Relief efforts spawn quick contracts

Two days after Hurricane Katrina blew through the Gulf Coast, the Air National Guard, a division of the Air Force, contacted Segovia Inc., a satellite services provider. It needed additional bandwidth to enable phone, e-mail, and Internet access on its bases.

Segovia, a Hendon, Va.-based company that, until Katrina, had provided satellite services exclusively to the military, offered ANG a technical solution that evening. The following day, ANG put a contract in place, and Segovia had the network up and running three days later.

Now, Segovia is hoping that the sudden need for communications equipment - and the funding that lawmakers are sending toward Katrina relief - will send more business its way. Referring to the $50 billion being considered for FEMA, Kirby Farrell, founder of Segovia, said, "Frankly, we're hopeful we're going to be involved in that."

Satellite services essentially allow users to have high-speed Internet access and 3-cents-per-minute phone services that they could have if they were sitting in an office building. Otherwise, rescue workers have to rely on costly satellite phones and often lack high-speed Internet access. Satellite services are particularly important in the Gulf region now because the normal methods of communicating, such as through phone lines, have been destroyed.

Finding those contracts, however, has been tough. "It's a classic catch-22. We're trying to contact them to discuss giving them modern broadband communication, but we can't contact them because they don't have communications," said Farrell. He has called agencies up to 20 times before reaching them, he said.

Farrell said he has enough confidence that Segovia will win additional contracts that the company has deployed equipment to the area in a motor home and a tractor-trailer. He thinks more contracts could be set up within days, and said his competitors are likely also competing for those same contracts.

One of those competitors, Intelsat, a global satellite services provider, already has established new contracts with the Defense Department and FEMA, said spokesman Tony Trujillo. He said he did not know of the value or exactly how they were awarded. The contracts were developed some time last week after agencies called Intelsat "because of the long-standing relationship" the company has with the government, Trujillo said.

The need for speedy contracting arrangements has lead agencies to bypass the normal contracting processes, as is usually the case during emergencies. Agencies can skip the full and open competition requirement and can rely more on oral communications than written ones. For example, the House passed a bill Thursday that would increase the amount agencies are allowed to spend on government-issued credit cards for Hurricane Katrina-related relief to $250,000 from $15,000. Credit cards can purchase goods and services without competitive bidding.

"It's just like at the outbreak of the Iraqi war. When disaster strikes, the government uses its guidelines for fair and legal contracting, but when the government needs to, it justifies doing sole source contracts - and one of the justifications is, 'I need to do it tomorrow,' " said Farrell.

Contracts are being handed out based primarily on existing relationships, Farrell said. He has registered for Web sites through DHS and other agencies that promise to tell contractors when contracts are available, but said he has little confidence those sites will generate contracts because the turnaround is so short.

The main method, he said, is word of mouth. "We're talking to everyone I can think of. We're mobilized like we're part of the government. We're bringing in food, booking hotel rooms," he said.

At the same time, companies without those connections and existing relationships are struggling to find the right people to talk to about potential contracts.

Farrell said that existing contracts the company had with the military - mostly for work in Iraq - sped up the time it took agencies to get equipment in place. Segovia has a standing contract with the Army Corps of Engineers to provide first-responder support across the country. That contract is now being used in the hurricane-hit Gulf to provide satellite services to six Army Corps trucks.

"You don't know where the next manmade or natural disaster is coming from. There's no time to be putting contracts in place," said Farrell. "This needs to be set up ahead of time."