The Department of the Army awards an unprecedented CPR contract

Pacific Medical Training is awarded a total small business set aside by the Department of the Army. Soldiers at Fort Gordon will benefit from the Department of the Army’s efforts to reach out to small businesses.

The Department of the Army’s Mission and Installation Contracting Command (MICC) of Fort Gordon published an unprecedented contract award to a small business, Med Training Solutions, LLC, d/b/a Pacific Medical Training, for CPR training and products on September 11, 2018. This action demonstrates the Army’s commitment to small business concerns in an industry in which a few large entities typically win CPR training proposals.

The MICC of Fort Gordon published a solicitation for CPR training on the Federal Business Opportunities (FBO) website. The award, which is also published on the FBO website, listed a contract dollar award amount of $5,690.01. The solicitation was earmarked for socio-economic interests known as a total small business set aside. Our solicitation number is 11187888.

Federal Acquisition Regulation typically states that “Each acquisition of supplies or services that has an anticipated dollar value exceeding $3,500… but not over $150,000… is automatically reserved exclusively for small business concerns and shall be set aside for small business unless the contracting officer determines there is not a reasonable expectation of obtaining offers from two or more responsible small business concerns that are competitive in terms of market prices, quality, and delivery.”

Lack of awareness, confidence, and sometimes lack of market research by contracting officers have kept some small businesses from being awarded contracts or even responding to solicitations.

The MICC stated that “For this solicitation, MICC Fort Gordon intends to conduct an online competitive reverse auction to be facilitated by the third-party reverse auction provider, FedBid, Inc… MICC Fort Gordon is taking this action in an effort to improve both vendor access and awareness of requests and the agency’s ability to gather multiple, competed, real-time bids.”