NRCS_FSA_Survey_Sole_Source_Justification.docx

Sole-Source Justification Vendor Information:

DUNS #:

080550066

Name:

Clearfield, Frank B

Address:

3769 Bridgewater Dr Southport NC 28461

Phone:

910-854-0183

Cell:

617-955-6093

Justification:

The objective of the NRCS and FSA Joint Employee Survey project is to have a high quality, comprehensive survey assessment of NRCS and FSA employees that can provide executive leadership with useful insights and, the results of which can be used to inform efforts by the leaders of the agencies to improve customer service, and the efficiency and effectiveness of operations. In order to accomplish this, NRCS and FSA need a highly specialized service provider who is intimately familiar with the delivery system needed to achieve the benefits of healthy and productive landscapes including healthy and productive farms and ranches.

The analyses and resulting deliverables, consistent with the timeline called for by this SOW, requires a vendor that must have a number of essential characteristics. The vendor must have the proven knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform high-quality analyses, display results effectively, and produce a professionally written report that accurately and demonstrates the insights gained from NRCS and FSA employees with an emphasis on sociological insights. The vendor must be wholly knowledgeable of the complexities and nuances of the field delivery of assistance to farmers and ranchers. Additionally, the vendor must recognize and understand the direct and indirect benefits of the NRCS and FSA programs so that limited agency time is spent educating the vendor of these aspects. The vendor also must have high quality oral and writing skills to be able to communicate the results of the analyses to agency leadership and others as determined by the agencies.

This SOW will require the contractor to deliver on various items listed in the statement of work that will require a vast base of knowledge and experience. In order for the contractor to have any success in accomplishing these deliverables, they will need to have direct and extensive knowledge of the unique field delivery structure and overall operations of NRCS and FSA. This is because this effort is being greatly accelerated because of the needs of the formation of the new Under Secretary area, and cannot afford to be delayed with a contractor who needs a protracted amount of time to familiarize themselves with NRCS and FSA operations. Also, the nature of this arrangement is such that the contractor will be providing direct consultation to senior leaders on findings, and as a result, in order to accomplish the needs listed in the statement of work, the contractor will need to be thoroughly knowledgeable of the realities of the NRCS and FSA operating environment before engaging via contract.

Based on market research performed by NRCS, and upon the foregoing reasons, NRCS believes that Frank Clearfield is uniquely qualified and should be awarded the contract to perform this work. Furthermore, NRCS does not believe there is any party who is capable of performing this level scope of work other than Frank Clearfield. He understands and has demonstrated the ability to rapidly provide insight on the legislative, statutory, regulatory, and policy construct of USDA’s delivery of assistance to Farmers and Ranchers through NRCS and FSA, the interplay between the NRCS and FSA programs as well as other federal, State, and local programs that serve similar functions, specifically how technical and financial assistance is leveraged with federal partners to expand the available resources for private lands conservation and farm production, the overall process for practice standards development, technology development, and the technology transfer processes at NRCS and FSA, all of the prior and existing efforts at NRCS and FSA to gain feedback from employees including any sociological assessments, and finally the ability to quickly become familiar with and to integrate any enterprise-wide efforts to measure impact or gain feedback from employees on any Operational changes that may be applicable to the results of the present survey.

Mr. Clearfield has led himself, and has managed a number of professional staffs who developed policy, and implemented marketing, outreach, and stakeholder surveys gaining sociological feedback on projects like the present. As a consultant and during his Federal career, he managed and implemented a wide variety of national, regional and local projects that include organizational assessments and customer focused marketing. He has the unique institutional knowledge and experience and the ability to conduct surveys and focus group assessments that yield sociological insights in a concise, and highly specialized manner; to analyze data bases; to work with groups to compile strategic plans; to manage and minimize conflict situations; to conduct evaluations; and to use population data to help develop and implement marketing and/or communication plans. Frank Clearfield can help NRCS gather the unique information it needs from its internal customers/employees that will enable them to target customer service improvements more precisely and with the appropriate incentives to achieve buy-in in the highly specialized and unique operating models of NRCS and FSA .

In addition to all of the above reasons, Mr. Clearfield has helped private and public sector organizations find ways to work close together through the design of national surveys that gained responses from employees within various industries. Mr. Clearfield is an expert in gaining information and insights that assist in accelerating the process of large organizations collaborating more closely and in presenting these insights to build reports and recommendations that help bring about transformational outcomes for employees, for agricultural producers, and for the public.