Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETION (JOFOC) MODIFICATION TO FOREST SERVICE CONTRACT AG-7604-C-07-0025 E-GOVERNMENT/ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE MANAGEMENT AND TECHNICAL SUPPORT Washington Office AQM IT Support Branch 1. Nature/Description of Action The FS Electronic Government program was chartered by the FS Executive Leadership Team (ELT) in 2001 in response to a Presidential mandate (commonly referred to as The President's Management Agenda). The Electronic Government Act of 2002 elevated the mandate to law re-emphasizing the federal government's commitment to delivering services to citizens electronically. The Forest Service's investment in electronic government has correspondingly grown over the years and is now in the range of $30-$40 million a year. In addition to the electronic government mandates, federal agencies have been required to develop and maintain Enterprise Architecture (EA) programs since the enactment of the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996. Emphasis on this program, particularly from OMB, has increased steadily to the point where demonstrating EA compliance and proficiency is becoming an IT budget determinant for federal agencies. The FS lead efforts for the Enterprise Architecture and Electronic Government programs are dependent on specialized expertise in a great many technical and business analysis domains. Personnel having these skills are not yet found to any significant degree in the federal work force. As a consequence, agencies are critically dependent on acquiring this expertise through contracting. The Enterprise Architecture - Electronic Government Technical and Management Services Contract is the vehicle by which the Forest Service sustains projects that are transforming the way the FS does business in the Electronic Age. This justification seeks approval for the following modifications to Forest Service contract AG-7604-C-07-0025 issued to Innovative Solutions Group, Inc. (ISG). A. Increase the contract ceiling from $75.0M to $85.0M for work within the general scope of contract AG-7604-C-07-0025. B. Extend the period of performance end date under contract AG-7604-C-07-0025 from 30 November 2010 to 30 November 2011 to allow the issuance of additional task orders pending competition and award of the Strategic Services follow-on contract. The incumbent contractor, Innovative Solutions Group, Inc. (ISG), is a certified Vietnam Era Veteran Owned Small Business (VOSB) and a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB). 2. Description of Supplies/Services This contract provides the Forest Service with a vehicle, for fast and effective access to acquire State-of-the-Art business analyst, technical analyst, software development, and enterprise architecture services to support the Forest Service Enterprise Architecture (EA) and Electronic Government (e-Government) initiatives. The contract requires the contractor to supply all personnel and resources necessary to provide the Forest Service with management and technical support services for both the EA and e-Government programs. The contractor has performed the following work through task orders issued under aforementioned contract. a. Recreation One Stop/Recreation Information Data Base (R1S/RIDB) b. Field Data Automation/Mobile Computing c. Weather Information Management System (WIMS) Support (F&AM) d. Enterprise Content Management/ORMS Modernization e. Electronic Research f. Web Information Delivery (FS web internet and intranet web portals) g. Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) Web Portal Support h. e-Commerce and e-Collections Support for Symbols.gov i. FS Enterprise Architecture Office Support j. USDA/FS Enterprise Architecture Repository Support k. Electronic Forms (Government Paperwork Elimination Act [GPEA]) l. Information Resource (IR) Governance (CPIC, EVMS & EA) m. Streamlining Permitting n. Business Requirements Management and Information Management o. Electronic Management of NEPA Projects (eMNEPA) p. FS Compliance with USDA eAuthentication q. Virtual Incident Procurement (VIPR) IV&V and Applications Support r. FS Applications Architecture s. FS and Partner Electronic Collaboration (eCollaboration) t. FS Data Center Operations u. Operate Program Management Office. This contract has also served as a vehicle for the FS to rapidly engage the services of specific Subject Matter Experts (SME) as well as to quickly start and complete small highly visible projects such as Customer Feedback, People & Places, as well as Information Security and the IR Strategic Framework that would have required significantly longer time to start these projects if they were contracted out individually. To date ISG has subcontracted to thirty-four small businesses, a list of which is contained in Table 1. This contract was solicited on September 07, 2005, as a full and open competitively awarded Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract with provisions for firm fixed price and firm fixed price hourly rates pricing arrangements. Additionally, the solicitation went out for bid as a 100% small business set-aside. The contract was solicited with a base period of two (2) years and three (3) one year options with a ceiling of $12 million per year over the period of performance of the contract. The solicitation was advertised on Federal Business Opportunity (www.fedbizopps.gov). Five