance, the speed of technology development, and the speed of real, you know, the speed of requirement, right, you know, it’s essentially government identifying what they need, and getting it in a time where they can actually utilize it. And, you know, all that is important in process. And it’s just hard to get there without incredible expertise. And you know, I agree with you, in large part, and I think a lot of my colleagues do as well, the floor is not imperfect, or it’s the floor is not perfect, right? The acquisition process is not perfect, it’s complex, it can take a while, if you don’t know, really, the ins and outs of it, and you don’t know how it’s utilized. And the tool that it is, you go slow with it. But if you have a great contract, and also, you know, have people that are part of your team that know what’s going on, know what you can and can’t negotiate, know what the expectation should be know how to get the value out of that contract that you should, then if you can drive that car as fast as you want to go. There’s a lot of times where I think, and I know, actually, that I and some other colleagues that do the same sort of thing, that they’re able to do a FAR based contract just as fast as an OTA. And the reason why I think OTA is goes low, sometimes is in the area of process, risk. Tolerance is an issue because even though government says that, hey, that will take a lot of risk. A lot of times, they don’t want to do that there’s a lot of consequence there. Right? You know, that’s a lot of talk. But it’s important, they want reality, they kind of want to be able to do that. They don’t really know when and where there’s freedom and ambiguity, there is delay. And things take a long time, because it’s a complex negotiation, right? You have a requiring activity, a contracting activity, and then an innovation you have a little bit of unfamiliarity with, well, what’s the state of the art? You know, what’s the what do we really have here? And what are we? What are we going to use it for? And how is it going to be, you know, connected with whatever it’s, it’s really a fascinating thing. So it gets in the way of a little bit of the speed notion. But you know, if you have people that are really good with other transaction authority, they understand what the limitations are in negotiation, they understand what the agency is, and what the requirement is. And you know, they can drive that car fast, too, right?
Kevin Jans 12:31
That’s a great metaphor is that you can there are two different lanes, like they would say, they’re almost in two different races, that you can drive the car fast through, that whole part of the far called emergency acquisition, right? So that’s if you need something fast. But on the innovation side, one of our one of the topics we’re talking about is singers, singers are far based, they have some some basis in how the fundamental acquisition work at Federal Acquisition Regulations work, right? You have you have some bases around that, where’s OTAs? Or not. So you do have two different races, you could go here. And the beauty of this is I like your point is, if you have someone who’s really familiar with OTAs, they can go even faster than before. But if you have, well, okay, now I’m familiar with OTAs. I’ve been learning about them, because they’ve blown up since I was like contracting officer. But when I was a contracting officer, if you’d asked me to do an OTA, I could have awarded you a FAR based contract much faster than an OTA because I had to learn right, I had to learn how to be an agreements officer. So that’s part of the nuance here, I think it’s an important lesson for folks to understand is if you’re going to use an OTA, you need to be going through someone who’s been an agreements officer who is familiar with this. I met a an agreement, she’s contracting officer, but she’d been an agreements officer for like, search, like 20 years, she worked for the Navy. And I mean, these are, like we talked about in our podcast episode, OTA is not a new authority, it’s just become more popular. She’s been doing it for years. She’s exceedingly familiar with how to do them. For her no brainer to go OTA over far. But to your point, there there there are two different races. And so let’s talk real quickly. Well, let me we talked about these these two options of December’s versus OTA. So what are some reasons why people would use a SBIR an OTA instead of the far instead of some other traditional FAR Part 15?
