SAIO CNECTS Virtual Industry Day_Transcript.docx

Transcript August 19, 2026, 3:03PM

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF started transcription

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 0:44

All right.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

We've got several folks here in the 21st Comm Squadron conference room.

We won't do introductions for everybody, but we appreciate you being here real quick. Just a couple of housekeeping items. We are recording, so please if you would please, I'm going to go down the list of dial in users, if you could please state your name just so that.

We can get your attendance captured, so I have an area code 303 ending in 0483.

Please state your name.

OK, we'll come back to you area code 410 ending in 1808.

Please state your name and your company.

Jean Schultz, E&M 1:30 Jean Schulte, ENM technologies.

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 1:32

Thank you.

Area code 443 ending in 0988.

OK. We'll come back area Code 618 ending in 1437.

Area code 719 ending in 3545.

Alright, we'll circle back one more time.

Area code 303 ending in 0483.

You may have to press *6 to unmute.

OK, area code 443 ending in 0988.

OK, area code 618 ending in 1437.

+16*******37 3:12 Hello. Yeah, this is Russ Hayes from Laocoa.

Can you hear me?

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 3:18

Yes, Sir, we got you.

Thanks so much.

All right.

Thank you all again.

We'll go ahead and get started here.

My name is Michael Tidwell.

I'm the program manager for this effort and we really appreciate everybody joining us today. We have about 170 people online right now. So as we go through, if you would please just keep in mind to keep your microphones muted and if you would please make.

Sure that your webcams are turned off to conserve bandwidth, Microsoft Teams is good for a lot of things, but for massive meetings like this it doesn't always work the best.

So just a quick peek at our agenda for today.

Again, we don't expect for it to take the full 4 hours unless you guys just have lots of questions which we would greatly appreciate. Best case scenario for us as we run all the way to 1:00 and then still have lots of questions to answer. So as.

We go through.

Please feel free to raise your hand or drop questions in the chat.

We'll do everything we can to get those responded to as quickly as possible, but we would really like.

Lots of engagement from you guys and I know sometimes online that's challenging.

But if you'll raise your hand, we'll go ahead and make sure we get you unmuted.

We'll try to answer those questions in real time as we can.

Couple quick rules of engagement. This, as we said is being recorded and transcribed.

We may use AI on the back end to analyze the transcription, just to make sure that we captured all questions and action items that came out of this. Microphones will be muted on our end, particularly if you put us on hold.

We'll just go ahead and remove you from the meeting, but if you do have trouble getting unmuted, you can always press *6 if you're dialing in.

Or use your control panel to go ahead and unmute your mic.

Make sure your webcams are off again, just to ensure that we can conserve bandwidth.

Please, please, please ask us questions. Discuss, raise your hand, drop questions in the chat. We'll do our best to make sure that we can get all those responded to. And if we don't get to you now, we'll make sure that we send you a follow up e-mail if.

You'll just make sure that your e-mail address is either included in your profile or dropped in the chat.

With your question, we'll make sure that we get back to you as quick as we can.

And again, as always, nothing discussed today should be construed as government direction.

This meeting is for informational purposes only.

We will do our absolute best to share with you everything we know as of today, but as always, this is a fluid situation.

Things are going to change between now and three hours from now, so please just bear with us as we move through this process.

So just some real quick introductions for the 21st Communications Squadron, that is our customer and requirement owner.

I'll go ahead and go around the room here for folks that are available.

Other contacts are listed on here that are not available.

I'll go ahead and hand over to Mr. Luska.

Yeah. Good morning.

This is this is Dave Holeska.

I'm the director of the 21st Con Squadron.

Welcome, Welcome you I have.

A briefing talking about our work structure and our requirements in a little bit, but thank you for being here today.

My deputy, Mickey Holbenkamp is unable to attend.

The front end of this he's filling in for me at a briefing right now, I think.

Andre Farr, who is our director of plans, also our senior liaison officer at Shriver.

Not sure if he is online or not. I think he is Mr. Chad de Noggle, our director of operations and our senior liaison at Peterson.

Mr. Jeff Ewens is online.

He is our director of missions.

And our senior liaison officer at Cheyenne Mountain and Rita Hahn, who is sitting in the room with us right now.

She is the one that is working the hardest on this whole effort and putting our future organization together, future alignment and working this acquisition with Sayo.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sir. As I said, my name is Michael Tidwell. I work for sale.

That's the space acquisition and integration office.

We are the Services acquisition arm for Combat Forces Command. We handle basically cradle to the grave acquisition support for Combat Forces command everything from program management and the Pre acquisition phase award contracting and post award and then quality assurance.

So I'm in the room with Rosalind Davis, the contracting officer for the effort, Austin Front. Our acquisition advisor is also here.

And Clint Walker, I believe is joining online as our quality assurance program.

Manager.

So for those of you that may not have worked with the space force or Combat Forces Command just yet, this is kind of a layout over how our organization is structured.