proposals were received and all proposals were evaluated by a Technical Evaluation Board (TEB). ISG (ISG) was awarded the contract (AG-7604-C-07-0025) due to their superior technical rating and excellent prices. The contract was awarded on May 1, 2006 with an initial ceiling of $24 million. In February 2008 USDA issued a Delegation of Procurement Authority (DPA-08-004) for this contract raising the ceiling to the amount in the solicitation which was $60 million. The contract period of performance was through May 1, 2011 but subsequently readjusted to November 30, 2010. The contractor has up to one year after contract expiration to deliver on any work not completed prior to this expiration. Although it was anticipated that the follow-on competition for the Strategic Services contract to replace contract AG-7604-C-07-0025 would be completed by 1st quarter CY2011, the request for proposal documents are still not complete. Currently, it is anticipated that the Strategic Services contract RFP will be issued in the 2nd quarter CY2011 with award by in the 4th quarter CY2011. In May 2010 USDA issued a Delegation of Procurement Authority (DPA-08-0004a) for this contract raising the ceiling by $15M from $60M to $75M. To date the FS has obligated approximately $70.1 million to the contract. The FS actual and estimated obligations to the contract by FY are shown in the following table: Fiscal Year Actual/Estimated Funds Obligated Against Current DPA Actual/Estimated Funds Obligated Against New DPA 2006 $13.2M $13.2M 2007 $11.3M $11.3M 2008 $14.2M $14.2M 2009 $16.5M $16.5M 2010 $14.4M $14.4M 2011 $4.9 Estimated $4.9 Estimated 2012 N/A $10.0M Estimated Total $75.0M $85.0M 3. Statutory Authority The statutory authority for the action proposed in this justification includes the following: 41 USC 253(c)(1) and FAR Subpart 6.302-1 Only one responsible source, including FAR Subpart 6.302-1(a)(2)(ii) Follow-on contracts and FAR Subpart 6.302-1(b)(1) Unique capabilities The services required by the FS are available, for the extension period discussed (i.e., prior to when a re-competed contract could be gotten in place), from only one responsible source and no other type of services will satisfy FS requirements. 4. Demonstration of Contractor's Unique Qualifications ISG's unique qualifications applicable to statutory authority 41 USC 253(c)(1) and FAR Subpart 6.302-1 "Only one responsible source" are as follows: a. FAR Subpart 6.302-1(a)(2)(ii) Follow-on Contract The funding for the subject contract represents a sizeable investment in the present contractor team for the FS EA and e-Government programs. Significant work remains to be completed. Awarding one or more contracts to complete the work remaining to one or more companies other than ISG would represent a substantial risk to the FS to get the work completed in the time required and duplication of cost the FS will not recover through competition. b. FAR Subpart 6.302-1(b)(1) Unique Capabilities ISG created a consortium of small companies with unique experience and expertise relative to the FS's EA and e-Government programs. ISG has also brought additional small businesses on board this contract as the need has arisen. ISG has subcontracted to a total of thirty-four (34) other small businesses. In many cases they have subcontracted to a number of Subject Matter Experts that have provided valuable service to the FS. A list of the thirty-four (34) small businesses and consulting firms that ISG has subcontracted to over the last three years is contained in the table on the following page. ISG's consortium of small business has unique experience and expertise regarding FS operations and functions that has been acquired from their support of FS business transformation efforts. ISG's consortium has six years experience developing and employing a methodology for transforming key FS common business areas. This accumulated experience enables ISG to perform at a much higher level than a comparable assembly of talent that would have to start from scratch learning the FS culture and business climate. c. Justification for Raising the Contract Ceiling Obligating FY2011 funds to the contract will result in reaching contract ceiling before the end of November 2010. If the ceiling is not raised contractor support for a significant number of mission critical projects will soon stop until such time that the Strategic Services replacement contract is put in place. Efforts to re-compete the contract were initiated in late Spring 2009 but existing workload on CIO program management personnel has caused these efforts to proceed slower than expected. It is quite possible that these efforts could take up to another year or more to complete, potentially leaving a significant gap in FS e-Government and Enterprise Architecture contractor support. Putting in place alternative sole source contract vehicles for individual projects could take as long as nine months or more to place. Additionally, a significant amount of corporate knowledge from the incumbent contractor would be lost. To lose the services this contract provides for any length of time would severely hamper FS efforts to comply with a number of federal laws and regulations including work on the agency's e-Records/ORMS modernization project. It would jeopardize the successful completion of the e-Government and Enterprise Architecture programs which have already cost $150M. It would also put on hold