Alan Apple 14:14
Yeah, okay, no problem. Let’s kind of address that just by talking about servers just a second in what they are in the relationship that another transaction has within a server. And so the Small Business Innovation Research program is a a creation. You know, historically, the National Science Foundation was all about taking innovation and finding innovation or taking innovation from private sources and finding innovation and private sources. And so with the SBIR, I call it I think, maybe just uniform services on people that call them servers. You know, most of it is SBIR. That’s the preferred mechanism to actually, you know, reinvest and find innovation in small businesses, but, but it’s really something that was prompted Right, you know, so Congress established the program, they said that, you know, every federal agency, and I think the 11 federal agencies actually use OTAs within the civil program have authority to use OTAs. But instead of a program itself, you know, they say, Hey, if you have over $100 million, and extramural r&d, you have to spend 3.2% of it on this program. And so it’s all about investment back into innovation. And so that’s very significant for some government agencies. And you know, like the DOD, which does
program activity, it’s a three phase program with phase one, you know, coming up to a white paper that talks about what you’re offering is essentially, and then phase two, which gets it into to a, hopefully, a prototype and phase three is actually executed, but it’s funded by the requiring activity, right, you know, and so it’s not funded by the original Sobor statutory requirements set aside for this purpose for the use of servers. So, you know, I find that fascinating within the program itself, I found that other transactions are a big component that because they like to utilize them in the face to portion of the server program. And the reason why they like to use that is because it’s supposed to be faster, it’s easier to negotiate. It’s certainly within the, you know, the talking points that the DOD and other agencies have about wanting to entice small business to do business with the government. And so that’s one of the hurdles that the government that, you know, the federal government, the DoD certainly struggles with, which is, you know, I want to entice small business to do business with us, because we recognize a couple of things. We’ve been the DOD, kind of vacillating back and forth where they want to be able to find innovation in small business, because they recognize that there’s, there’s been a seismic shift in where innovation resides, right. You know, 60 years ago, when other transaction authority started, you know, when the Space Act with the post Sputnik type stuff, everybody was worried about, you know, living under a Soviet moon, we have to have NASA, we have to have the ability and the freedom to fix the problem of the Russians beating us to the moon. And so there was this period of time to where they, NASA was established and had authority to go out and enter into other transactions to execute their mission. Right, you know, and since then, like I said, they’re like, 11, different agencies that have varying levels of other transaction authority to do that same sort of thing, which is what the problem, the problem, back then was all about beating the beating the Russians to the moon, right, you know, it’s fine. But but a lot of ways, it’s the same as it is now it’s finding innovation, it’s, it’s being innovative, to actually solve the problem. You know, Apollo 13, is one of my favorite movies because of it. Harris’s character that talks about, you know, when the, when the capsules coming back, they start venting, they don’t have the fuel, they don’t have the oxygen, they don’t have all that stuff. To get back. He quiets down Mission Control, you know, and it’s always engineers, which you know, are all over the civil program, and all over OTA and innovation. He quiets down, and he says, work the problem, right, and so they identify the problem, and they ultimately get the capsule back. Well, I think that same concept actually applies here as well. The problem is that innovation is really not nesting in government. It’s in small business. It’s in other commercial activities. You know, if you’ve looked at the investment that commercial activities have had in the last, you know, let’s just say in the last year, I mean, you have like Amazon with over $20 billion invested in innovation, you have alphabet, which is the, you know, a Google, it’s a Google parent, you know, with $26 billion, I think, yeah, $26 billion in investment, you have Intel with $13.1 billion in investment, you know, and this is in 2019, it’s 2022. Now, I just couldn’t find any numbers on it. And I thought, Man, that’s incredible, especially when you consider the other problem the government has other countries are developed are investing more like China and 2000, you know, invested like $20 billion or $25 billion, I think, in research and development. Right now, they’re at $496 billion right around in there. And the US government only spends only that 549. And so all these entities are catching up to federal government investment in innovation. So the marketplace is more competitive, you know, each one of the companies that I deal with, you know, they’re all geniuses and they’re all have great technology, but they all go through the dilemma of okay, well, how do I maximize return right for the company, which, you know, sometimes it’s not through the federal government, sometimes it’s just through commercial or maybe it’s, you know, other opportunities out off off the shore, you know, and so, that’s, that’s an area where the US government is struggling a little bit, you know, to be competitive to make a system and a negotiation that’s beneficial for both parties, and ultimately for them to work the problem, right, which is, you know, the speed of innovation, the speed of relevance and staying ahead of the near peer competitors. I find, you can tell I kind of geek out about this or so that I love that discussion. because, you know, that’s where we are right now. And you’ve seen an incredible effort on the part of the federal government to do that. But But you and I both know, you know, from our experience in the government, it’s hard for the government to change. And so it’s not like, you know, an immediate response, it’s a, it’s a gradual, it’s a gradual process,
