The Mission Essential Group, LLC (B-423053; B-423053.2)

You should not care.

Category: Technical evaluation, cost or price evaluation, competitive range

Date: 15 January 2025

URL: https://www.gao.gov/products/b-423053%2Cb-423053.2

Mission Essential Group, LLC, protested its exclusion from the competitive range under an NSA procurement for signals intelligence services (LUCIDLOBSTER). The firm challenged the agency’s evaluation of its proposal under the management and ability to staff factors, its exclusion from the competitive range, and alleged organizational and personal conflicts of interest.

GAO found NSA’s evaluation reasonable, noting that Mission Essential received an unacceptable rating under the management factor because its proposal lacked a required plan for integrating emerging tradecraft into the senior mentor role and failed to provide a compliant corporate plan under DFARS 252.237-7024. Under the ability to staff factor, Mission Essential received a “marginal” rating due to significant gaps in its staffing plan, including a failure to provide a detailed timeline for filling key positions and proposing multiple labor rates below the government’s independent cost estimate. The agency determined the proposal would require substantial revisions to become awardable.

GAO also upheld the competitive range determination, concluding that Mission Essential’s lower cost did not outweigh its technical deficiencies. Allegations of conflicts of interest—one involving a competitor’s alleged organizational conflict and another concerning an NSA employee’s potential bias—were dismissed because Mission Essential, having been properly excluded from the competition, was no longer an interested party.

Digest

1. Protest challenging the evaluation of the protester’s proposal under the management factor and ability to staff factor is denied where the record reflects a reasonable evaluation conducted in accordance with the terms of the solicitation.
2. Protest challenging the agency’s decision to exclude the protester’s proposal from the competitive range is denied where the record supports the decision as reasonable.
3. Remaining technical and cost evaluation challenges are dismissed where the record demonstrates no possibility of competitive prejudice.
4. Allegations of organizational and personal conflicts of interest are dismissed because the protester was reasonably excluded from the competitive range and therefore is not an interested party to maintain such protest grounds.