many high profile (with USDA, Congress, OMB, GSA, and the IT Trade press) efforts to meet citizens' expectations for interacting with FS in ways these stakeholders now commonly experience with many commercial sector providers and other government agencies. The Enterprise Architecture and Electronic Government work has matured significantly in the last 4 years, from experimental innovation to a proven Business Solution. The demonstrated success of the Enterprise Architecture and Electronic Government efforts has dramatically improved the effectiveness and efficiency of agency business processes. The initial contract anticipated a small amount of use by other USDA agencies partnering with the FS. This past fiscal year, as in FY2009, USDA OCIO adopted key aspects of the FS EA approach and thus found the FS EA contractors as the obvious source for their support needs. The major factor in USDA's continued significant use of the contract resulted from the FS success with the USDA mandated Web Portal implementation. As a result, the NRCS Office of Communications leadership subsequently approved a $5 million, 3-year effort to "clone" the FS Web Portal framework and "reuse" a great many of the Portal components developed and perfected in the FS efforts. The cost savings to USDA and the US Government was significant. A full description of the projects that would be impacted by a loss of contractor services and the impact on those projects is contained in Attachement A to this document. d. Justification for Extending the Period of Performance The current contract period of performance ends November 30, 2010. Although it was anticipated that the follow-on competition for the Strategic Services contract to replace contract AG-7604-C-07-0025 would be completed by 1st quarter CY2011, the request for proposal documents are still not complete. Currently, it is anticipated that the Strategic Services contract RFP will be issued in the 2nd quarter CY2011 with award by in the 4th quarter CY2011. Extending the period of performance of this contract to 30 November 2011 provides the FS technical staff with sufficient time to prepare the documentation required for the RFP leading to successful award of the follow-on Strategic Services contract. 5. Efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as is practicable. Not Applicable 6. The contracting officer has determined that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable. Contract AG-7604-C-07-0025 was awarded competitively with a determination that the negotiated labor rates for all categories were fair and reasonable. Task orders issued under this contract are negotiated using the labor rates determined to be fair and reasonable under the basic contract after a determination that the labor hours and other proposed costs are reasonable. 7. The market research conducted and results. Adequate competition was received initially. Market research was based on initial offers received and then informally validated based on experience of the current acquisition team with pricing for similar professional services. 8. Other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition. The estimated cost the Government might sustain if the contract must be recompeted in lieu of increasing the existing contract ceiling is $35 million of loss to applications under development but not yet completed. This estimate was developed by the e-Gov Program managers and based on experience with the tasks that are underway for the program. 9. Listing of the sources that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition. Not applicable. 10. Actions the agency may take to remove or overcome any barrier to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required. Efforts to recompete the contract were initiated in late spring 2009 but existing workload for the CIO has caused these efforts to proceed slower than expected. This requirement will be competed in the future as it was in the past. A recompetition will be conducted with a competitive award in time to allow for sufficient transition of ongoing work to a new contractor. SIGNATURES AND APPROVALS ON PAGE 12 11. It is the Contracting Officer certification that the justification is accurate and complete to the best of the Contracting Officer's knowledge and belief. I hereby certify the above to be accurate and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief. /signed/ 22 November 2010 John King, Program Manager Date RECOMMENDED FOR APPROVAL: /signed/ 22 November 2010 James R. Jefferis, Contracting Officer Date /signed/ 22 November 2010 Cynthia A. Lynch, WO AQM IT Support Branch Chief Date /signed/ 24 November 2010 Ronald R. Wester, COCO Date APPROVED: /signed/ 24 November 2010 Laurie Lewandowski, Competition Advocate Date /signed/ 24 November 2010 Ronald E. Hooper, HCAD Date Table 1: Small Business that have Participated in the ISG Enterprise Architecture & Electronic Government Consortium 8(a) MOB WOB VOB SDVOB Totals 5 12 10 4 0 Prime Contractor Innovative Solutions Group, Inc. x Small Business Subcontractors 34 Avenue B Consulting x Business Genetics Cairn Associates Decision Lens Inc. Dovel Technologies, Inc. E-Enterprises, Inc. x Enterprise Architecture & Information Management, Inc. x Enterprise Management Associates Esufis Inc. Exeter Government Services, LLC x Formatta Corporation FutureNow Technologies, Inc. x Gini Corporation x x x Global Technology Partners, Inc. x