Description
Contract No. 70181AM077 TAS: 14 12610000 United States Department of the InteriorJustification of Other than Full and Open Competition Under $25,000 1) Briefly, a description of the supplies or services required to meet the agency's needs and include the estimated value.The Alaska Region of the Fish and Wildlife Service is hosting a conference for all of its managers and supervisors February 8 - 12, 2010, in Anchorage, Alaska. It has been eight years since the Region had held a similar meeting. The management and administrative landscape has changed much over the last eight years and added to the mix is the recognition of the impact of global climate change on the world, nation and Alaska. Most climate scientists agree that the extent and rate of change will be most extreme at or near the poles. Alaska, much of which in above the Arctic Circle, is experiencing the most dramatic impacts ecologically. The Service manages nearly 80 million acres of land in Alaska and it managers and supervisors are being challenged now to anticipate, project, and react to this changing environment. The goal of this Leadership Conference is to develop an unified sense of mission, empower them to push the knowledge envelope, and position the agency and its resources to anticipate and react to the changes that are on the horizon. The Conference title is "Challenges of Leading in a Changing Landscape." To set the stage for this 3-day meeting, we want to have a plenary speaker that challenges our leaders and managers to not be paralyzed in the face of change but to embrace it and lead by example. We want a speaker that has a breadth of knowledge of how other leaders on the national and international landscape have met similar challenges and proven their leadership and excelled in the face of adversity especially as it relates to managing through times of uncertainty. We are seeking a plenary speaker that can provide a 45 minute presentation and respond to questions for an additional 15 minutes. We believe that Douglas Brinkley is the only speaker that meets our requirements. 2) Statutory Authority permitting other than full and open competition. Identify the statutory authority permitting with the FAR citation and FAR citation Title. FAR 6.302-1: Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements. 3) WHY are the proposed contractor's unique qualifications for the nature of the acquisition requiring the use of the authority cited in item (2). While there are many vendors that speak on leadership, leadership characteristics, and managing change, we believe that Douglas Brinkley is uniquely suited for this task .The late historian Stephen E. Ambrose once called Brinkley "the best of the new generation of American historians. The Chicago Tribune has called Brinkley "America's new past master", and former President Bill Clinton called him "one of the historians I most admire." Driven Patriot (1992), a biography of James Forrestal, received the Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt Naval History Prize. Another Brinkley book--FDR and the Creation of the U.N. (1997)--was touted by historian Ernest May and diplomat Richard Holbrooke as "excellent." Mr. Brinkley also wrote the comprehensive American Heritage History of the United States (1998), that has been called a "riveting narrative" by the noted historian and videographer Ken Burns. Walter Cronkite has been attributed is saying it was the "best" one-volume U.S. History book. Brinkley's book, The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey Beyond the White House (1999) is widely considered instrumental in the ex-president's winning of the Nobel Peace prize. The Los Angeles Times decided that the 587 page-long Carter biography was an "important history" and an "invaluable resource." Brinkley's epic Wheels for the World: Henry Ford, His Company, and A Century of Progress (2003) won Business Week book of the year. The Wall Street Journal called it "sweeping and absorbing", and Foreign Affairs deemed the work a "tour de force of scholarship that synthesizes a vast amount of material into a comprehensible and readable whole." Brinkley also had the honor of being selected the official biographer of Rosa Parks, the women that help to breakdown the barriers of institutionalized racism in America. In January 2006, Brinkley and fellow historian Julie M. Fenster released Parish Priest, a biography of Father Michael J. McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus. Brinkley edited the New York Times best-selling The Reagan Diaries (2007). Walter Pincus, of The Washington Post, wrote that "It's amazing what nuggets of information you can unearth deep within a book as jam-packed as The Reagan Diaries." Brinkley's The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America was a bestseller in 2009. The New York Times Book Review deemed The Wilderness Warrior a Notable Book of the year and called the tome: "inspiring, and enormously entertaining.... The Wilderness Warrior has Rooseveltian energy. It is largehearted, full of the vitality of its subject and a palpable love for the landscapes it describes." The New Yorker--a periodical which Brinkley frequently wrote for in the 1990s--conceded that in The Wilderness Warrior the author "fully inhabits Roosevelt's