Primarily, this contract will support space based D1 and the 21st Communications Squadron.

There are a handful of gsus that are associated with SBD one, and so support will vary in those areas as the work breakdown structure comes out. We'll make sure that we highlight any areas for you guys.

That may be requiring support outside.

Of the immediate Colorado Springs area, just so that everybody's on board with that. But ultimately this contract will support in some way, shape or form all of these units and organizations through the provision of communication services.

So as you guys get familiar with the requirement any one of these groups could be a customer of yours that requires support from your team.

So from the sale perspective, this is kind of how our organization is laid out.

Miss Katherine Weimer is our director.

She has immediate support in both operations and legal advice that we have internal to our organization. We have two primary Directorates, program management and contracting with Division chiefs at each location supporting different functionals.

So we do have an Anas service branch and we have an operations ground service branch and then we also have an operations space.

Service branch and then they're coordinating contracting side as well.

The purposes of this specific acquisition you're working with the PMO team and the PKO team.

Again, we flow down from M's Weimer to M's Nicole Pilato.

She's deputy director of the Program Management Directorate.

My supervisor is M's Brigid Shearer.

She's the PMO division chief and then on the contracting side of the House, Mr. Jeremy Libert is our chief.

The contracting office Austin Front works side by side with the rest of our teams as our acquisition advisor through DRX. Danny Cowell is the PKO contracting division chief and as we said, Miss Davis is our contracting officer. The main thing I want to footstep here is that this.

Is a very lame organization.

Sega was built intentionally to provide as much support directly to our customers as possible.

So Roz and I do not have a team of contractors.

Working with us, we don't have a team of support specialists, whether that's in acquisition or contracting. So as you work through this process, you will be working with myself and Roz directly and we will do everything we can to to support you as industry in any way that.

We can, but the key thing here is it may take us a minute or two to get back with you.

It really is just the two of us.

I know that's kind of unusual in the way that.

Most other organizations operate specifically familiar with working with SSC.

There's lots of contracted support in those offices and and two or three tiers at the working level of program managers and contracting officers, we just don't have that.

We do our absolute best to support our customers directly. So that means that we work as often as we can to work directly with you as well.

At this time, I'll go ahead and hand it back over to Mr. Luska.

That will provide you guys an overview with the 21st Communications Squadron and their future vision for.

The organization and the way this contract's laid out, great.

Thank you very much for any of you that were here several months ago for our first industry day. You're going to see slides that look very familiar.

There are some changes so I do want to make sure that everybody is as familiar with this.

Some fast facts about the the 21st COM Squadron.

We do have 50 work centers that are across 3 bases and those 3 bases are Peterson Shriver and Cheyenne Mountain. Ten of our work centers are 24 by 7.

We have 158 civil servants.

How they're funded doesn't really matter, but right now we have somewhere between 400 and 450 contractors.

And they are spread out between 4 contracts, our biggest by far is our NIST two contract.

Which is managed by SSC currently.

That is primarily up at Cheyenne Mountain and we do have some elements at Peterson in our red switch area and I'll talk a little bit more about that.

We have the Wix 2 contract which is managed by Sayo.

They do submission comms and some boss almost entirely at Schriever.

And then we have encore.

Which is commonly called the boss it contract, which is run by the 21st Contracting Squadron that has boss comms at Peterson and some comms at Schriever.

And we put boss comms but they also do some some mission support and we'll maybe talk a little bit about that.

And the 4th contract, which isn't on there for some reason, is PEDs, which is an engineering contract exclusively at Shreever as well.

The purpose for Connex is all of these contracts are ending relatively the same time frame, somewhere between 26 and 28, and we are consolidating all of those.

In many ways, what's in those four contracts are going to end up in the Connex contract.

But as we go through the next several slides, there are going to be some things that are in the existing contracts that are going to go civil service and there are some things that are civil service that are going to go to these contracts. So it's going to.

Kind of important as we go through the the next several slides that you understand what is going to be contracted and what is not.

Theories on the right are pretty much all Gee whiz for for this briefing. One thing that we are not going to ask of this contract is to support the gsus that we have the geographically separated units around the world.

With the exception of some of our local.

Colorado Springs facilities that we do support most of that support is going to be handled by our civil servants, but there may be some types of.

Deco and possibly CST support in those facilities off base.

Correct.

Next slide. OK talked about 3 locations we do.

Again, we have inside the mountain and building 101 and there are some actually some facilities down hill from building 101 that we have some space in at Cheyenne Mountain Peterson.

We have several facilities that we work out of that are contract support will also work out of.

Including building 1.

And to what we have contract support in building 1038.

Building 664 and 672 at Peterson and we have contract support in several facilities at Schriever, most of which will be, I believe, 7/15.

And I think in Mod 3/4 as well.

OK.

This is our organizational structure kind of important. The key on the left.

The boxes in white.

