With less than 9 days left until the Anne Arundel County Executive submits the Odenton Town Center “BRAC Zoning Application” to the State of Maryland, its been really important to me to make sure we have done everything we can to rally public support for our listing at the Odenton Town Center.

We’ve received lots of interest in the Odenton Town Center from corporations, hotel and convention center prospects, and DOD contractors who want to lease space.  Our buildings, however, are dependent on getting the permits we need to start construction.

One way I see that we may be able to get our permits is to promote support for infrastructure such as roads and utilities.  The BRAC Zoning would make Arundel County government eligible for additional funding and other State resources to offset those expenses.

According to Anne Arundel County’s website:

The BRAC Revitalization and Incentive Zone benefits are comprised of state rebates related to incremental tax revenue from the increased value of qualified properties in the BRAC Zone. Rebated funds must be used for infrastructure improvements in the BRAC Zone. The designation would also provide eligibility for Anne Arundel County to leverage other available state programs.

What We’re Doing

In order to do what we can to encourage support for permits and BRAC Zoning, we’ve written letters to:

• Governor O’Malley
• Lt. Governor Brown
• Governor O’Malley’s BRAC Subcabinet
• US Senators Mikulski and Carden
• US Congressman Sarbanes
• The Ft. Meade Alliance Board of Directors
• Ft. Meade Officials
• The Baltimore Business Journal
• Business Monthly/Patuxent Publishing
• The Washington Post
• The Anne Arundel Examiner
• The Associated Press
• USA Today
• The Baltimore Sun

I’m really hopeful that we can play a large part in helping Anne Arundel County move forward.  Our goal is to exceed expectations as broker for the Halle Companies while supporting the citizens of AA County, Howard County and the brave men and women of the US military as BRAC’s effects are felt by all of us.

I’m still confident that with the county, state, millitary, and Halles working together, we are more than able to reach our 2010 occupancy date.

Leticia and Bill have been working diligently to prepare for the implementation of an Electronic Timesheet System and we’re ready to go live across the organization effective 10/01/2008.

This Thursday, we will be hosting a live training session at our headquarters at the Ronald Reagan Building during lunch.  We will also have a live Internet presentation in our Atlanta office.

Locations

• Ronald Reagan Bldg. - 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., Suite 700, Washington, DC
• Atlanta - 260 Peachtree St., Suite 900, Atlanta, GA

Time

If you cant make it into one of these locations, we will have a phone in teleconference option for personnel located at Capitol CREAG outposts.  You will need a phone line and internet connection to participate.

Phone 1-800-511-7983
Access Code 572627

If you have any questions, please contact Paul, Kendra or Matt at (202)355-1028.

Brent Goe sent me an article yesterday that came from the “REDC Reporter” newsletter at GSA-Atlanta (Issue no. 1, September 2008).

Closeout Team takes Giant Steps

The REDC Contract Closeout Team was formed in November 07 with goal of reducing the mountainous backlog that plagued the division. Led by Alison Smith, Acquisition Specialist, the team began the task of organizing over 700 scattered contract files. In addition, there are 100+ in-house and field offices files that need to be closed.

According to Alison “files were left abandoned in empty offices and storage closets. She stated that “the toughest part was getting organized and coming up with a plan of attack.” One major step was development of Standard Operating Procedures that gave the team a unified approach.

Since that time, the team has made remarkable progress. They have successfully closed out over 500 contract files primarily consisting of major design & construction contracts and IDIQ task orders.

According to Alison, “its true… there really is no “I” in team. Everyone had to roll up their sleeves and do whatever it took to get the job done” ; that included a generous helping hand from the regular acquisition division staff. Once each month the division held a “closeout party” where Contracting Officers and Contract Specialists pitched in to closeout as many files as possible in a single work day. The group was rewarded for its efforts with a mid-day pizza buffet and the appreciation of their colleagues

The benefits of this effort will extend for years to come. An automated tracking system is being developed to help manage both closed contracts and canceled solicitations. Improved maintenance and disposition of contract records will facilitate compliance with federal regs and preserve the transactional history of GSA and its stakeholders.

Also of particular note:

1. Although there is no mention of us in the article, the team led by Ms. Smith consisted entirely of Capitol CREAG employees.
2. We developed the complete set of initial operating procedures for the closeout team to follow, including training for incoming closeout personnel.  GSA adopted our documents and modified them as needed to get their final SOPs.
3. The “Closeout Parties” consisted of the GSA contracting officers approving the closeout work we did on the contract files.  We prepared between 150-250 contract files for each party and the COs simply signed off on our work as we had no signature authority.
4. The Automated Tracking System - We developed a comprehensive database in MS Access to be used as the tracking system.  Unfortunately, they had some IT security concerns with MS Access so they would not let us put it to work.  The system they are currently building is a mirror of the system we built. They are simply using the same structure in a different program.  All of the database fields and functionality are the same.

We’d like to give special recognition to all those involved who did a spectacular job in all of our closeout efforts.  You’ve done a great job of closing over 2,000 contracts to date!

• Stacy Duson, JoAnn Doughty, Alenda Conway, and Brent Goe each did an outstanding job on the REDC team;
• Brenda Starr and John Pena both did an outstanding job on the Realty Services; and
• Andrea Brzoska and Drand Dixon did an outstanding job on the Property Management services.

I know I speak for Art and Todd when I say “thank you for making Capitol CREAG a success!”

Just wanted to give everyone an update on a great kickoff meeting Art and I just came from with Hill International/Berger and GSA Region 3.  We are excited to be strategic partners with Hill/Berger to represent GSA Region 3 and FBI on the new FBI Field Office Build to Suit in the Norfolk, Virginia area.

This state of the art building will consist of approximately 131,000 SF of secured office space. We have been asked to assist GSA with:

• OMB Scoring
• Prospectus Compliance
• IGE Quality Control
• Leasing Consulting
• Cost Benefit and NPV Modeling
• Relocation Management, and more

What an exciting day we had yesterday!

Yesterday marked the official launch of our new Capitol CREAG Signature Team brand.  This team is a group of retired GSA personnel who has spent significant time as GSA employees and are known as the most experienced in their field.

Each team member has 25+ years of experience as a GSA employee.  As these highly experienced contractors work on difficult or highly specialized projects from GSA, they will also have junior Capitol CREAG co-workers working together with them so that the tradition of knowing the ins and outs of GSA continues at Capitol CREAG.

I encourage you to take a minute to download the marketing package that has been delivered to Thomas James in DC and is being delivered in Atlanta today.  While resumes are normally boring to read through, these resumes actually captivated me and left me saying “wow!”.

Just a few samples:

• Tom Walker - Assistant Regional Administrator for seven years responsible for PBS region that includes NC, SC, FL, GA, MS, AL, KY, and TN serving 125,000 Federal tenants with a staff of 560 real estate and construction professionals and with an operating budget of over a half billion dollars.  Retired from Federal Service after 33 years in 2006.
• Carol Dunham - First CFO of Homeland Security.  Retired from Federal Service after 38 years in 2008.
• Mike Roper - Managed 1.7M sq ft design-build lease of Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center (ninth-largest federal building in the country and the largest in the Southeast).  Completed the project four months early and $7M under budget.  Retired from Federal Service after 33 years in 2006.