LANL awards $120M in contracts
New Mexico Business WeeklyLos Alamos National Laboratory has awarded four new subcontracts, worth a total of $120 million, to four New Mexico-based businesses.
The awards include a five-year, $65 million contract with TSAY Construction and Services LLC to provide custodial services to LANL.
TSAY is owned and operated by Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo. The award is the largest contract ever won by an American Indian business from the laboratory, drawing praise from U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-NM.
“I congratulate TSAY for winning this major contract,” Bingaman said in a news release. “This is a great investment in a New Mexico business, and I’m glad that Los Alamos National Laboratory was able to select a local company for this important work.”
The other three contracts include:
- a three-year, $32 million award to CNSI Inc. to replace Qwest Government Services Inc. as a provider of lab-wide telecommunications support services and as administrator for subcontracts with Verizon Federal Networks and other small regional businesses;
- a four-year, $14.1 million award to TEAM Technologies Inc. to provide electronic parts and components to the lab; and
- a five-year, $9.4 million contract with Fiore Industries to provide hardware and software information technology services to LANL.
“Our small business office continues to actively seek qualified small businesses that can provide goods and services and contribute to the Laboratory’s programmatic mission,” Chalmers said in a news release.
So, what exactly "qualifies" TSAY to provide services? The fact that they are "native American" controlled? Was this an open contract competition? Who will they hire? What experience will their employees have? What other large institutions do they provide janitorial services to? Most importantly, will they clean the restrooms every day, which responsibility LANS relieved KSL from?? Or, will this be more of the same somnolent, uncaring janitors, who resent any implication that they should actually work for a living? In former transitions of the services contractor, (Zia, Johnson Controls, KSL) only the upper management changed, with the same non-performing employees assigned to the same areas. Hopefully that will change.
ReplyDelete"New Mexico Offers Case Study in Economic Inequalities" - PBS News Hour
ReplyDeletewww.pbs.org/newshour/
bb/politics/
july-dec08/
nmeconomy_10-14.html
The streaming video link will let you watch this recent PBS news story. It's about the economic differences between Los Alamos and Espanola. Check it out.
"...somnolent, uncaring janitors..."
ReplyDeleteAs if the incessant sleepiness isn't bad enough, I really hate that they don't take more interest in me as a person. I miss the vibrant, empathic, custodians of the private sector, who emptied trash and vacuumed with gusto while making sure I was really satisfied with the direction of my life.
Anonymous at 10/15/08 10:55 PM makes a statement about "uncaring janitors."
ReplyDeleteI have not seen that. In more than 20 years, we have always had very good janitoral services from the people doing the work. Now, if you want to discuss their management, then uncaring is not the proper word. Incompetence, arrogance, stupidity, etc., are the words that describe the KSL management.
The primary source of economic differences between Los Alamos and Espanola is the difference in educational level. LANL is not going to hire high-school dropouts to design bombs.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting generalization about individuals who live in Espanola 2:44 am. Are you a bomb designer by chance?
ReplyDeleteThat is a "steaming" video link to the PBS news story. If they had cut the Brokeback scenes where Paul Solman and Sam Bowles shared their delusions the story would have been much better.
ReplyDeleteOkay, 4:46...
ReplyDeleteEspanola has far from a good reputation.The PBS story was a prime example of eastern media coming in with preconceived notions. If Espanola is so bad off, what would they be like if the Lab wasn't there?
To get a good job...get a good education...enough said.
Keep in mind there are a lot of people from Espanola who work in Los Alamos and that does nothing but raise the level of that community.
The contract isn't for high-tech business, but 65-mil ain't downstream money for a local business.
And don't start to give us this crap about "generalizations."
Nice to see a major contract going out to the locals.
ReplyDeleteNow if only the DOE would contract with a corporation that has a genuine interest in the economic well-being of northern New Mexico to manage the entire lab.
"LANL is not going to hire high-school dropouts to design bombs." ( 2:44 AM )
ReplyDeleteCareful, 2:44 AM. Don't give Tom D'Agostino any new ideas for his Complex Destruction program.
In that PBS News Hour video, the mayor of Espanola strongly implies that there are no economic tickle down benefits coming from LANL.
ReplyDeleteI guess all the jobs that LANL creates for Valley residents can be eliminated, as they obviously aren't helping out his town.
All politically correct or politically connected companies.
ReplyDeleteOne Hispanic, one Native American, one Beltway.
How is this protecting the national security?
How is it not ruling and servant classes since all of this is for support services?
In light of the subprime loan scandal, I would have hoped for something based on merit.
On the other hand, $120,000,000 has been outsourced and can be insourced as needed, just like last year's contractor debacle which devastated contractor companies.