Are civilians what we anticipate to be our connects? Contract is green and we do have some elements of BIM that are going to be Gray, but there's not a lot of BIM in here.

So as I go through here, that is just kind of important to know.

Our organization.

Although we are at three different bases, entirely falls under space based D1, which is at Peterson Space 4 space.

And the director of Mission support at Peterson Space 4 space.

Currently, Miss Dorothy Choate is going to be Mr. Jeff race on September 3rd as Miss Cho retires.

I am the director of the 21st COM Squadron, my deputy Mr.

Hoven camp is the DD Squadron programs director.

Is Mr. Mitch McDonald.

Under him, we do have, you know, several bylaw type programs.

The one area that is going to be contracted under Connex is under knowledge management and that is our EIS.

Systems so that is primarily in the SharePoint area.

And we have our director of plans, we kind of talked about this a little bit during introductions, director of Plans, Mr. Andre Farr, in addition to being director of plan, he's also our senior liaison at Shriver. And we'll go through additional slides talking about what's contracted.

Director of mission.

Is Mr. Ewens out at Cheyenne Mountain and director of Operations, Mr. Denavel at Peterson?

All of these folks have functions across all three of the locations.

Under the director of plans.

So we're going to talk about first.

They have two flights cyber surety flight and the plans and resources.

Under cyber surety, we have cyber security and we have com SEC.

Com SEC is entirely civilian. However, cyber security is a mix of civilians and contractors.

So we have the the top level, the issm level, which is inherently governmental for the most part.

And some of the leadership requirements are are going to be civilian.

But any of the ***.

Work across many of our systems.

Any of the RMM capture compute SEC Tempest programs a lot of the.

Base IA program work is going to be done by our.

Connects contract.

On the plans and resources side, we have project management.

Entirely done by civil servants. We do have two contingents.

Of.

Engineering, we're going to have.

Some engineering done by our connects folks and we also have BIM going to be on board doing AFF net engineering only.

So anything that is requiring.

Mission system Engineering that is not on the APPNET, we will be looking for connects to support us in that area.

Including configuration management outside of the app net.

I'm director of mission side. Couple of flights here.

First side is the Millsap com.

This is split out a little bit differently.

We have fab T at Peterson is going to remain.

A civil service fab T and millsat com at Shriver and Cheyenne Mountain are going to continue to be contracted under connects now.

And red Switch is going to be entirely contracted where right now the red switch.

At Trever is civil service, so that's going to be a bit of a change from what we currently have.

On the mission Comm side.

Across all three locations, anywhere where we have circuit actions, which is all three locations that is going to be civil service and our tech control by the definition that is here is going to be contracted under connects.

Also under the director of Mission, we are not going to have any government involved in the NORAD Northcom networks.

So.

As it currently is at Cheyenne Mountain, anything that is NORAD N com networks is going to stay contracted, but it's going to go to Connex.

So everything that you see here is going to stay under the connects contract in support of the NORAD northcom networks.

The director of operations is our third and and final directorate.

First area is the operations flight.

First section is transmissions.

This is going to be completely civilian with the exception of some giant voice.

Pmis of some of the towers.

So that's going to be just maintenance of giant voice towers.

No other giant voice requirements on there.

Cable maintenance.

This one's going to be changed up a little bit.

We do have currently cable.

Is being done by civil servants at Schriever Cable is going to be done by contractors at all three locations.

Cable mapping. We're going to have civil servants doing cable mapping.

But we're going to have all the cable dog work for the most part, being done by contractors primarily connects, but the affnet table dog work is going to be done.

Through BIM, that's the Gray box at the bottom. We're going to have a little bit of work to figure out what is being done by BIM versus what is being done by connects.

But basically, the rule of thumb is if it's afnet it has been, if it's not afnet it is connects.

Finally, on this slide.

This is this is a big area.

Our comp focal point, CST, Beco.

Area in and vulnerability management, which is the VM vulnerability management across all three locations, is going to be entirely civilianized. We do have contractors doing that now at a couple of locations, but that's going to be all civilian. But the comp focal point, CST, Beco.

Is going to be all contract one contract where we have three different contracts doing that right now it's going to be combined and we're really looking forward.

To your solutions and how we're going to combine that across all three locations, especially on the comp vocal point side.

I believe this is my final slide and this is our network operations flight.

Do you see with the exception of the NORAD N com networks that I talked about previously under DM, we are looking to do networks at our three locations in house in the future.

And we are working to to bring that in House during our IOC as we're.

You know, working towards our future organizational structure with the exception of the great box, which has been that's going to do some network monitoring for us.

So we're not looking for outside of NORAD. Norfolk. We're not looking for a lot of network support from the contract for the connects contract.

Looking for questions now, OK.

All right, I am open for for questions on the structure and just I wanted to reiterate that I really it's it's important to us that our contracting partner understands.

Where where you fit in in our structure.

It is a huge effort.

We want to make sure that.

