That'll work.

Yeah, so there's a lot, right? So the federal government, you know, buys $900 billion worth of goods and services every year, right? One of the biggest, you know, I would say suppliers or employers, you know, however you want to look at it in the world, not even the country.

There's many opportunities.

for people to do what they're doing.

And, you know, Rich, to your question, the biggest issue that I find is people don't know where to find them.

And all the opportunities, you know, government, I shouldn't say all, the opportunities that are over $350,000 are required to be posted on a website called SAM.gov, right? SAM.gov, just like Uncle Sam.

And what they'll do is they'll post all the opportunities and let you know what's needed for them and where you can send your proposals.

me?

Okay, so what's your fun historical fact about this dude?

Yeah, so really fun fact.

I'm sure a lot of people know that famous photo of Lyndon Johnson being sworn in as president after John Kennedy's assassination on Air Force One in 1963.

Jack Brooks is actually in that photo, and he is standing behind Jacqueline Kennedy as she's sitting there holding the Bible.

Another fun fact, if you look at the show notes, I actually put in a link to that photo.

So speaking of FAR time, so where do we dig into this?

Yeah, so the Brooks Act actually is the statutory authority behind the entire Part 36 of the FAR.

And FAR 36.6, which is now into the new FAR 36.2, is the regulatory home of where this qualifications-based selection, or QBS, that's where those procedures are housed.

Like, what's your background?

Yeah, so I spent six years working in DLA.

Four and a half of those was in a contracting specialist or contracting officer role.

And I also spent a year and a half as a policy analyst in the DLA policy office.

So like you said, Kevin, I've actually used the DIB system and I've actually made awards based on the information that DIBs had collected and presented to me in my procurement roles.

When you're supporting the DLA's mission, which is supporting the Department of Defense's logistics arm, like what kind of stuff did you buy?

Yeah, so I was buying, I worked in the industrial hardware area, which was basically anything that would go on a land vehicle or anything that would go on a ship or an aircraft.

It could be things such as, you know, washers and O-rings.

version of that we've got all these stakeholders that all have to work together in this episode we're going to dig into the what why and how it makes sense to build an actual team an integrated product team process team whatever around these three deciders so the three deciders are the roles but when they work together to accomplish something that's what an ipt is for okay so let's let's baseline this with the with the book answer of okay what is an ipt

So if you're reading the book answer, an IPT is a collaborative, multidisciplinary group of government stakeholders and contractor personnel who work together to manage, develop, and deliver a specific product or service.

Very government-y.

And some like automotive engineering organizations use it.

Yeah.

And that's not surprising, right? Because many of these contractors come from industries that work directly with the OD and likely adopted the same terminology decades ago.

That's a good point.

And I thought it made sense to get your input on like, OK, how are the players changed and what's really going on?

Thanks, Kevin.

Thanks for having me back on.

So for the most part, it's the same cast of characters that we discussed back in 2015 that still exists today on both government and industry sides.

And just as it was back in 2015, most of the players still see just their own corner.

That problem hasn't gone away.

What is different now is the environment.

I mean, Doge wasn't here back when we wrote that 10 years ago, and it was in place when you were a contracting officer.

I just mentioned a couple of the highlights of your background here, Bill, but give us a quick overview of how you got here.

Well, Kevin, I have over two decades of experience of federal procurement service, almost half of those in a contracting officer role.

I've recently left within the last year of federal service.

So I've navigated both the FAR and the FAR overhaul, as well as having to go through several meetings and iterations with the DOGE folks when they were involved in government.

Okay.

As far as the goals, when we started way back in 2017, what were the small business goals back then?

Yeah, so back in 2017, the small business goals were actually statutory floors, right? So the government was meeting them, but they largely were without executive push to go above those minimums.

So 23% was the overall small business goal.