New Contractor, Come on Down!
On July 31, 2013, the US government began its search of the right company to run Naval Station Guantanamo Bay. Yes, this is the same Guantanamo Bay of that features two detention camps that holds 164 inmates. The larger base that these camps run in, however, has been a fixture of the US’ military presence since 1904. One missile crisis and some literal die-hard Marxism later, the base today houses around 8,500 people in various positions in military and civilian capacities, including Cuba’s first and only McDonald’s location.
And since Oct. 4, 2013, the Navy has begun sifting through bids looking for one good contractor to run the facilities that bring the base to life.
More specifically, the BOS (Base Operating Support) contract is for supplying “all labor, supervision, management, and materials, except that specified as Government furnished” to tend to “Family Housing, Facility Investment, Custodial, Pest Control, Integrated Solid Waste Management, Other (Swimming Pools), Grounds Maintenance, Transportation, Electrical, Wastewater, Water, and limited Facilities Support functions.”
According to the RFP, (or “Request for Proposal” in the contracts world) the current contract is set to expire in November 2014, and is held by a joint venture of two engineering/consulting firms under the name Bremcor JV (Joint Venture). That’s a mash-up of a company called Burns & Roe, and another named EMCOR. B&R is a private company, and its work has mostly focused on designing large-scale energy projects. They also designed an energy conservation plans for City University of New York. EMCOR is publicly traded, and brought in $1.5 billion in revenue across operations providing electrical and mechanical construction projects throughout the US and the UK.
The length of the contract appears to be for one year, with four additional one-year extensions available if the Navy likes who they’ve selected. Based on the RFP, the Bremcor JV was paid $132 million for six years of service. That’s an average of $22 million a year. This is much more expensive than the US government’s yearly lease fee paid to Cuba, agreed upon in 1937, which is just over $4,000.
Given the way government contracts are usually awarded, we won’t have an award decision for a few months at best. And if you missed this one, you still have an opportunity to place a bid for base-based data-filtering services or for keeping this, and surrounding bases fed.