RE: Lawyers/Wencor
posted on
Feb 26, 2005 11:09AM
I`ve worked with a lot of lawyers in my career, and found most to be ``smarter than the average bear``, but some (just some) hampered with a common human frailty - a total lack of common sense. THOSE lawyers kept me busy as manager of Contract Compliance, with an attitude that Gov`t regulations were merely ``guidelines`` (AAAHH!).
There`s my segway.... Looking at the Wencor site today, I found a couple of interesting things relating to their ability to contract with the Gov`t/DoD. They are ISO 9001 certified. They state compliance with only two Parts of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR); Part 21 (which as I recall has to do with very general administrative matters and hiring practices, job relocation and travel), and Part 45 (which has to do with the management of Gov`t Owned Property). Found this quite interesting, in that they apparently are not compliant with Part 52 (Cost Accounting Standards). Kind of a paradox (in my thinking), as this implies that they cannot perform on a cost-reimburseable type contract (where Cost Accounting Standards compliance would be a must), and cost-type contracts are the only type contract where property is considered ``owned`` by the Gov`t prior to delivery. This of course assumes that you`re actually ``selling`` stuff to the Gov`t. Only logical explanation is that they are capable to providing a service to the Gov`t (logistics - moving Gov`t owned property around). They can also contract with the Gov`t for the sell of materials on a Firm Fixed Price basis (which is the Gov`t`s preferred method of contracting for off-the-shelf type items, but is typically not used if there is any R&D work involved). Read into this what you will as pertains to any future sales of digEs to the Gov`t/DoD.
FWIW,
SGE