New GSA chief reaches out to small businesses, agencies

GSA Administrator Lurita Doan will join officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Small Business Administration and the Commerce Department's Minority Business Development Program next week in a Gulf Coast pilot program aimed at matching small and local businesses with federal contract opportunities.

The program may be late in the timeline of Hurricane Katrina's impact on the region, but it arises early in the tenure of the new agency head, sworn in the last day of May. In an interview with Government Executive on Monday, Doan said the program, which will reach out to local entrepreneurs and help them link up with the federal government after natural disasters, will kick off in New Orleans with a contract for rebuilding the city's historic U.S. Customs House.

"It's such a great opportunity for GSA because these businesses that we're going to be bringing, these are going to be the most awesome teaming partners," Doan said. "It's an incredible testament to their survival skills that they're even in business in the first place because the place is absolutely devastated, and the average, normal, everyday resources that you count on to do business with -- pens, paper, computers, power -- for most of them simply don't exist."

While the new program may be a bright point in her hectic schedule, Doan says much of her time lately has been taken up with getting up to speed on each of the major challenges facing the agency.

One of those, underscored by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, during Doan's confirmation hearing, is the rapidly rising rent charged to the judicial branch for tenancy in GSA-managed court buildings. The administrator said meetings with the agency's Public Building Service and the judiciary have helped her understand the situation, and are leading up to a final meeting so the parties can "come to peace" on the issue.

Meetings with clients have been a major focus of her time so far. "I do believe that with any customer, they want to know that they're heard … that you understand their mission and that you're providing what they ask for," Doan said. "I think GSA now understands this because it did get its wake-up call."

One of the agency's biggest recent issues has been its highly publicized disagreements with the Defense Department, which ultimately resulted in Defense returning funds to the Treasury.

"DOD is one of our customers who has indicated some dissatisfaction with us, to put it mildly," Doan said. "It's been an ongoing issue that seems like it's just grown to an explosive point." She indicated continuing working group meetings have helped to clarify the issues, allowing GSA to develop responses based on both the customer's needs and the regulations.

"I think we're going to see that DOD will start leveraging a lot of GSA's excellence in procurement, the large contracting staff that we have and our expertise in being compliant, and I think we're going to find that they're … returning their contracting officers back to their core competencies," she said.

Asked about shortfalls in the acquisition workforce across the federal government, flashes of Doan's private-sector background emerged. "I think it's a business opportunity -- everything is an opportunity." Noting that GSA awards more contracts than any other agency, she said it is perfectly positioned to meet that need.

"Maybe that is the difference between business and government -- in business, a challenge is your best opportunity for a sale," she said. "When you see an obvious lack in a particular area, that is absolutely where you need to jump in."

"I believe that people want to work at places that are exciting and where they feel something's happening and that their work really matters. And I think everybody wants to be on a winning team, everybody wants to know that they're valued," she said, noting that suggestions for improvement have been pouring in from employees since her first day. From a business standpoint, though, GSA has an advantage over other agencies competing for procurement personnel that she expects will also help: the ability to give performance bonuses.

Like any business, though -- and unlike most government departments -- GSA, as an agency largely reliant on fees paid for its procurement services, also must balance its budget. In early May, the agency announced that it would offer buyouts to 400 employees in an effort to reduce costs, in part to offset declining technology revenues.

Doan said she is optimistic that the agency can balance its books by the end of the fiscal year in September, largely through efforts to shorten the time between when financial outlays are made and when customers are given invoices. As an example, she said the agency had not yet given FEMA invoices for services provided during Hurricane Katrina. "Hopefully on Friday, they'll be on their desks," she said.