You know, we have a good partnership that you understand where you fit in.

The parts of our squadron that we are asking you to work in and how you fit into our to our unit.

So we're looking for that in the White Papers when they come forward.

So OK, so at this time, we do have a quick option to open up for questions.

So if you do have a question online, please raise your hand or drop it in the chat and we'll take just a couple minutes to answer questions here. While we have Mr. Alaska available, he will be in and out throughout the rest of the day, so we can.

Feed him questions later, but this is your opportunity. If you have any questions directly for the 21st Communication Squadron, we're happy to entertain those at this time.

Chris Kennedy 27:40 Hey Sir.

Chris Kennedy here.

So quick question just to read back. You're saying in in the white papers, you want to hear how we fit into those functions and things that are our contract aligned to your your mission and civilian teams, is that is that is that your intention Sir?

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 27:57

Yeah, that is, that is one of the things that I'm looking for is an understanding of how you fit into this structure.

Is the call for the White Paper's gone out yet? OK, when it goes out?

That is one of the things that that will be asked for, Michael.

We're gonna show that AOI.

Yes, we will go into the AOI as well as the problem statement later on in this presentation.

Chris Kennedy 28:28 Great. Thank you, Sir.

Russ 28:32 Yeah, this is Russ Wort and I just had a quick question.

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 28:39

OK.

Russ 28:41 Later on in your presentation, are you going to go through the acquisition strategies with regards to how many white papers, the pages per White Paper and also how many invitees after phase one in a based on the CSO construct and the amount of interested vendors to get past?

Phase one, unless we have specific requirements in evaluation.

You know, criteria, it would be hard to condense.

You know a response of this magnitude to like 6 to 10 pages in one White paper.

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 29:18

Yes, Sir. We will go into that later on in the presentation kind of give you our vision of what we're going to be looking for and and what direction we're headed as far as that's concerned.

Russ 29:30 Thank you.

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 29:35

So there's a question in the chat as to whether or not this is confirmed to be small business acquisition or 8A and RJD submissions encourage or discouraged. This is a 100% small business set aside and we are encouraging JV's to express interest as well.

Partnering is going to be huge on this.

We do understand that this is a large requirement, so we are looking forward to industry's input as far as that's concerned.

The other question is that we mentioned BIM several times, but I've not talked about the impacts by it. As wave one has the time frame for wave one been set for the three installations, some of that roll out is already in progress.

Those timelines are available on the Itas website.

But as far as this contract is concerned, any of the support required by the connects requirement is considered a field service under Itas and so as an optional portion of that requirement.

We are pressing forward with an independent contracting solution through Sao for the 21st Communication Squadron.

I hope that answered your question.

All right.

Last call for questions here before we move on.

So there's a question about current implementation and architecture.

Are you speaking about connects and how we plan to roll that out or is that fall back to BIM?

Yes, we will discuss exactly how we see the connects piece rolling out information on the BIM contract and how they're rolling out will have to be found on the BIM website.

We will go through the connects, roll out plan here in just a bit.

All right, so moving on, we'll just give kind of a quick high level overview of connects from a requirement standpoint and how we got where we are today from the legacy contract.

So as of right now, as Mr. Luska said, there are four separate contracts and quite frankly that's just become unmanageable from the standpoint of the 21st Communications Squadron.

Each contract requires multiple cores and requires multiple functional.

And subject matter experts to try to manage.

It's just becoming impossible.

And for those folks not only to do their jobs, but also to manage the contracts.

So right now the 21st Comm Squadron is realigning as Mr. Hillesk alluded to, they are changing the way that they do business as far as which functional areas and requirements they have civilians performing, which ones they have contractors performing and exactly how those teams interact with each.

Other.

So last year the 21st Communication Squadron contacted Sayo and asked if consolidation was even a possibility.

These contracts again knowing that it's got three separate locations, multiple gsus and currently 4 contracts performing similar services across the various installations.

So we did do a deep dive on that determinant. The requirements were similar in nature.

There are a handful of onesies and twosies out there that are a little bit different, but late last year we issued a consolidation, determination and findings which was approved by AFSC KS.

Which is our contracting authority.

Parent if you will for sale that was approved late last year.

So as far as those four contracts are concerned, we won't deep dive those right here, but they do as you can see, have a variety of period performance, end dates, all kind of aligned within 18 months of each other. And so as of right now, our plan is.

To roll those out, we'll go specifically into those timelines a little bit later. But as of today, our plan is to allow each of those requirements.

To sunset.

Of their period of performance and then roll on to the connects contract at that time.

We understand that does provide a significant challenge to the connects contractor from an onboarding perspective, taking over each of these requirements kind of as a role on. But in order to reduce risk, we did not want to have to try to fight Descoping existing contracts as well as.

A ramp up of the new contract all in one motion.

So we have heard some negative feedback from BIM that that was a challenge.