Kevin Jans 20:17
it takes a while to really motivate a pendulum swing, we’ll say it that way. There’s a lot of challenging wickets to get through here. The the processes getting in the way, in the way of our ability to maximize innovation. So how are you seeing the the agencies use the super authority now, to really benefit
Alan Apple 20:40
this, there are so many benefits to being part of it just be awarded an OTA. transaction, or to be part of the super program at large, that the lot of times that those things kind of escape, escape discussion, but it’s important to kind of focus on those because if you’re developing, you know, income streams for your company, certainly you’re developing things commercially. But you know, some of the the easier wins. For companies that have dual use technology is certainly within the government structure, you know, it’s, uh, you know, a senator award, maybe on phase one, or maybe a standalone OT, you know, for research and development and in whatever technology that you’re in, but the reality of the benefit of enter into these contracts are not just monitor, that awards can be significant, like in other transaction agreement, they’re not really asking a lot of permissions and getting approvals for things less than $500 million on the other transaction. So that’s a, I don’t have many clients, that would not be checking for an extra $500
Kevin Jans 21:44
million. What’s been the average size of OTAs, you’ve heard of OTAs, that you’ve seen
Alan Apple 21:49
It varies. So my clients, you know, I have runs the gamut. And I have, you know, small scale, OTA awards, that you know, are in the low millions, and then you know, you know, mid, you know, the 50s, like 50 million right around in there, or even 100, they’re significant, but, you know, in DOD government contract talk, not enough, you know, if you go to the Department of Defense, you can get like notices sent by email for all the contract awards that they gave during the week, it will knock you over the number, the size of Boeing, you know, had a sole source contract test order that was awarded in the math, you know, $459 million to support the F 35 program for x. And so there’ll be like six of similar type numbers below it. And that’s really interesting, and to be part of a program, which is certainly probable, you know, with this type of intellectual property and stuff like that. So ultimately, you can be a part of that type of award, at least, you know, taking some of the value from it. Most of the awards, or the clients that I’m dealing with are a little bit less than that, but they’re still consequential, and they’re consequential in amount. They can’t be smaller than that, of course, they’re consequential in amount, but also it does something that a lot of people don’t, don’t overtly say, which is, you know, the government itself can’t really endorse individual companies. Right. You know, you can’t say, you know, Skyway is our preferred provider for x, and the way they do that is a Florida contract. So the contract is the endorsement, right? You know, you’re able to say, hey, we have these awards, you know, NASA has given us a word to develop further army applications lab is, you know, we’re working with them. And we have, you know, a couple of things, and we haven’t been awarded yet, but we’re working on this and health and human services in this area, Department of Energy, that’s the way small business can utilize this stuff. And, and really, the award amount is not as common, I mean, it means something and it’s relevant, especially when you get into these numbers, but on the on the bottom end of that early, and you know, like your seed round of investment and stuff like that, just the fact that they are interested in have awarded you something is like an endorsement, right? It’s like saying that, hey, we at least liked that idea. We liked that notion, we were willing to enter into the business with your business to develop it. And so it’s saying a lot of different things that are really overtly said which is, hey, you have a going concern you have a going concern, this developing something that, quite honestly, the largest single spender in the world is interested in right. I just find that amazing, you know, the US government they spend more than ever, you know, anybody else in the world? You know, in one year, that’s unfortunately not right. You know, that’s more than worth of, you know, a lot of different companies like Amazon and, and some of the others and so it’s just sometimes you forget who you’re doing business with. And then this a contractual relationship. You’re doing business with the largest vendor in the world, the biggest, most sophisticated company for your for another distributor in the world that has the, you know, the largest law firm in the world that has more scientists working for it. It’s just amazing, but the federal government has you know, it is A sovereign government, I just found that amazing, I love it. But a lot of my clients, they forget that right there, you know, just entered into an OTA or a contract with another contracting party? Well, that contracting party is like no other/
Kevin Jans 25:13