We will see what happens.
Thanks a lot, Mr. Mayor. I have lived in Los Alamos a long time-
ReplyDeleteIn Espanola, over the years have bought cars, medical services, groceries, lumber, clothing, landscaping, etc, etc. I eat at the restaurants- and always tip well. I have hired businesses based in his town. In short, I considered Espanola to be "local"- and tried to be supportive. I have even heard that LANB supports Rio Grande Bank as another small independant...
I think Mr. Mayor is just belly-aching. The biggest step-up he can give his town is to increase the high school graduation rate. In NM, we let too many silly kids quit school and ruin their future.
4:46 AM, it's okay for PBS to point this out, but if it's on the LANL blog you're going to be offended?
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the old Los Alamos Lab joke:
ReplyDeleteTwo hundred seperate groups, united by a common jantorial service.
8:17 pm: "Two hundred seperate groups, united by a common jantorial service."
ReplyDeleteExcept that "common" janitorial services actaully clean the restrooms. LANL's doesn't
No surprise that TSAY Construction got the LANL contract. Here's a release from the lab Newsbulletin back in 2007:
ReplyDelete**********
LOS ALAMOS, N.M., July 31, 2007 — New mentor-protégé agreement pairs Laboratory expertise, technical assistance with local business
Los Alamos National Security, LLC will enter into a first-ever mentor-protégé agreement with TSAY Construction and Services, LLC, a small business 100 percent owned and operated by Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo (formerly San Juan Pueblo) located just north of Los Alamos.
The agreement with TSAY Construction & Services, LLC, is designed to help the company improve its ability to compete for contracts across the Department of Energy complex. Under the agreement, the Laboratory will provide technical assistance in marketing, proposal development, networking with potential customers, purchasing management, project management, and quality assurance.
**********
I doubt there was a legitimate competition for this contract. This is not surprising, though, as there also wasn't a legitimate competition for the contract that LANS won to manage LANL.
A blog reader pointed out to me this morning (sorry I did not get it posted today), that the contract was not competitively bid. See this Sue Vorenberg story from The New Mexican:
ReplyDeleteHistoric contract set for lab, tribal company
[...]
TSAY won the contract after participating in a mentor-protégé agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy starting in 2007, said Steve Sandoval, a lab spokesman.
The contract was not competitively bid, Sandoval said.
"The mentor-protege agreement has language that allows the laboratory to mentor TSAY Corp. so that TSAY can not only provide these services to our laboratory, but also better position itself to compete for other contracts outside the laboratory. That is the hallmark of the mentoring relationship with the lab and DOE," Sandoval said in an e-mail response to The New Mexican.
--------------------------------------------------------
This certainly makes Senator Bingaman's quote from the original post sound silly.
“I congratulate TSAY for winning this major contract,” Bingaman said in a news release.
I couldn't find that news release on the senator's website. If someone sends it to me I'll be happy to post it.
For 10:55 PM
ReplyDeleteTSAY has existed since 1990.
Their web site can be found within the web site of the OhKay Casino.
They are looking for a controller who has at least two years worth of accounting training in a college.
They are a protege of LANS.
Very little is public about them.
From an article in 2004
San Juan Pueblo is working on plans for an 80,000-square-foot
airplane factory north of Española next to the tribe's small
airport, which is also being renovated, said Ron Lovato, chief
operating officer of the tribe's Tsay Corp.
The corporation, along with the city of Española, is pursuing
the project with American Utilicraft Corp. of Lawrenceville, Ga.
"I think Española is on the verge of a commercial development
explosion," city planner Marvin Vigil said. "We're situating
ourselves as the most business-friendly city in the state."
Just south of Española, Santa Clara Pueblo is developing 50
acres of property across from the DreamCatcher Cinema, where the
tribe hopes to place a retail center and possibly a convention
center.
As to competitive bidding on janitorial services at LANS, who else would want the job?
http://www.rdcnm.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=UgpnoDDprVE%3D&tabid=127&mid=1811
If you look at this website, you will find that Ron Lovato, CEO of TSAY, is trying to do the economic development and eventual freedom from government dependency that Los Alamos County has talked about for decades but does not do.
Also known as the northern new mexico welfare plan - oh, but no trickle down from the hill is seen in this area. right.....
ReplyDeleteA young man from the Espanola area and schooled in the public schools of Espanola went to Stanford on his own and with scholarship--not the Labs. No small feat for anyone. He graduated with a degree in Environmental Sciences. Did he get a job at the Lab, no, not even an interview. Check it out. Maybe because he was hispanic and from the "Valley", the Labs loss.