That they ran into trying to coordinate multiple D scopes while they were bringing it on, so identifying that risk, we decided to kind of take a different path.

As far as boss, it is concerned there are multiple areas right now that are being covered by BOSS.

Iti won't go through these line by line but as Mr. Alaska said, there are some items that are going to be dropped off and we have those crossed out here.

So cable shop network technicians and unclassified voice over IP will no longer be.

The contracted solutions, but they are currently covered by contractors on BOSS it.

Miss again is the larger largest portion of this requirement.

These are the multiple areas and work centers that are supported by NIST currently moving forward. Any areas stricken here will no longer be on the connects contract.

Those will be handled by civilians or covered by BIM moving forward. Once we roll out connects.

Additional support on the Nisk contract.

Again, LMR and circuit actions will be dropping off.

But the remainder of this support will be contracted on connects.

Moving on to Wix again, primarily at streamer Space, Force base, multiple areas of contracted support and specialty here.

Dropping off will be a global broadcast operation Center, Power system, safety and operational systems, and then circuit actions.

Then again, PEDs, we haven't spoken about very much here simply because it's a much smaller requirement. And as you can see, the vast majority of it will be going away as a result of BIM. So we won't really be tracking two PEDs moving forward.

So again, this is our vision of exactly how we see this roll out taking place on this chart are the various periods of performance ending and then an anticipated 60 day phase in now that 60 days is not a hard and fast requirement.

Again, the beauty of the CSO is that if selected to provide input.

And to potentially provide.

A proposal for this effort we will be asking industry.

To draft the PWS for us, we will be working with you providing input, lots of discussions and tabletop sessions.

60 days as a phase in is not a hard and fast requirement.

Again, all of these requirements vary broadly in their requirements and their complexity, so we do expect some of these phase insurance to take place in a smaller time period. Some of them may need a longer time period than 60 days, but we will expect you as industry to.

Help inform us and provide us of our risk.

Picture as we are working on the performance work statement and exactly what those phase insurance will look like. We will allow you to provide input and ask that you do and help us develop that risk site picture.

Again, this is a massive requirement.

It's not something that we've tried to tackle before, so we do fully expect industry to provide us with insight and input in those areas and help us inform our risk picture. So we know exactly what we're looking at moving forward.

Give everyone just a moment to digest this, and we'll even pause here for a few questions if you guys have questions or concerns as you see this laying out.

Again, none of this is set in stone.

This is just the best sight picture that we have today.

Any questions before we move on from this slide?

Russ 38:06 This is a Russ word. Again with regards to putting together the phase one, we have to provide a ROM with that ROM include from the period of award to the end of the period. So it includes all four of the contracts being consolidated and also the timing of.

The contracts based on the phase in.

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 38:27

Yes, Sir, that's correct.

Russ 38:29 Thank you.

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 38:46

Any other questions online?

There are no questions currently in the chat.

Folabi Lawal-ServiceNow 38:52 Hi. Hi Sir.

This is falabi the wallet ServiceNow you had you'd mentioned Itaz wave one.

What's the impact of these? The service that it has and the Cici contract is providing from a base level ticketing and enterprise service management perspective, is that going to affect connects at all or that's just going to be a separate effort altogether?

Over.

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 39:23

Yeah. So as we see it right now, that's going to be a separate effort.

Again, BIM and I test wave one are all going to be on the afnet side of the house before it gets to the mission customer.

This contract will take over for the mission customer.

Where that handoff occurs from I test.

So your your standard desktop support on AFNET which is on I test currently will not change. What will change is on the mission system side of the House.

Where our civilians and military personnel reach out.

For support on the mission side of the House.

Over.

Folabi Lawal-ServiceNow 39:57 OK, perfect.

I just wanted to confirm. Thank you so much.

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 40:00

Yes, Sir.

Greg Hollister 40:05 Greg Hollister.

Seem to be conflicting statements on pads.

Previously you showed that.

It's all going on bims and then this slide shows pads pulled for performance 28 June 2028.

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 40:26

Yeah. So there might be one or two small pieces of engineering support that pets currently provides, but that will either be done in house by government civilians.

Or.

Via the BIM contract.

So again, as we roll out PEDs and as BIM provides us more information, we're still learning as that rollout takes place. But as of right now, we don't believe PEDs will roll over to connects.

It'll be handled elsewhere, but if it is, that is when pets.

Will fall off and when the contractor may be asked to provide some service in that area again, that one's the farthest out and it's the one we know least about at this point. Just because the BIM rollout is still in progress.

But we will have more information in the future and we'll share that as soon as we get it.

Greg Hollister 41:15

OK.

Thank you.

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 41:31

Hey, any other questions before we move on?

Folabi Lawal-ServiceNow 41:37 Just one one, one other question on from a network perspective.

Will this be for all classification levels?

You know, nipper sipper, jaywick's air gap networks, that type of thing.

Or is is that going?