Yeah, you were in a an article I read once that is talked about that the federal government has the largest and most diverse law firm on earth, to help draft and negotiate contracts with you a small business startup. And it’s one of those things, you read it and go, Well, yeah. And then I’m like, oh, wait a minute, I never thought of it that way. It’s the clarity of the largest and most diverse law firm on Earth to negotiate against you. That is terrifying when you lay it out that way. And so on one hand, that’s the argument of that’s why something like an OTA you can understand it. It’s, that’s why there’s the value of this, if I read that and go, as an innovator, why would I ever do business with the government, hence the OTA to be able to say, we can have a 10 page contract you can understand, right? And then likewise, for for Well, honestly, for firms like yours, to be able to say you need somebody who understands this from from both sides. And so but the simplicity of that the most diverse law firm on Earth. Oh, that was funny. It hit me upside the head, the first time that I read that,
Alan Apple 26:11
and if you think they’re not using them, you’re great, right, because, you know, every senior leader that I mean, that’s where I made my living, talking to senior leaders, selection officials, a contracting, the more of consequence, you know, a contract is, the more they are interested in, you know, the legal aspect of it, because they can’t have protests, they can’t get in the way of the of the acquisition, you know, to be able to get an award and you get, you know, which is the goal of any government contract is to get the good or service on time on target. So it can be utilized for its greater good in the military, which is an automatic experience, it’s, it’s about being able to project power, right, you know, it’s being able to get out there and, and do the things that are necessary to continue this type of lifestyle. So it’s a, it’s, they absolutely use it, and that’s great, but, but if you are, you know, a company entering into it on the other side, just having your CEO, you’re not in the position that you could be in, to really engage in that discussion and maximize the value of that contracting vehicle. And so, I’m a big team guy, you know, probably Kevin, you are too. But having a team around you that’s able to help us succeeding and perform at a higher level is absolutely critical. There’s a lot of NFL teams out there with an NFL quarterback, they’re good, but it’s different. Right? If you have Tom Brady, it is different if you pay men and you have a team that can really perform and get to the next level. Well, if you have somebody that knows something about accounting standards, about intellectual property, about you know, cybersecurity, you know, all these kind of basic foundational pieces, and how it relates to government contracting, you are in a much better place to really engage in that discussion, and really kind of expedite the process, because you can educate kind of from both ends of the process.
Kevin Jans 28:01
Yeah. And I noticed as a contracting officer took for granted that we had, again, the largest and most complex law firm, but we had this entire team. And we had the engineers that could solve the problem. We had the accounting folks we had the finance background, we had we had all the different engineers and users and lawyers, we had this team available. And small companies, and even MIT lot of midsize companies don’t have access to all of that. And so that that can make these innovations. really terrifying. Because you’re like, again, I’m going up against the world here, the behemoth of government, but also even something as simple as an OTA. I like your point that if I’m reading an OTA as a contracting officer or an agreements officer, I’m going to show it to my attorney, by an attorney, even if they don’t have any experience with it, because it’s such a complex, especially the DOD, somebody does. Whereas we are, you’re a small company with no five employees. And none of you ever done this before. It’s a high risk endeavor. So it’s no wonder companies don’t want to jump in. And so it’s kind of cool to be able to talk through this and go, not only is it not as scary as you think it is, number one. Number two, there are people to help you hence the podcast. So speaking to people to help you what’s a good place for people to get a hold of you because you got your own law firm are those super cool URL? Right? Yeah,
Alan Apple 29:15
So I’m at applelaw.us my email address is alan@applelaw.us And so my phone number is 512-962- 9955 available at any time, some of the hallmark of my service is about being responsive. It’s about being there on time on target, and helping solve the problem. You know, I guess the title back to her to our Sputnik kind of discussion. It’s about solving the problem. The problem is, you know, getting the most value out of a contract out of a government contract and that that relationship is possible. And you know, it’s impossible to do that without, you know, the right team around you.
Kevin Jans 30:00
of how you point out that the speed of acquisition is such a critical piece and the responsiveness of the team around you helps being able to keep up with that speed of acquisition. And, and speaking of speed, we are already at a half an hour. So I like to keep these in a compressed space. So so our podcast listeners can can make sure they get the three the whole episode in their commute. I appreciate the chat, we will chat more. And again, really good insights. I love some of the enjoy talking to you because we come up with some really cool ideas and it’s fun watching us facilitate more usage of OTAs and servers when they apply, and it’d be fun to continue this.
Alan Apple 30:36
Well, Kevin, thanks for having me. I sure appreciate it. Enjoy talking to us. Well,
Kevin Jans 30:39
no problem. I’ll see you
Paul Schauer 30:46
Okay, that’s it for another episode of the contracting officer podcast. You can find podcasts playlists organized by topic areas at Skyway a cq.com/c o p for contracting officer podcast. Thanks for joining us, and we’ll see you next time.