WASHINGTON – Naval Sea System Command (NAVSEA) headquarters hosted its fourth annual Small Business Industry Day, Aug. 21 in the Humphreys Building at the Washington Navy Yard.
The forum was an opportunity for industrial small businesses to hear from senior Navy leadership and Program Executive Offices (PEOs) about various NAVSEA programs and requirements.
“As far as communicating, make sure you know who the deputy program managers are for these programs,” said Jay Stefany, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Ships), Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy Research, Development and Acquisition. “It is their job to be the advocate within each program for small business. It’s not about quotas; it’s about getting the product—the most agile, the most innovative products—for the warfighter.”
Program requirements contracted by NAVSEA headquarters was the focus of the event. The corresponding procurements can be found on the NAVSEA Headquarters Long Range Acquisition Forecast (LRAF).
NAVSEA’s LRAF creates a demand signal of anticipated business needs and makes early planning possible to a wide range of current and potential industry partners.
It also contributes to better support of NAVSEA’s requirements and fosters increased competition, by creating procurement opportunities for small business to grow, which offers the Navy a more diversified portfolio of companies, benefiting both NAVSEA and new business partners.
“For those interested in the NAVSEA Warfare Center procurements, they are listed in the NAVSEA Enterprise Long Range Acquisition Forecast, and they do include requirements procured through the SeaPort portal,” said Richard Goff, NAVSEA acquisition planning manager.
NAVSEA Executive Director Jim Smerchansky said cybersecurity is important for protecting, building and maintaining systems for the Navy fleet and Department of Defense (DOD).
Defense contractors and subcontractors who perform work for the DOD must be cybersecurity compliant in accordance with the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement (DFARS) clause, Safeguarding Covered Defense Information and Cyber Incident Reporting 252.204-7012.
“At a minimum, the contract clause requires defense contractors and subcontractors to implement 110 security requirements from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication (SP) 800-171,” said Vicki Michett, director, Defense Industrial Base Cybersecurity Program during the SBID Cybersecurity brief.
“Not all of them require a material investment, but they’re things that you need to do to safeguard the information on your information systems,” Michett said. “From an IT configuration perspective, a configuration can be as simple as typing in a password using obscured characters, such as asterisks or dots. For hardware and software, there are some challenging requirements.”
Michett said one of the most difficult is multi-factor authentication for network access. With many different ways to implement this requirement, it doesn’t have to be the CAC [common access card] card the DOD uses. A full spectrum of investment opportunities are available to meet this requirement.
NAVSEA awarded approximately $2.6 billion in prime contracts to small business concerns in fiscal year 2017. The NAVSEA Small Businesses Program Office works with Program Executive Offices and defense industry partners to discover the best innovative solutions to support NAVSEA’s mission priorities and can assist small businesses, including veteran-owned, service-disabled veteran-owned, HUBZone, small disadvantaged, and women-owned small businesses in marketing their products and services to NAVSEA.
For more information, small business representatives may contact NAVSEA's Associate Director of Small Business Programs at (202) 781-2061 or send an email to NSSC-NAVSEA-SBID.fct@navy.mil.
Attendance at the industry day was limited, but all briefings, NAVSEA Small Business Office, and deputy program manager points of contacts and other small business reference resources are available at: http://www.navsea.navy.mil/Business-Partnerships/Small-Business-Forum/.
For additional information, interested businesses are encouraged to visit the Department of Defense Office of Small Business Programs at www.acq.osd.mil/osbp and the Navy's Office of Small Business Programs at www.secnav.navy.mil/smallbusiness/.
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