x x Harris Grant Consulting x Innovative System Solutions Corporation x x Ironbridge Consulting, LLC JPR Wood Consulting, Inc. x K4 Solutions, Inc. x x x Kapow Technologies, Inc. Karthik Consulting, LLC x Metanoia Solutions Inc. MW Consulting, LLC Modano Consulting, Inc. Mountain Quest Institute, LLC x Network Specialty Group Inc. x x Phase One Consulting Group, Inc. Projility, Inc. R&R Holmes Consultants, LLC x Rebecca Reynolds Consulting, Inc. x Talatek LLC x x Talino Tech Corporation x x Trilogy x W. E. Damon Consulting x ATTACHMENT A PROJECTS THAT WOULD BE SEVERELY IMPACTED BY A DISRUPTION OF CONTRACTOR SUPPORT Forest Service Enterprise Portals: Version 1.0 of the FS Intranet e-Portal and Version 1.0 of the FS www Portal have been released. These deployments represent a solid beginning of a return on an investment of over $50 million made thus far by the FS and USDA in the e-Portal infrastructure. At present more than fifty-five (55) national forests have a presence on the www Portal, with as many as fifty (50) more in the process of content migration along with 4 Regional Offices, 4 Research Stations and most of the Washington Office staff areas including State & Private Forestry. The e-Portal is the next generation of the agency's Intranet and Internet (www) environments and is in the process of rolling out a well tested and standards-compliant design that greatly improves the agency's ability to get work done any time and any place employees have a secure connection to the Internet. Apart from the monetary investment, several hundreds of National Forest, Regional Office, Research Station, and National Office staff personnel have invested a great deal of time and energy in these projects. Halting the contractor support for these projects in their current state of development would introduce lengthy disruption and confusion into the plans of a great many FS staffs and application development teams. Consternation, dissatisfaction, and confusion as to the agency's management capabilities could be widespread and have significant negative impacts on agency morale. NRCS Web Portal Support: In September 2009 the FS signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Natural Resources Conservation Services (NRCS) to support the rapid migration of NRCS public web sites to the required USDA web style and Enterprise Shared Services (ESS) platform by leveraging the FS web portal framework. NRCS believes they can leverage the FS web portal framework to facilitate a more effective strategy for the full life-cycle management of web content and support the enforcement of NRCS-wide web policies and standards. After signing this MOU the NRCS transferred to the FS $2.54M in FY09 funds that was placed on the subject contract to conduct Phase I of the NRCS portal development. NRCS is now planning Phase II of the portal development which will include migration of all the NRCS state offices to the NRCS portal. In addition, during a status meeting on November 17, 2009 the NRCS expressed an interest in obtaining FS support in overhauling their intranet web site and services as well. The commitment made by NRCS is a significant endorsement of the FS strategy and technical approach for the FS www portal. Other organizations within USDA have shown an interest as well. Without contractor support for the second phase of this project, delays unacceptable to NRCS could be encountered, damaging the FS reputation within and around the Department. Field Data Automation/Mobile Computing (FDA/MC): This initiative provides applications and tools to efficiently gather field data and retrieve information both in the field and office settings. The Field Data Automation/Mobile Computing project has established a standard mobile computing architecture and mobile solution development process in addition to completing prototype mobile applications to support Natural Resources and Facilities Monitoring. The mobile solution development process and mobile computing architecture was leveraged to deliver a set of solutions to support an array of field requirements for data quality and employee safety and productivity. Solution proofs-of-concept included Mobile Office, Situational Awareness Firefighting Equipment (SAFE), and Mobile Law Enforcement. Technology evaluation studies have been conducted on mobile computing devices and wireless communication capabilities with many recommendations reaching implementation in the agency. The SAFE project has been working with many organizations and agencies, including the National Incident Management Organization (NIMO) seeking to enhance decision making capabilities and situational awareness. NIMO teams are interested in testing and evaluating various technology solutions as a force multiplier concept to optimize team management capabilities. During FY2009 NIMO employed the FDA/MC project under this contract to continue the implementation of the FDA-MC strategy by supporting Fire and Aviation Management (FAM) in procuring test equipment, developing and implementing the requested solutions, training and supporting NIMO personnel and other field users, creating and evaluating field user feedback forms, and conducting an after-action analysis on the impact of technologies on an incident. The benefits of the FS FDA/MC project include increased safety and effectiveness through real-time field collaboration and decision making, improved data quality for