Is that going to be provided for industry to understand the different classifications in the networks that would be involved in connects over?

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 42:07

This is Mr. Donaldson. I'm filling in for Mr. Donovan.

So the primary focus is nipper and sipper.

We generally do not handle Jay, Rick's, or any other type of higher classification services at our level.

Folabi Lawal-ServiceNow 42:22

OK.

Thank you so much.

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 42:31

Miss Stewart, your hand is up.

Sarah Stewart 42:34 Yes, Sir.

Thank you, Sarah Stewart.

Here Chickasaw nation industries. My question is cable mapping stays with the government while all plant work goes to the contractor.

How is the as built data expected to flow back from the contractor performing the work into the government's mapping function?

We're just trying to get a understanding of the scene there.

In the documentation of that.

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 43:01

That's the end for cable mapping.

Yeah, that'll be a BIM function.

To put it into our driveways, units keep them simple.

Service solved OK. The cable mapping itself is simple.

So again, is the BIM rollup comes in some of those areas are still kind of a Gray area, but as of right now, the plan is for government civilians to perform the mapping, and then the contractor's feedback will be through the Phoenix system.

Any changes that they make or update will have to be documented via Phoenix and the government will keep track of the records that way and assist with the planning and roll out on both sides.

Sarah Stewart 44:03 Copy. Thank you.

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 44:20

There was another question online about the intended five year term for connects at that point, that is still undecided.

We do understand that, you know, with a a traditional five year plan as we roll this out, you know the first year and a half or two years almost will be all transition.

In some form or another?

So the the final acquisition strategy is still in discussion as far as the overall period of performance, it will still be one year.

Options, but how many of those one year options we have is still in discussion both from a funding perspective as well as an acquisition strategy perspective.

OK.

Just a quick high level overview of the mission systems that are supported at each location.

Again, I'm not going to go through all of these.

We did discuss these earlier in the year, but this is just kind of a high level overview of the systems and levels of operational tempo. Each of these systems is mission critical. Now whether that means 24/7 365 or Monday through Friday is outlined here.

We'll also provide further information in the work breakdown structure.

So that you guys are all aware of exactly what areas need to be covered.

When and helped you phase that coverage.

All right. We will have a real quick 15 minute break. So if you guys would please give us until five after 10 to come back, we'll have a quick break, let you guys run and get a cup of coffee, respond to a handful of emails I will be.

Back at 5 after 10. Thank you.

All right.

Thank you folks for hanging out with us.

I will go ahead and move on from here discussing the risks and challenges identified by the team, so obviously the first one is the schedule challenge. Again, taking on something of this magnitude, we do understand that the transition periods for each of these requirements may vary.

You know, historically 60 to 90 days is accurate depending upon the size of the requirements.

But again, we're going to expect industry to tell us.

Exactly what they recommend and why in that transition period from from a time frame perspective again so that we can understand what that does to our risk and what that looks like for us moving forward. Obviously during that period there are some challenges just from working in the.

Environment that we do from accessing the base and restricted area, Schriever, getting access to the mountain.

And then obviously clearance verification and finalization for our.

More challenging areas that require additional clearances up to and including tssci.

There is a question about when we want that feedback, whether that would be in phase two or during a proposal period. We'll outline that specifically when we want to hear about that. Again, really that comes more in the proposal process.

So phase two, not so much.

We'll we'll discuss exactly what we're going to be looking for in each of those phases.

But not necessarily during phase two.

Really more during the phase three perspective.

From a cost standpoint, we do recognize that incumbent knowledge capture is going to be vital to many of these requirements.

Legacy systems, particularly is is an area, you know where we've had folks working on these systems for the last 20 or 30 years.

Modernization, integration, historical architectures. That's all information that is difficult to hand off, particularly in this environment.

So key personnel requirements are still in development.

From from a leadership standpoint, so we do understand that that's going to impact cost as well. Critical knowledge base though this is something that we're seeing on other contracts. It is critical that the incoming contractor understand.

Basically, how to work on a DoD installation. They need to have a thorough understanding of the AF is associated with working in the communications sector.

Deaf man's and then confined space access specifically on military installations.

Because that's an area that we seem to keep running into problems.

Assumptions are made.

Folks are hired with lots of outside industry experience, but nothing specific to the Department of War.

And so there there are some assumptions being made and some solutions being recommended that simply do not apply.

So we want to make sure that the incoming contractor has a firm understanding.

Of operating on an Air Force Base Force installation and with the Department of War.

Additionally, we do understand there are some cost risks associated with the consolidation of this nature.

Again, this is a large requirement. We've got four current contracts, so from a cost perspective, we want to make sure that we understand that there are multiple external funding partners, whether those are actual mission partners that rely on the systems that this contract will support or again multip.

Space based deltas.

And and their required support.

There are some travel requirements, although not as heavy as we've seen historically.

Berkeley Software license management and technology refresh and obsolescence, we understand.

