This Notice of Intent to Award to a Sole Source contract is conducted in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 12, Commercial Items. The authority for this award is FAR 13.106-1(b), soliciting from a single source. For purchases not exceeding the simplified acquisition threshold, contracting officers may solicit from one source if the contracting officer determines that the circumstances of the contract action deem only one source reasonably available. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS)/FEMA, National Emergency Training Center (NETC), National Fire Academy (NFA) intends to negotiate on a Sole Source basis with the American Council on Education (ACE), One Dupont Circle, N.W., Washington, DC 20036. DHS/FEMA intends to issue a non-competitive award that will result in a base period from date of award through 12 months, and two one-year option periods for renewal at the discretion of the government. The intended procurement will be classified under the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) 611710 Educational Support Services, with a small business size standard of $7 million [average annual receipts for 3 preceding fiscal years]. The purpose of the contemplated award is to permit ACE to review and evaluate the content of National Emergency Training Center (NETC) courses and make recommendations on the acceptability of those courses for vocational, associate, baccalaureate, and graduate credit to over 1,800 educational institutions nationwide. NETC students are then able to obtain college credit for the courses they attend at, or receive on-line from, NETC. Additionally, ACE publishes The National Guide for College Credit for Workforce Training which serves as a listing of courses which have been recommended for college credit. NETC courses figure prominently among the list. This notice of intent to sole source is not a request for competitive quotes and no solicitation document exists for this requirement. All parties interested in responding to this notice shall: 1) Include information on the proposed services which clearly supports the requirements outlined; 2) fully explain your capabilities and qualifications by submitting a detailed capability statement within 15 calendar days from the date of this notice. Submissions after that date will not be considered. Telephone or facsimile requests for information will not be considered. Responses to this synopsis must be made in writing and submitted (using PDF, MS Word, Excel Attachments) to Rashurn Harrison, Contract Specialist at
[email protected]. • Contractor must have a College and University network base of at least 1,800 higher education institutions that consider their credit recommendations for transfer to degree programs. • The College and Universities that are in their network base must be nationally represented throughout the United States. • Contractor must show that they have a long-standing relationship with the educational organizations that they perform credit recommendation services for. • Contractor must accept the credit recommendation given to NFA courses that were previously reviewed and awarded by another organization (ACE). • Contractor must have an Online Guide which lists all NFA courses that have received credit recommendations. This Guide must include course information for each course; i.e., course name, course code, length of course, course description, objective, learning outcome, credit recommendation. • Contractor must maintain the Online Guide so that it provides up-to-date, public access to the entire database of NFA courses. • Contractor must award credit recommendations in various categories; i.e., vocational, associate, baccalaureate, graduate. • Contractor must be immediately able to provide an electronic transcript service for NETC students, which will be sent to the student's college or university. All capability statements received by the closing date of this synopsis notification will be considered by the Government. A determination by the Government not to compete based on responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. All Contractors doing business with the Federal Government must be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) database. Registration is free and can be found online at https://www.sam.gov/portal/public/SAM/ .