accurate decision support, reduced administrative time for office-bound data entry and retrieval, and significant productivity gains through remote monitoring solutions. A disruption of continued contractor support for FY2011 would severely impact the progress in rolling out solutions to not only the FS personnel in the field but the NIMO teams for fire suppression as well. Enterprise Content Management (ECM): This initiative provides for the strategies, methods, and tools used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content and documents related to key FS organizational processes. This includes FS commitments to greatly improve its compliance and service responsibilities for electronic records management, e-Discovery, legal hold, FOIA, directives, and correspondence. Currently, the ECM effort is focused on two areas: eFOIA and a proof of concept looking at how electronic records management (e-Records) can improve the responsiveness, comprehensiveness, and accuracy of not only the FS responsibilities to the National Archives but also to the Office of the General Council for litigation holds. The eFOIA project is in implementation and the e-Records effort is on pace to reach a critical agency-wide implementation juncture at the beginning of fiscal year (FY) 2011. Both of these efforts have strong program, IRB, and deputy chief support. The goals for the eRecords effort are to make information easily findable and improve business processes; ensure compliance and reduce risk by controlling information retention; and empower legal counsel and reduce cost by enabling e-Discovery. Additionally, the outcomes of this initiative will lead to lower costs in many areas, including: lower "discovery costs" for current and future litigations, lower "restoration costs" for the IT operations staff, and lower "storage costs" since content can be deleted past its retention period. The eFOIA and eRecords efforts are part of the larger Enterprise Content Management (ECM) strategy. The FS Enterprise Content Management Strategy and Office of Regulatory and Management Services Modernization Study (June 2008) predicts savings exceeding $220 million a year (based on other organization's successes with ECM) with the implementation of the strategy. The current efforts are real, not some paper exercises. Beyond the aforementioned efforts, the ECM strategy also includes improved collaboration, communication, document management and knowledge management. The development environments have been set up to continue these efforts, the executive support is strong from the program area to OGC to the deputy chief, and real gains are starting to be achieved in the overall ECM program -- discontinuation at this point in time would throw away significant gains that are within reach in the next two years thanks to the investments made so far. Information Resource (IR) Governance: This initiative focuses on using best practices to manage IR investments and the use of IR to deliver maximum business value to the agency and its mission. The four key components of IR Governance are: enable business driven investment decisions; monitor and evaluate project performance; monitor the implementation of investment decisions; and monitor investment performance. The contractor team is developing a comprehensive IR Investment and Portfolio Management capability that utilizes a streamlined automated approach to supporting the IRB and ELT activities for performing IR investment analysis and making portfolio decisions. The contractor team is leading efforts to establish and improve the Service Request/ Technical Approval implementation process as well as the Earned Value Project Management System. A gap in contractor support will bring to almost complete stoppage the agency's progress in establishing management processes and decision support mechanisms that enable business driven investment decisions and strengthen compliance with OMB and USDA CPIC policy, directives, and guidance. USDA and FS Enterprise Architecture: Any halt to or shutdown of the subject contract would make it virtually impossible for the FS Enterprise Architecture program to continue without a prolonged hiatus and collapse of credibility. The ability to maintain and evolve the great amount of enterprise architecture information, stored and managed in the FS EA Repository, and needed to ensure and efficient and compliant IT and network support environment, would all but disappear and EA processes would be forced to revert to a completely inadequate document and e-mail based process. High profile, very critical collaboration with USDA OCIO EA Division would collapse and seriously jeopardize OCIO's efforts to achieve EA process and artifact standardization across the department. FS federal EA staff would be completely unable to achieve but a fraction of their performance objectives. As much as $500 million of FS IT budget could be put in the high risk category by OMB with potential embarrassment to the Chief, the FS CIO, the USDA CIO, and even the Secretary of Agriculture. Under the current day federal IT regulatory environment an agency simply cannot afford to revert to non-repository EA management. Electronic Forms (GPEA) Implementation: In 2008, the Deputy Chief for Operations directed that all 600 national FS forms be converted to electronic format (in compliance with GPEA), including modernization of the associated business