St. Mary’s County’s 3rd-Largest Employer Is Transitioning Out Of The Area

[LightRoasted]

For your consideration ...

How did this happen? After 50 years DynCorp losses a contract? Did they want to lose it? And how will it really affect those that worked on the flight line, in the hangers and in the shops?

St. Mary’s County's 3rd-Largest Employer Is Transitioning Out Of The Area - The BayNet

LEXINGTON PARK, Md. – Amentum, St. Mary’s County’s third-largest employer, will be transitioning out of the area over the coming months after losing a contract with the U.S. Navy. However, the impact is expected to be relatively small. In a letter to the St. Mary’s County Commissioners on July...

thebaynet.com

 

[Sneakers]

Huh. DynCorp tried for years and years to take the maintenance contract away from Northrop Grumman on the E2, and finally got it a couple of years ago. This is very unexpected. Dyn must have really pissed off someone.

 

[Kyle]

Happens all the time in the IT field.

 

[OccamsRazor]

I still think it is funny that a contract can be bid, awarded, and enacted even though the NEW company has to harvest personnel from the departing company.

 

[Sneakers]

Happens all the time in the IT field.

True, but the monetary considerations are more extreme. Each tech that works in maint has their own set of tools worth thousands of dollars, not to mention expensive company owned resources. Some techs were lucky enough to get picked up by Dyncorp, others left. Now with Dyncorp leaving those techs may be without a home and forced out. It takes time and resources to build up and re-bid and win a contract again.

In the case of Northrop Grumman, who had the E2 contract for eons, their staff dwindled to a very small handful of people after DynCorp took over. Highly unlikely they can man up again.

 

[Clem72]

Happens all the time in the IT field.

Because it's hard to argue specific expertise for generic IT applications. Much easier for a company that maintains an aircraft to argue that anyone else would be at a disadvantage as they would have to learn the intricacies of the platform and reverse engineer or redesign any proprietary documentation, and specialized tools, molds, etc. that the incumbent has produced

 

[PeoplesElbow]

I'd say their piss poor management was the reason, will be damn near the exact same with the new company. The new company taking over is never because they are better.

 

[Monello]

How did this happen?

Someone forgot to grease a skid.

 

[Grumpy]

I still think it is funny that a contract can be bid, awarded, and enacted even though the NEW company has to harvest personnel from the departing company.

Alot of times its written into the RFP in some way,..Institutional knowledge is important.

 

[OccamsRazor]

Alot of times its written into the RFP in some way,..Institutional knowledge is important.

Interesting. I'm wondering if the unionization factored into the loss at all.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

Because it's hard to argue specific expertise for generic IT applications. Much easier for a company that maintains an aircraft to argue that anyone else would be at a disadvantage as they would have to learn the intricacies of the platform and reverse engineer or redesign any proprietary documentation, and specialized tools, molds, etc. that the incumbent has produced

In this case they would simply have to use the maintenance manuals the Navy also uses.

 

[Clem72]

Alot of times its written into the RFP in some way,..Institutional knowledge is important.

I haven't really seen it here at Pax, but in the past I have seen the same contract awarded to multiple vendors explicitly to allow new vendors to gain competency and eventually provide adequate competition to drive down the overall price.

 

[itsbob]

How big a paycut is the new company going to be offering the DYNCORP employees? Not supposed to be legal to do, but I've seen it where people were offered about 40% of what they were making to move to the new company.

 

[Clem72]

In this case they would simply have to use the maintenance manuals the Navy also uses.

I'm sure in many cases the incumbent is not the special unicorn they would like you to believe. In other cases, the government allows them to charge NRE to develop tools/software that the contractor retains full ownership of (for instance a bespoke laser collimator for aligning optics), so if someone else were to come in and expect to compete this NRE would have to be provided again.

 

[Clem72]

How big a paycut is the new company going to be offering the DYNCORP employees? Not supposed to be legal to do, but I've seen it where people were offered about 40% of what they were making to move to the new company.

Why would that not be legal? It's a new job, they don't have to pay you what someone else was paying you and you don't have to accept the job.

 

[itsbob]

Why would that not be legal? It's a new job, they don't have to pay you what someone else was paying you and you don't have to accept the job.

It's contracts and Acquisition law. You can't undercut a current contract holder on labor, which is why I was surprised they got away with it.

 

[Bare-ya-cuda]

How big a paycut is the new company going to be offering the DYNCORP employees? Not supposed to be legal to do, but I've seen it where people were offered about 40% of what they were making to move to the new company.

Depends on what price the new company put in their proposal. If they were the low bidder and we’re selected based on that then yes they will have to cut peoples pay if they decide to stay on. The navy just learned a hard lesson going with the low bidder a couple years ago on a smaller contract at Webster field. New company came in and low balled everyone and they refused the offers and left.

 

[Clem72]

It's contracts and Acquisition law. You can't undercut a current contract holder on labor, which is why I was surprised they got away with it.

Yeah, that's not a thing. I was a COR for more than a decade and I did tech evals where I compared labor hours and labor categories for competed and sole source acquisitions.

Incumbent says based on historical actuals, this job requires 1800 hours of labor from a Senior Technician, $140/hr fully burdened.
New guy says we are leaner and have less overhead and believe this job required 2200 hours of labor from two junior techicians, $80/hr fully burdened.

New guy wins, tells old senior tech who makes $65/hr he can have a job as a junior tech if he wants, starting pay is $38/hr.

 

[itsbob]

Depends on what price the new company put in their proposal. If they were the low bidder and we’re selected based on that then yes they will have to cut peoples pay if they decide to stay on. The navy just learned a hard lesson going with the low bidder a couple years ago on a smaller contract at Webster field. New company came in and low balled everyone and they refused the offers and left.

Lesson has been learned many times over, why they aren't supposed to be allowed to do it anymore.

 

[glhs837]

In this case they would simply have to use the maintenance manuals the Navy also uses.

In some ways, yes, but in other way a lot of the test platforms are bastardized unicorns with mismatched systems and prototype installs.