The new technical support services contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Portsmouth/Paducah Project Office (PPPO) has received its formal notice to proceed with the transition from its predecessors.
The formal notice to proceed was issued to Pro2Serve subsidiary Enterprise Technical Assistance Services (E-TAS) on Jan. 6, a DOE spokesperson said in a Friday email. The notice comes weeks after the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) rejected a rival’s protest of the $137 million contract award.
Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based E-TAS will perform technical and administration support services at the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, the Paducah Site in Kentucky, and PPPO headquarters in Lexington, Ky. The work includes technical engineering tasks, infrastructure support, information technology, and oversight of safeguards and security.
The PPPO technical support services have previously been spread across three contracts held by Pro2Serve, Oak Ridge, Tenn.-based RSI EnTech, and New Mexico-based Strategic Management Solutions Inc. (SMSI). The latter firm brought the unsuccessful bid challenge before the GAO.
The congressional auditor said contract proposals filed by Enterprise Technical Assistance Services and Strategic Management Solutions were equally good, and the E-TAS proposal was $6 million cheaper. The GAO also dismissed the SMSI assertion that E-TAS has a conflict of interest because parent Pro2Serve has a subcontract with the decommissioning and demolition contractor at Portsmouth.
The E-TAS contract includes a three-year base period and an optional two-year extension. The firm is expected to take over operations of PPPO technical support at the end of March.
