By Debbie Gregory.

UnitedHealthcare is in good company as Health Net Federal Services and WellPoint Military Care have joined in on the protest of the awarding of the military contract to manage the Tricare health program.

The contract, called T-2017 and awarded in July, is worth up to $58 billion and oversees private health services for nearly 9.4 million military family members, retirees and active duty personnel.

Health Net Federal Services, which now manages the Tricare North Region and was awarded the contract to manage Tricare’s West region, filed a protest over the Defense Department’s decision to give the East region contract to Humana Government Business.

The Defense Department and the Defense Health Agency said in 2014 that they would shift Tricare from a three-region system—North, South and West—to two coverage areas.

The brand new East region is a consolidation of the North and South regions

The West region contract has a maximum value of $18 billion over six years, while the six-year East region contract is potentially worth $41 billion.

WellPoint Military Care, a division of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, was created to vie for the lucrative contract.

UnitedHealth Military & Veterans, which manages the Tricare West contract, was the first to file protests over the awards. It was not selected to manage either of the new consolidated regions.

A Pentagon spokesman said the protest will not affect health care services for Tricare beneficiaries, adding that the current contracts will remain in place until all protests are resolved.

The Defense Health Agency has 30 days to respond to the protests. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is expected to rule on the bid protest by November 9, 2016.

By Debbie Gregory.

The U.S. Air Force has asked defense firms to bid to supply new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and Long-Range Standoff Weapons (LRSOs), which are nuclear cruise missiles. It is rumored that the Air Force intends this next generation of ICBMs will have the capability to be deployed on mobile launchers.

A 2014 report by the RAND Corp. on the future of the ICBM force said a “mobile missile must be designed and built to more-demanding specifications then a silo-based ICBM, such as remaining “reliable under the rigors of periodic movement.” The Minuteman III currently is not capable of being put on a mobile platform.

The controversial move comes during a time of heightened tensions with Russia.

Ten senators, all Democrats, have asked the Obama administration to scale back plans for new nuclear weapons, as well as the bombers and submarines that would be used to transport them. The senators specifically called for canceling LRSO, saying it could save taxpayers $20 billion.

“Nuclear war poses the gravest risk to American national security,” the senators wrote.

In a statement, Air Force officials  said they would choose up to two contractors by the fourth quarter of 2017 to build the new cruise missiles. Those two contractors will then compete for 54 months “to complete a preliminary design with demonstrated reliability and manufacturability, which will be followed by a competitive down-select to a single contractor.”

The Air Force maintains that the new cruise missile is necessary to replace its current air-launched cruise missiles, which were designed in the 1970s and built in the 1980s. The Air Force wants the new missiles by 2030.

The Pentagon wants to deploy the new ICBMs in the late 2020s.

By Debbie Gregory.

The Supreme Court came down on the side of veteran business owners by finding that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) failed to comply with a law aimed at increasing the number of federal contracts awarded to veteran owned small businesses.

The justices sided with Kingdomware Technologies Inc., a service disabled veteran-owned contractor based in Maryland that said it should have been considered to provide services for a VA medical center.

The issue before the Court was whether a federal law which provides that, as long as certain conditions are met, the Department of Veterans Affairs “shall award” contracts to small businesses owned by veterans applies every time the department awards contracts.  The federal government had argued that the rule left some room for discretion, but on June 16^th, the Court rejected that argument.  “Shall,” the Court emphasized, was meant as a command, not an option.

The case dates back to 2012, when the VA awarded a contract for an emergency notification system that would send information to its employees, to a company that was not owned by a veteran. Kingdomware, which is owned by a U.S. Army veteran who was permanently disabled from an injury that he suffered while serving in 1991’s Operation Desert Storm, challenged the award. Kingdomware provides web, software, and technology solutions to enterprise problems.

Federal law requires the agency to use a bidding process if two or more disabled veteran-owned companies can offer service at a fair and reasonable price. But the VA argued the “rule of two” does not apply when it buys goods and services from vendors that already have contracts with the agency under a system called the Federal Supply Schedule.

Justice Clarence Thomas said the rule applies to all contract determinations.