Sometimes it's hard to see what's coming down.

You know, three or four years down the road, but we do expect our industry partners to provide us an understanding of what they see and how that's going to impact our cost moving forward from a schedule standpoint, contract award timeline, this is a CSO. So we are doing.

Our best to move forward quickly.

But as we've seen over the last six months, just from our conversation in March additional.

Road bumps. Roadblocks are coming up that that we did not anticipate. So we do understand that as a schedule risk phase in again as well.

What does that look like for each of the different requirements?

Security clearance processing. We know that that can vary for uncleared personnel. You know up to some pretty significant timelines and and what that'll do to impact us.

And then cybersecurity certifications.

We do have CMMC.

Phase two crossed out here.

That was a pretty big point of discussion in March, but here recently that has been kind of rolled back.

There's now a Commission that is investigating the CMC requirements, so as of right now, that is on hold. Originally, I believe that timeline was in October or November of this year.

That CMMC certification was going to be required.

They have rolled that back, however.

The Phase one requirement.

Which is that self certification piece will still be required. So please if you have not already you should be working towards that right now, making sure that you read that meet that cyber security maturation requirement for the phase one piece as well.

And then again, confined space access, we understand.

That that is something that can take time and it needs to be heavily coordinated. So we'll want to make sure that we have a firm understanding of what that will look like.

And what solutions industry can provide in order to streamline that process and really help us out in, in getting access to those confined spaces in a timely manner?

There's a question online or personnel permitted to start work with an interim secret.

Or do they need to have a final clearance?

We'll really leave that up to our our security experts, but I I believe the expectation would be at least.

An interim secret with that in work, but again that's.

Depend on the work center and the requirement of the functional area. There will be some functional areas that will require tssci in hand when the employees start work.

So from a performance standpoint, obviously we understand this consolidation is going to be a huge piece of the puzzle to bite off.

We do expect some inefficiencies in that consolidation as folks get rolled on.

We do understand there will be a learning curve, but we do expect those to be handled very quickly and with industry partners again that are already familiar with working on Dow installations and helping.

Us mitigate those risks prior to performance, start the consolidation.

Focal Point is an area that we know is going to take some time and energy to come up with a good solution. And as we look into the AOI and the problem statement, you guys will see that that's a huge focus for us.

So we do recognize that there's some risk there.

Same thing with Cyber RMF compliance and com SEC management mission system maintenance, again relying heavily on that incumbent knowledge capture, making sure we have a full understanding of that mission system piece.

At full performance start and then a cable plant documentation piece.

Again, some of that is mitigated by BIM coming on. And then again, we're working to mitigate that through civilian oversight of cable plant documentation and knowledge capture through the Phoenix system.

But we do recognize that those are areas that.

May incur some risk.

Entry level position retention.

You'll see heavily impacted in our AOI.

That's something that we're we're currently fighting and that we really expect industry to help us out with.

I know we kind of footstep this in March, but we are not looking for the lowest possible cost option here.

The government does not have the manpower or the time to continually train entry level positions, so we do expect any proposal to come with that taken into mind. We want to make sure that we are not having to consistently train new folks.

Get them cleared and then watch them walk off the contract and go make more money elsewhere.

Whether that's in the private sector.

Or on other contracts entry level position retention is going to be a key focus for us.

As we move into this contract.

Confined Space, project management and coordination is an area that we want focused on as well. It management and handoff from an asset perspective, whether that's in the BECO or on the CST side of the House, we're looking at that DRSN expertise. And then SSR support as we work.

To certify and increase the number of skiffs on all of our installations.

And then from our standpoint, again say it does provide quality support throughout each of these contracts.

So what we're really looking from a core perspective, which you can expect from us, our core, we will have two cores at each site and then multiple embedded SME's in each of the functional areas providing regular feedback to us.

As well as to industry.

Semi monthly tag UPS are kind of.

Expectation we will coordinate those, make sure the cores there as well as the contractor smees.

Again, that's just an instant feedback mechanism.

Our goal at Sayo is never for you guys to be surprised in a CPA or quarterly PMR with support being.

Under expectation or non sat, we want to make sure that you guys get clear and consistent feedback.

Sorry, there's a question here about performance risks and discuss preferred performance outcomes.

Those, quite frankly, will be built with the contractors input through our performance work statement.

We will expect you guys to provide US industry standards.

We can give you those thresholds and you can see in the historical documentation in the current PMS PWS what we currently expect.

So that will kind of give you a target of what we're looking for.

But we will really.

Heavily rely on industry to help us develop those as well, and we will expect you guys also to provide input on what that trade space does to us from a cost perspective.

Again, so that we can develop those performance standards, acceptable quality levels, service level agreements, whatever you want to call those. And we will expect industry to work with us as we develop the PWS to provide.

Those expected performance outcomes.