mind." When Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States Brinkley was asked along with Tom Brokaw and U.S. Representative John Lewis to write an essay for the Official Inaugural Book. He was also invited to the White House in the summer of 2009 to discuss history with the president in a wide-ranging conversation on everything from foreign policy to conservation. Douglas Brinkley is a student of leadership and has researched its characteristics in many national and internationally recognized leaders from a diminutive black woman who steadfastly refused to give up her seat on a bus to a host of United States Presidents who lead the nation in uncertain times and towards unknown futures. Mr. Brinkley has studied, distilled, and written books of acknowledged renown on these leaders and their leadership characteristics that is unrivaled in other authors. Mr. Brinkley's insight into leadership and specifically his insight into the conservation ethos of President Theodore Roosevelt that largely heralded in the age of modern conservation make him uniquely and solely positioned to address the Alaska Region's conference on the "Challenges of Leading in a Changing Landscape." Mr. Brinkley will be speaking to the group using his historical research on Teddy Roosevelt, and several other past Presidents that has been captured in his books about them and their leadership across decades of American and world history. His research and books will be used as the basis for developing his presentation on leadership and the common characteristics that allowed them to lead during uncertain times focusing on its implications for conservation leaders. Mr. Brinkley to provide our introductory plenary speech to be delivered at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, February 9, 2010, at the Downtown Hilton located in Anchorage, Alaska. The presentation should focus on identifying the leadership characteristics of acknowledged leaders from Rosa Parks to President Bill Clinton focusing on their experiences of leading during uncertain times and emphasizing lessons that can be translated to the conservation challenges we will face in the coming decades. The presentation will address approximately 150 individuals and should be approximately 45 minutes followed by a approximately 15 minute period where attendees will ask Mr. Brinkley about questions relevant to the topic. We are seeking a speaker that is a student of leadership and one that has specifically analyzed leadership traits specifically in the environmental/conservation arena on a national or global landscape. 4) WHAT effort was made to ensure that offers were solicited from as many potential sources as is practical. In conducting market research to seek a keynote speaker for the conference, several hours of internet searches were conducted using a variety of key word phrases. The following list provides the key phrases used in the searches: Leadership speakers, Conservation + leadership, Leadership speakers conservation, Speakers conservation leadership, History leadership speakers, Conservation leadership characteristics. The intent was to seek potential speakers that could speak from a standpoint of the historical record about the characteristics of leadership based upon acknowledged political and conservation leaders. There are scores of speakers who speak on leadership, from a host of perspectives: business, marketing, adventure, etc. In reviewing speaker websites, none of the potential sources indicated their presentations were based on studies of acknowledged leaders, nor did any suggest that their presentations tie together common leadership characteristics of multiple leaders. Most presentations seemed to suggest that the speaker was basing their presentations upon personal accomplishments or achievements. Additionally, the Service attempted to find speakers that could specifically address President Teddy Roosevelt since he played such a pivotal role in American conservation. I found three speakers that indicate they present motivational presentations based upon President Teddy Roosevelt: David Markovitz, V. Neil Wyrick, and Keith McGough. Each suggests they are motivational and entertaining but none mention they touch upon his achievements and leadership in the conservation arena nor do they indicate they also talk about the leadership characteristics of other leaders. Their presentations based on their websites suggest they are focused solely on the life and actions of Teddy Roosevelt, which is not sufficient for the purposes of our Leadership Conference. 5) A Description of the Market survey conducted and the results. Based upon the market research conducted, no additional potential speakers were found that could address the issues that Dr. Douglas Brinkley has the ability to address nor have any written as extensively or exhaustively studied the lives of so many national leaders as Dr. Brinkley. I therefore conclude that there is no speaker other than Dr. Brinkley that can meet the requirements for making the keynote presentation. Mr. Brinkley will provide a presentation based upon fact-based knowledge of past leaders and more specifically on leadership characteristics for conservation purposes. All steps to remove or overcome barriers to competition have been taken.