A federal appeals court had said the VA did not have to follow the rule of two if it otherwise met the goal of awarding between 7 percent and 12 percent of all contracts to companies owned by disabled veterans. But Thomas said meeting annual benchmarks does not allow the VA to ignore a mandatory contracting rule

Veteran-owned small businesses see the ruling as a victory that gives them more opportunities to compete for contracts from the VA which, they would say, is exactly what Congress intended.

Each year, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) helps more than 200,000 veterans, service-disabled veterans, and National Guard and Reserve service members, and military spouses start and grow their small businesses.?  The SBA will be adding six Veterans Business Outreach Centers (VBOC) to the existing 13, bringing the nationwide total to19.

Each VBOC will provide entrepreneurial training, comprehensive business assessment, and mentoring to active duty service members, veterans and service-disabled veterans, National Guard and Reservists, and military spouses interested in starting a small business.

The new VBOCs will be located as follows:

• Center for Women & Enterprise (CWE), Providence, RI
• University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI
• Georgia Southern University Research & Services Foundation, Statesboro, GA
• Cochise County Community College District, Sierra Vista, AZ
• University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX
• MiraCosta College, Oceanside, CA

Existing VBOCs are located as follows:

• Veterans Business Outreach Center at Mississippi State University, Starkville, MS
• Big Sky Economic Development Authority, Billings, MT
• WBDC Chicago, Chicago, IL
• Community Business Partnership, Springfield, VA
• Hampton Roads Veterans Business Outreach Center, Norfolk, VA
• Veterans Business Outreach Center at Gulf Coast State College, Panama City, FL
• Veterans Business Outreach Center at Fayetteville State Univ., Fayetteville, NC
• VetBiz Central, Inc., Flint, MI
• University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX
• New Mexico Veterans Business Outreach Center, Albuquerque, NM
• Veterans Business Resource Center, St. Louis, MO
• Business Impact NW, Seattle, WA
• Veterans Business Outreach Center – Region IX, Sacramento, CA

VBOC locations were selected based on “Boots to Business” program demand, military installation, and transitioning population data.

VBOCs support transitioning service members as they begin self-employment or entrepreneurship. Part of the VBOC funding is used to cover costs involved in doing outreach to increase participation in the Boots to Business entrepreneurship training program on military installations in the U.S. and its territories.

Veterans business development is available in each state at SBA District Offices and at VBOCs located throughout the U.S.  To learn more about additional opportunities for veterans available through the SBA, visit www.sba.gov/vets.

Boeing Co was awarded a $3.2 billion contract modification to a previously awarded contract for Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) tailkits, according to the Pentagon.

The contract for the tailkits, which use GPS to boost accuracy for conventional bombs, was raised from an initial $1.75 billion contract awarded on Oct. 30, 2014, due to warfighter demand and to replenish depleted inventories, the Pentagon said in a statement.

The JDAM tailkit converts existing unguided free-fall bombs into accurate, adverse weather “smart” munitions. With the addition of a new tail section that contains an inertial navigational system and a global positioning system guidance control unit, JDAM improves the accuracy of unguided, general purpose bombs in any weather condition.

Once released from the aircraft, the JDAM autonomously navigates to the designated target coordinates. Target coordinates can be loaded into the aircraft before takeoff, manually altered by the aircrew before weapon release, or automatically entered through target designation with onboard aircraft sensors.

With a range of more than 15 nautical miles, JDAM can defeat high-value targets in any weather, day or night, with minimal risk to air crews. This system works fine even in bad weather, because the JDAM gets all its information from satellite signals, which aren’t blocked by cloud cover or obstacles. The bomb doesn’t have to see anything at all to find its way to the target.

New variants such as Laser JDAM and JDAM Extended Range allow warfighters to prosecute moving targets and deploy the weapon from greater distances, capabilities that come with little to no development risk since they are based on proven technology.

The JDAM played a major role in the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and it will certainly play a significant role in any U.S. bombing campaigns in the near future. While the newest smart bombs aren’t 100 percent accurate, they are such an improvement over their predecessors.

More than 260,000 JDAM kits have been built at Boeing’s production facility in St. Charles, MO.

JDAM is a joint U.S. Air Force and Department of Navy program.