ReplyDeleteThe Indian casinos have to find some place to park all those mountains of un-taxed wampum they rake in every day. TSAY now has a strong future for winning lots of no-bid contracts throughout the NNSA complex. Maybe they can even create some positions so they can hire former NNSA managers into lucrative VP slots at TSAY.
ReplyDeleteIt feels like we've just swapped the good ol'boy KBR (Halliburton) sweetheart deal (Rep) for a Pueblo/TSAY sweetheart deal (Dem).
Hey, that's change we can believe in!
And Senator Bingaman, you can rest assured that your big campaign check from TSAY Construction is in the mail.
Perhaps Los Alamos should consider putting up a large casino/resort complex after the massive layoffs hit LANL in the next year or so.
ReplyDeleteIt would give the laid off lab scientists a place of employment. They could make good money cleaning out toilets, serving up food, and dealing out cards.
Am I the only one who sees this contract as a microcosm of the lab?
ReplyDeleteMost of the missions where the lab has unique capability are gone, yet the contributors to the blog seem to want support for programs where the lab, with its outsize salaries and costs, cannot realistically compete.
Look at yourselves before making derogatory comments about people who profit from affirmative action!
"Perhaps Los Alamos should consider putting up a large casino/resort complex after the massive layoffs hit LANL in the next year or so. . . 10/17/08 12:15 PM "
ReplyDeleteI've always thought Area-A at LANSCE would make a terrific indoor arena for professional basketball. The infrastructure is all there, just need the seats and a scorboard. Perhaps some minds brighter than mine can see farther than that.
"...affirmative action! - 10/17/08 3:52 PM"
ReplyDeleteAffirmative Action and corporate fat-cat greed got us into the economic spiral on which we are all accelerating to the center of the black hole of mediocrity and entitlement.
I like the idea of having a big casino up on the Hill. It beats trying to do science in Work Free Safety Zones. We could even call the casino the "Monte Carlo", in honor of Metropolis' famous Monte Carlo method.
ReplyDeleteHowever, will need to first prove that the citizens of Los Alamos are members of a lost Native American tribe called the Oppies.
"Kevin Chalmers, head of LANL’s Acquisition Services Management Division, said more contracts soon will be awarded to other small businesses."
ReplyDeleteChalmers is another one of those truly awful Bechtelite managers that got dumped onto LANL by the good ol' boy network of LANS/Bechtel.
Well gee,
ReplyDeleteIt seems likely that this Lab mentor relationship with TSAY is really about grooming this vital pueblo community to eventually take over the entire lab management contract, hey why not?
Who knows, my bet is that they could not do any worse than the ummm, uh, current management.
Maybe they will turn the lab into a sort of "Atomic" theme park, with restaurants and the much anticipated Casino, technical tours of 55 and so on. Just think of all those brainy boys and girls from Comp calculating the best odds for the house.
Sometimes as much as I hate to admit it, I do miss the U.C. days and will agree with many that the best days of the lab are perhaps a distant memory.
I'd still just like to know whether the new conractor will clean the restrooms regularly, which KSL stoppped doing with LANS' blessing. To have overflowing trash bins and empty toilet rolls, with dirty toilets and sinks, and be told by the janitor who is blithely emptying office papers, that "tomorrow" is the cleaning day is disgusting. Will that improve??
ReplyDeleteWhy can't people just leave the restrooms clean when they are done? Is it so hard to wipe the seat or the sink? And what is so hard about taking out the trash? How does one wind up thinking they are "too important" to do thess things. What comes next, someone to spoon feed you lunch and remind you to blink every few seconds? You don't want to clean up after someone else? Figure out who it is, grow a pair, and confront them. Geez, is that so damned hard?
ReplyDeleteRight after the custodians announced that they would only empty the office trash every other day (the good old days!), I asked our custodian where I could empty my own office trash since the common area trash can was as small as the office trash cans. The custodian yelled at me LOUDLY in the hallway for several minutes, I guess because she felt I was threatening her job by offering to empty my own trash can. And then she stopped both talking to me and vacuuming my office, and she only emptied my trash if I left it sitting in the hallway. Amazing, because I was just trying to help out.
ReplyDeleteAt LLNL they said there would be no outsourcing. I guess LLNS is about to get caught in anohter LIE. I can't remember how many this has been but I have a feeling the LIES will continue as they seek out cheap labor for all jobs. Hell lets just outsource the directors job to China, they own most of the US anyway after the last couple of market crashes.
ReplyDelete10/17/08 7:33 PM
ReplyDeleteIf anything, Affirmative Action helped the "White Woman" more than anyone else. You're familiar with the friends and family plan!
