Vitalsmarts, LC

Vitalsmarts, LC, operating as Crucial Learning, sells professional development training programs and materials—predominantly Crucial Conversations, Crucial Accountability, Getting Things Done, Strengths Deployment Inventory assessments, and related leadership and communication curricula—to federal agencies as a prime contractor across full-and-open procurements with no set-aside utilization. The company is a for-profit Subchapter S corporation headquartered in Provo, Utah, that competes entirely in unrestricted markets and maintains a subsidiary, Personal Strengths Publishing, LLC (Corestrengths), which appears in the delivery-order chain for assessment tools under the Army TRADOC indefinite delivery contract.

Vitalsmarts operates exclusively as a prime contractor—658 of 659 awards in the recent portfolio are prime positions (100%), with a single sub-award under Gap Solutions for human capital management support. The company's federal customer base is broad but concentrated: the top five agencies by award count (Department of Homeland Security USCIS, Treasury IRS, VA VISN 10, VA VISN 8, and Navy NAVWAR) account for 18% of 659 total awards. When measured by potential value, VA VISN 15 leads at $2.6 million across 13 awards, followed closely by DHS USCIS at $2.5 million across 42 awards and Treasury IRS at $1.2 million across 27 awards. The vendor serves 150 distinct federal agencies, signaling broad civilian and defense penetration rather than tight agency concentration.

Recent activity is trending downward: from 18 awards in 2024, the portfolio saw nine awards in 2025 and five in 2026 year-to-date (as of July 2026). The combined potential value across the entire recent portfolio stands at $26.5 million, with $19.4 million obligated (73% realization rate). Vitalsmarts faces minimal recompete pressure in the next twenty-four months—only five awards totaling $629 thousand reach ultimate completion by July 2027.

The vendor's primary parent vehicles are indefinite delivery contracts held with federal agencies rather than government-wide acquisition contracts or GSA schedules. The IDC HSSCCG17D00002 anchors 21 task orders worth $328 thousand; IDC 36C25518D0189 carries eight task orders valued at $942 thousand; and three additional IDCs and BPAs round out the portfolio with smaller order pipelines. These vehicles support the vendor's core delivery model: firm-fixed-price purchase orders and delivery orders for training materials (Crucial Conversations participant kits, supervisor guides, textbooks), virtual course access, instructor-led workshops, and train-the-trainer certifications.

Representative recent work includes a $1.23 million firm-fixed-price contract awarded by VA Strategic Acquisition Center in September 2021 for Crucial Conversations training services and materials nationwide with a one-year base and one-year option extending to March 2024; a $312 thousand three-year purchase order from Defense Logistics Agency awarded January 2026 for annual SDI 2.0 digital learning toolkits and facilitator certifications through January 2029; a $360 thousand Naval Education and Training Command purchase order from March 2026 for the Crucial Learning Enterprise Plan Assessment; and a $1.615 million indefinite delivery contract with Army TRADOC established March 2025 for SDI assessment tools and professional development services for the Army Management Staff College through March 2030. The TRADOC contract demonstrates the vendor's evolution into assessment-led workforce development rather than training materials alone—one delivery order issued under it ($182 thousand to Corestrengths in April 2025) suggests the vendor or its subsidiary supplies assessment scoring and analytics as part of broader leadership development delivery.

Service Contract Inventory reporting shows sparse federal services volume: $441 thousand in prime invoicing across FY2023 and FY2024, with 0.3 FTEs recorded in FY2024 and no FTE activity in prior years. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI-reportable contracts ran $451.62/hr (flat across 10th, median, and 90th percentiles), suggesting limited variation in labor pricing or a small, homogeneous subset of billable service work. The vendor reports zero sub-hours share on the few SCI-reportable prime contracts, indicating that where the vendor bills hourly labor to the federal government, it delivers internally rather than through subcontractors. This SCI footprint is a narrow slice of total federal activity and does not represent Vitalsmarts' primary business model—the vast majority of awards are firm-fixed-price purchase orders for curriculum, kits, and licensed access, not labor-hour contracts.

Vitalsmarts' category concentration is dominated by professional and management development training (391 of 659 awards, roughly 59%), books and pamphlets (235 awards combined across printing and publishing NAICS), and other management consulting services (50 awards). Product Service Code distribution mirrors this: training aids (212 awards), books and pamphlets (170 awards), and various education and training delivery codes (142 awards combined) account for the bulk of the contract footprint. The company does not appear to compete under any federal minority, woman-owned, veteran-owned, or HUBZone set-asides; all named awards carry either "No Set-Aside Used" or are unrestricted procurements.