processes to the extent practical, within four years. The objective of this initiative is to consolidate and greatly streamline the more than 600 forms-based business processes currently in use in the FS. Key aspects of this effort includes converting paper based forms to electronic; implementing e-Signature for both internal and public-facing forms; providing web-based instead of inbox-based view of each person's work queues; reducing the number of forms required, and standardizing many aspects of agency forms, especially the meaning and syntax of their data elements. Over 2,000 field forms also exist and are candidates for conversion once the Regions, Stations, and Area reconcile, harmonize, and standardize them to an appropriate degree. Once field-based forms are pared down to a standard set, the FS intends to have the contractor train field developers to convert their own forms, as well as, streamline and standardize their processes. This can be going on in parallel with the national forms conversion effort. FS compliance with GPEA is monitored by USDA and OMB and used to score agency performance. This initiative relies heavily on contractor support to continue to make progress in FY11 and beyond. Cost avoidances in FY10 alone approach $10 million, savings that would be postponed easily 2 to 3 years or more should contracting support for the eForms efforts lapse as the ceiling on the current contract is exhausted. eCommerce/eCollections Support for Symbols.gov: The National Symbols Program is a key component of the U.S. Forest Service Conservation Education Program. It features America's icons for fire prevention and the conservation of the environment, including Smokey Bear, Woodsy Owl, and others. The FS manages a cache of products (e.g., Smokey Bear, lapel pins, pencils, coloring books, etc.) and presents them along with supporting ideas, activities, events, clipart, audio and video clips, and other lessons for use by educators. The purpose of this initiative is to offer customers an easy-to-use, automated way to purchase national symbols and related materials online. The net revenue received by the FS each year approaches $2 million and this is available immediately to the agency to use in its Fire Prevention program. In FY10 the contractor is providing an approved electronic catalog of symbols-related products, C&A the business solution, begin to design, develop, and test the new automated sales and inventory business processes, including connecting to the standard government (pay.gov) back-end payment processing system. The benefits of this initiative include providing the technology foundation for establishing an FS web-based storefront usable by all organizational units (e.g., Permits, National Symbols, Four Rivers Lottery Application); virtually eliminating data entry errors into FS systems, reducing cash transactions and associated handling risks to FS staff; saving FS personnel time currently devoted to customer sales; offering the public a 24x7 online solution; offering the public the ability to pay for FS services electronically (e.g., credit cards, e-checks) Without contractor support the National Symbols storefront makeover may incur lengthy delays that will almost certainly result in a deterioration of the FS reputation on a broad scale as other agencies and educational institutions are unable to conveniently and efficiently arrange, online, for shipment and payment of FS symbols products. Recreation One Stop (R1S): is comprised of two major components: 1) National Recreation Reservation Service (NRRS) which provides "one-stop" reservation shopping to the public for a wide range of Federal recreation areas and 2) Recreation Information Data Base (RIDB) which provides public access to non-reservation recreation information. The R1S project is one of the e-Government initiatives in the Presidential Management Agenda to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and customer service of the Federal Government. The RIDB represents an FS contribution to R1S and within that framework modernization of FS provisioning of Recreation Information and Services. The RIDB has improved access to recreation-related information generated by the various levels of government (Federal, tribal, state, and local), streamlined the systems used to manage that information, and enhanced the sharing of recreation-related information among government and non-government organizations. While the RIDB is in operational service, enhancements continue to be added to improve the customer experience. Enhancements that are currently being added include implementing a standard interface for government personnel to enter recreation data into RIDB utilizing the new FS Intranet Portal standards; developing procedures for accepting new data partners (Federal, State, and Local) who desire to include their recreational data in RIDB; and adding geospatial capabilities including Google mashups, lines and polygons, and boundaries. The lack of contractor support for even a short period of time would jeopardize the ability of all current government partners making their recreation opportunity information available to the American public. It would also jeopardize the FS falling into non-compliance with its R1S MOU and risks a significant deterioration of FS reputation as a reliable government partner. Weather Information Management System (WIMS): is a mission critical, national