From a monthly surveillance perspective, each of our subject matter experts and course will provide monthly surveillance reports to say, oh, as the program management office, we will coordinate those and consolidate those and utilize quarterly PMR's to provide that feedback so that you guys constantly have an expect.

Level of where you stand.

But again, if there are any significant shortfalls.

Those will be addressed in those semi monthly tag UPS to make sure that we get those issues addressed as early and often as possible.

We do have quarterly program management reviews that will be sale led.

They will detail cost, schedule and performance on any of our cleanse that have you know variable performance schedule for special projects and where we're at from a transition perspective will be discussed. And then as I said, we will roll up those monthly subject matter expert and core surve.

Reports we'll detail those again so that everyone is clear and on the same page.

As far as we're out there.

Risks, deliverables and staffing will also be covered at each of those quarterly program management reviews. Again, with understanding the entry level, staffing requirements and retention will be a focus of our efforts, especially early on. Those will be covered quarterly at each of the program management reviews.

Are there any questions about that before we move on to the CSO piece?

Mr. Brent, are your hands up?

Brett Voeller 1:15:35 Yeah, you made several references to phase two.

Was that like a production phase two or solicitation phase two?

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 1:15:43

So that would be solicitation phase two.

Brett Voeller 1:15:45 So I read a lot of materials in the existing solicitation materials. That said phase two was not going to be happening.

Has that changed?

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 1:15:57

So phase two is anticipated but not required.

Let me put it that way.

So if after the White Paper phase we have just one clear outstanding winter, we do not have to go to phase two, but with the level of interest that has been shown in this at both industry days as well as our market research reports, we do anticipate there.

Being a phase two, but it will not be required.

I hope that answers your go ahead.

Brett Voeller 1:16:22 That's interesting.

Because I I don't know.

I just started looking at this like about two weeks ago, but at some point there was AQ and A and I think in three separate areas it says because of the interest from industry, there's not going to be a phase two that you're gonna go directly from pH.

One to phase three and that I can see other people in the chat have seen some of the same things and I'm just kinda wondering, you know, when was that change made or you know what precipitated this?

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 1:16:52

OK.

Well, we'll cover that in depth here in the next following session.

Hopefully that will answer some of those questions.

And we'll we'll be able to press forward from there.

Brett Voeller 1:17:02 Thank you very much.

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 1:17:08

There's a question about whether the government is seeking information on metrics and trade-offs prior to final solicitation, or if we're looking for them as part of submitted proposals with sufficient information for the government to assess price trade-offs.

So we will not be seeking that information in the White Paper.

Potentially we would ask about recommended metrics during the technical or phase two portion, but we'll we'll get into that a little bit more in depth here.

But as far as a a hard conversation about what those metrics and trade-offs would look like, we would see that more in phase three as we develop the performance work statement, the acceptable quality levels and those service level agreements.

OK, seeing no more hands up or questions online.

We'll go ahead and move into the CSO overview and proposed ACT strategy portion.

At this time, I'm going to hand it over to Austin Frint, who is our acquisition advisor in SEO and has been instrumental in developing and instructing our team on how the CSO process will work.

Hi, good morning, everybody.

Thanks for joining us today.

I'm going to go through some slides because it's virtual obviously.

At your discretion, feel free to come off mute if you would like to and interrupt me mid sentence, that's perfectly fine.

It won't be rude or anything.

Or you can raise your hand or drop it in chat. Whatever you feel most comfortable with. But.

It's important that we answer your questions, so if anything comes up in whatever means is the most comfortable to you, let let's let's talk about it right now, OK?

OK, we're gonna go over just a few things I'll say.

I I'm not gonna read all the slides if there's a if you if there's a point where you either need to decide because I'm talking while there's a slide up. But I'm talking about.

I'm not reading the slide. If you need to decide.

Should I listen to the briefer, or should I read the slide? I would recommend just listening to what I have to say.

So again, you will get these slides at the end.

We are going to cover all the material in here.

But I'm not just going to read them to you necessarily.

Way. So we'll just point out certain things on the slides and then.

You you'll be able to get them at the end.

OK.

So this is one example. I'm not going to read all of this, but why?

CS OS and why now? And why are we doing the CSO? Basically, the bottom line of this slide is DSO's are here.

Work. They're encouraged. They're cool.

They're the new you're going to be seeing them more and more if you don't already have experience with CS OS, you probably will.

Because more and more government agencies, more and more requirements are going this route.

So we have the top cover from the highest levels of the government to move out on CS OS and so that's what we're doing, OK.

Russ 1:20:12 I got a quick question on on that we've participated in in CSO and I know it's the flavor of the month and it's the the way that people are going and it is effective.

HAHN, RITA M CIV USSF CFC 21 CS/DF 1:20:14

Sure.

Russ 1:20:22 We did that with OTTI, but the way that this CSO is structured to consolidate all four of these contracts to me doesn't seem to be a wise decision when you have no kidding, a single award IDIQ that you could do where the requirements are specific.

Th…