What about the carte blanche changeout of the old reliable toilet flusher handle to the automated motion-sensor controls. When they work, you get 2-3 flushes (water savings) before you can get out of the stall. When they don't work, there is no way flush at all. There is no scheduled maintenance to replace the batteries in them, so we have had toilets sit for weeks with the grossest stuff growing in them. Way to go LANS! The purveyors of crap can't even handle crap on their own premises.
ReplyDeleteThe heydey of UC-LANL is long past. Those Happy Days will not be returning. Ever.
ReplyDeleteFonzie has jumped the shark.
I've heard that the toilets in the new NSSB don't need cleaning. It seems that the shit of Mikey and the other LLNL cronies doesn't even stink.
ReplyDeleteWhat is brown and sleeps four?
ReplyDeleteA KSL pickup truck.
The proposal to put a casino in Los Alamos is flawed by the fact that the per-capita gambling in the county of Los Alamos is the lowest in the state.
ReplyDeletePer-capita gambling is well-correlated with low educational levels. That's why the casinos are near Espanola.
Regarding the annecdote about the
ReplyDeleteEspanola person who went to Stanford and could not get a job at LANL:
what was his/her GPA?
From 10/18/08 8:35 AM -
ReplyDeleteIf anything, Affirmative Action helped the "White Woman" more than anyone else. You're familiar with the friends and family plan!
Yep, that is the only reason Doc Aq is still around and got the Fellows Prize - Wallace is really upset that she is still around but Legal wouldn't let him get rid of her.
Response to 10/19/08 6:02 AM:
ReplyDeleteYou actually are interested in his/her GPA? Take a GOOD look at "F Troop" managing LANS!!!
So, the fact that LANS managers are generally not that bright means that LANL should start hiring stupid people??
ReplyDelete* Spending Surge Pushing Deficit Toward $1 Trillion - Washington Post, Oct 18, 2008 *
ReplyDeleteCongressional leaders and both presidential candidates are proposing billions of dollars in tax breaks and other measures to stoke economic growth, a surge in spending that could send the federal deficit soaring toward $1 trillion this year, creating the deepest well of red ink since the end of World War II.
The government already has embarked on an unprecedented spending spree to halt the implosion of the U.S. financial system and is borrowing money at levels that some economists fear could undermine the nation's economic security for years to come. Congress could consider additional spending as soon as next month, potentially digging the nation's hole even deeper.
"We're going to make Ronald Reagan look like a piker in terms of deficit creation, I think," said Rudolph Penner, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who served as director of the Congressional Budget Office during the Reagan administration.
*_*_*_*_*_*
I suspect the next Administration and Congress may decide that "the richest county in America" (which is a big lie!) is due for some huge cuts in next year's budget.
The scalpel could cut deeply at LANL. Some targeted cuts will be required to assuage politicians in Washington that "progress is being made in controlling the budget". In this environment, NNSA and the weapon labs makes very tempting targets.
"10/19/08 10:23 PM"
ReplyDeleteAnd your point is? I mean your real point.
It seems like to me we need to be happy for any business in our area getting a multi million dollar contract unless of course it is our competitors. I say good on them. Now I haven't worked with them but if their stupidity shines through they will loose the contract in a few years.
ReplyDelete"Now I haven't worked with them but if their stupidity shines through they will loose the contract in a few years." 10/21/08 11:04 AM
ReplyDeleteAnd KSL ripped off LANL with poor service and outright chicanery for how long? You obviously don't work at LANL.
11:41 am: "And KSL ripped off LANL with poor service and outright chicanery for how long? You obviously don't work at LANL."
ReplyDeleteActually not very long, compared to some of their predecessors: Zia, Pan Am, Johnson Controls... Of course, the "poor service and outright chicanery" has been there all along. Two reasons: 1)when the contract changes, only the upper managers leave; all the same workers remain; 2)those same workers all belong to the same unions, and the leadership of those unions also remain. Don't expect any changes this time either.
Janitors are a dime a dozen.
ReplyDeleteWhy wouldn't a company contracting with the lab for janitorial services just tell the union to shove off?
Speaking of F-Troop 10/19 3:45PM, how do you like LANS' backpeddling in the explanation for the five power outages that knocked out all of White Rock this past Sunday. Way to go Mr. Facilities - Andy Erickson!
ReplyDelete10/22 4:27 pm: "Why wouldn't a company contracting with the lab for janitorial services just tell the union to shove off?"
ReplyDeleteBecause all the workers would "shove off" too, it's called a strike. If you thik it would be easy for such an employer to hire thousands of non-union replacements in any reasonable amount of time, given union strong-arm and intimidating tactics in the Valley, you are naive.