Protest challenging past performance and technical evaluations is denied. The agency had found the awardee’s individual past performance references only relevant but had assigned the awardee an overall past performance rating of very relevant. The protester contended a past performance rating cannot be greater than the sum of its parts. But GAO found the rating reasonable. While the individual references were only relevant, when aggregated across the PWS tasks, the totality of the references demonstrated the awardee had highly relevant past performance.
Background
NASA issued a RFP for award of a testing operations IDIQ contract. After reviewing proposals, NASA established a competitive range with two offerors: Jacobs Technology, Inc. and Sierra Lobo, Inc. (SLI). NASA awarded the contract to SLI’s higher-rated, lower-priced proposal. Jacobs protested challenging the past performance and technical evaluations.
Legal Analysis
- No Requirement to Proportionally Evaluate Past Performance of JVs — Two of SLI’s past performance references were contracts performed as part of a joint venture. Jacobs claimed NASA had to assess the extent of work SLI had performed for the JV references. GAO, however, found nothing in the RFP that required NASA to proportionally evaluate the performance of JVs. To the contrary, the RFP provided that past performance of a joint venture would be evaluated based on the entirety of the work performed by the joint venture.
- Past Performance Can Be Greater than the Sum of Its Parts — NASA had rated SLI’s individual past performance references as merely relevant but then gave the company an overall rating of very relevant. Jacobs argued that if the individual references were only relevant, the overall past performance rating could not be highly relevant. But GAO didn’t see a problem  While SLI’s projects were individually only relevant, NASA had aggregated those references across the PWS tasks and reasonably concluded that taken together, the references demonstrated highly relevant work.
- No Unequal Treatment –Jacobs complained that NASA disparately evaluated proposals by assigning SLI significant strengths but not similarly crediting Jacobs for similar features. But GAO found that the difference in the evaluation ratings were based on differences in the offerors’ proposals. In particular, Jacobs’ proposal suffered from a relative lack of detail.
- NASA Didn’t Relax Requirements for SLI – The evaluators expressed concerns about SLI’s approach to safety. But after consulting with the agency’s safety and assurance representative, the SSA felt more comfortable with SLI’s approach. Jacobs argued that by considering the input from the safety representative, NASA had minimized the evaluators’ concerns and relaxed the safety requirement for SLI. GAO disagreed. The agency used available resources to make an informed decision. This was not a relaxed requirements. Instead, it was exactly the type of thoughtful consideration agencies are changed with.
Jacobs is represented by Brian P. Waagner, Steven A. Neeley, Michael J. Schrier, Maya Desai, and Leah C Kaiser of Husch Blackwell LLP. The intervenor, SLI, is represented by Douglas P. Hibsham, Reginald M. Jones, and Michael A. Hordell of Fox Rothschild LLP. The agency is represented by Cody Corley, Ian F. Rothfuss, and Jaewon Choi of NASA. GAO attorneys Michael P. Grogan and Edward Goldstein participated in the preparation of the decision.