system, managed and maintained by FS Fire and Aviation Management (F&AM) for interagency use. WIMS distributes critical weather information and climate data to effectively manage resources for fire suppression performed by the U.S. Forest Service and cooperators nationwide. WIMS provides users with automated access to weather observation information, it generates National Fire Danger Ratings (NFDRS), and it processes forecasts from the National Weather Service (NWS). WIMS provides valuable weather observation data to researchers performing fire prediction and file planning. WIMS serves as a primary supplier of weather observation data for the Wildland Fire Assessment System (WFAS), an internet-based information system that provides a national view of weather and fire potential, including national fire danger and weather maps and satellite-derived "Greenness" maps. The contractor has been providing support for WIMS for over nine years for operation and maintenance as well as the implementation of enhancements. Planned enhancements for FY10 include access to weather information through a geographic interface such as Google Earth/Maps and reduction in the time needed to get the right info to the right people at the right time; providing the ability to view weather information from a variety of sources simultaneously on one screen and providing the ability to access fire weather information using mobile handheld devices. A short gap in contractor support, especially during fire season, could result in system failure or interruption resulting in loss of data and information, negatively impact timeliness of fire weather forecasts increasing the risk of bad decisions resulting in additional risks to life and property. If problems should occur in WIMS operations, without access to experienced contractor support, F&AM personnel would have no quick means for troubleshooting the source of the problem. As a result these problems, and potentially complete outages, could persist for long periods of time and make the system unavailable for fire planning and fire suppression operations. eCollaboration: is a web based initiative to establish business collaboration capabilities across the Forest Service to: 1) support agency and partner efforts towards collaborative public land management and environmental conflict resolution; 2) facilitate feedback and the internal and external exchange of ideas, and knowledge among various communities of interest or practice at local, state, landscape, national and international levels of interest and relevance; and 3) enable FS sponsored communities and others to harvest innovations through the use of standard information and datasets, applications of advanced science, and tools which are designed to be used at the community or end user levels such as decision support applications with presentation and data type mash-ups (e.g. Google Earth). eCollaboration will provide the agency with the kind of collaboration capabilities that will be required to implement the mission laid out by Chief Tidwell's common vision speech "Restoring America's Forests through Landscape-Scale Conservation" given to the 2009 National Convention, Society of American Foresters, Orlando, FL-October 2, 2009. In addition, the initiative is designed to empower all units and employees implementing the broad objectives laid out in: a) FS Policy FSM 1600 that codifies policy related to the Department of Agriculture Organic Act of 1862 (12 Stat. 387; 7 U.S.C. 2201), b Open Government Directive and c) many others. Key external co-sponsors for eCollaboration include the National Forest Foundation, Udall Institute, and Red Lodge Clearinghouse. The primary benefit of the eCollaboration effort is to develop an integrated, coherent, and coordinated agency-wide, cross-deputy portal for information and guidance related to partnerships and collaboration. This will provide for 1) Connecting People including social networking and communities of practice, 2) Sharing Knowledge using electronically searchable databases and content repositories, 3) Identifying Emerging Issues through collaborative inventory and monitoring, 4) Designing Appropriate Processes including legal and administrative support and 5) Supporting Partnerships and Collaboration through "how to" guides and other resources. The eCollaboration team is completing the first phase of the effort which includes developing the functional and technical design for a collaboration website to enable knowledge management (KM) in support of partnerships and collaboration. Specific knowledge assets provided by the site will include mechanisms for establishing partnerships, methods for working collaboratively, tools and resources to increase capacity and accountability, and connections for growing and sustaining a public-private collaboration community of practice. A gap in contractor support for the eCollaboration project will stall the implementation of the initial collaboration website. This will cause a significant setback in meeting the requirement to assist in stemming the tide of agency knowledge loss related to the bulge in numbers of retiring personnel as well as setback in realizing the benefits to FS process flow and decision making. In addition, loss of momentum in working with key external stakeholders (such as the NFF and Udall Institute) will cause significant embarrassment of the FS with key environmental collaborators.