Strategic Operational Solutions, Inc. (B-423026.5; B-423026.6)

You should not care.

Category: Key personnel, best value tradeoff

Date: 22 July 2025

URL: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423026.5%2Cb-423026.6

Strategic Operational Solutions, Inc. (STOPSO), an SDVOSB, protested the Homeland Security’s issuance of a task order for data management support services, challenging both the evaluation of its key personnel proposal and the agency’s best value tradeoff decision under a VETS2 GWAC task order competition:

Key personnel resumes: GAO found the solicitation unambiguously required key personnel resumes (specifically for the deputy project manager) to “clearly illustrate” how candidates met VETS2 contract minimums—including either a master’s degree or fifteen years of relevant experience shown with start and end dates for each employment period. STOPSO’s resume included only eleven verifiable years by date, despite a summary claim of more than nineteen years, justifying the significant weakness assessed.

Tradeoff documentation and discriminators: GAO held that while the tradeoff narrative did not specifically compare technical capabilities and experience between STOPSO and Teracore, the contemporaneous record showed DHS considered all factors appropriately. Given both offerors had equal top ratings for technical capability and experience, it was reasonable to focus on differentiators: STOPSO’s significant key personnel weakness and Teracore’s superior management approach. There is no requirement to exhaustively compare all nondiscriminatory strengths when making a tradeoff.

Protest denied.

Digest

Protest challenging agency’s evaluation of protester’s key personnel proposal is denied where the record shows that the evaluation was reasonable and consistent with the solicitation.

Protest challenging agency’s best-value tradeoff decision is denied where the agency’s decision was reasonable and consistent with the terms of the solicitation, and the protester has not shown that it suffered competitive prejudice from the agency’s failure to document every aspect of its comparative analysis.