Preproposal_Conference_Notes.docx

Preproposal Conference Notes Southeast Alaska Cluster Initiative Program Assessment

AG-0109-S-15-755508

The Contracting Officer held a pre-proposal conference at 9:00 a.m. via teleconference for Solicitation AG-0109-S-15-755508. The following firms were in attendance:

1. ADK Plans

2. Open Window Consulting

3. Bratslavsky Consulting Engineers

4. McDowell Group

Forest Service personnel in attendance were:

1. Nicole Grewe, USFS Project Manager

2. Mari Meiners, USFS Contracting Officer

The Contracting Officer reviewed the following sections of the solicitation:

1. Page 1 – NAICS. The NAICS for this requirement is 541690. Prospective Offerors need to ensure that their System for Award Management (SAM at www.sam.gov) reflects small business status for NAICS 541690 in FAR 52.212-3 and 52.219-1.

2. Page 1 – Contract Line Items. These line items are provided as milestones that can be invoiced upon completion. It is a best estimation by the government of logical milestones that can be documented as complete. Offerors are free to propose other contract line items that can be used as billing milestones. However, Offerors are cautioned that proposed changes to the schedule are not automatically acceptable to the Government and will be considered on a case by case basis.

3. Page 2 – Contract Type. This will be awarded as firm-fixed price.

4. Page 3 – Last sentence, and first 6 bullets at the top of page 4. These bullets provide the Government’s expected work tasks. Offerors are free to choose alternate methods for collecting data and evaluating outcomes.

5. Page 4 – Period of Performance. The successful contractor will have one year to complete the required work, but are free to complete the work sooner than a year if they so choose.

6. Page 4 and Page 5 – Project Meetings and Anticipated Deliverables and Assumptions. Required deliverables are listed on page 4. Under “Work Products” if an Offeror proposes that does not include interviews and questionnaires, the proposal needs to specify what work products will be provided. Page 5 provides assumptions for pricing purposes.

7. Page 5 – Project Budget. This information is provided for informational purposes. There is no reasonable expectation that this project will be funded above the budget. Offerors are free to proposal any amount higher or lower than the budget amount.

8. Provisions and Clauses Incorporated by Reference. Solicitation provides website addresses where full text of provisions and clauses can be found.

9. Pages 6 and 7 – Instructions to Offerors. This section outlines how proposals are to be delivered. Of note is the 25 page limit for technical proposals. This includes all pages including a cover letter, executive summary, graphs, charts, appendices, etc. Any pages (when printed) in excess of 25 pages will be removed and not considered during evaluation. The price volume has no page limit but needs enough supporting information to validate a determination of fair and reasonable pricing. The Technical Volume and the Price Volume are to be delivered as two separate documents.

10. Page 7 – Evaluation. Proposals will be evaluated based on the factors listed in this section. The evaluation criteria generally follow the different parts of the technical volume plus price.

11. Page 8 – Proposal Due Date and Time. Proposals are due to the Contracting Officer no later than Monday, September 14, 2015 at 1:00 p.m. Prospective Offerors are cautioned that this mean the date and time the Offer needs to be delivered to the Contracting Officer. For e-mail it means the date and time the e-mail is delivered to the Contracting Officer’s in-box, not the time it is sent from the Offeror’s computer. It is also noted that US Postal Service has a P.O. Box delivery address and FedEx/UPS/DHL, etc. has a physical address. E-mail is the preferred form of delivery. Please confirm receipt of your proposal with the Contracting Officer. Hand delivery is also acceptable.

12. Page 12 – Post Award Conference. There will be mandatory post award conference within 7 days of award. The successful contractor’s project manager must attend in person. Other contractor personnel may attend by phone.

13. Page 12 – Key Personnel. Offerors must name a Project Manager. This clause lists what needs to be done to replace the identified Project Manager after award.

14. Page 16 – Alaska Native or Indian-Owned Business. For record purposes, Offerors shall identify whether their firm falls into one of the five categories at the top of page 17.

15. Page 17 – Workers’ Compensation Laws. This section identifies a requirement to maintain workers’ compensation insurance.

The Forest Service Project Manager reviewed the project background and the work the Juneau Economic Development Council (JEDC) has done with Cluster Group Development in a previous Forest Service contract. As stated in the RFP, information on the JEDC work can be found at www.jedc.org/seclusterinitiative. She also identified the project goals as stated in bullets 1-6 in the statement of work on page 3.

The meeting was opened up for questions. There were no questions from firms in attendance.