FFRDCs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CNA is downsizing.

Oh my. Geese. How many impacted?

So far 20 on the gov contract side.

They lost a bunch of grants with DOJ and contract slow down with other entities. They too are too heavy with VPs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CNA is downsizing.

Oh my. Geese. How many impacted?

So far 20 on the gov contract side.

They lost a bunch of grants with DOJ and contract slow down with other entities. They too are too heavy with VPs.

Wow. That really is sad.

[Anonymous]

FFRDCs are dying. They may still exist in the future, but will be much, much smaller.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, in many cases the knowledge isn't gone because Mitre employees will jump back into for-profit government contracting, *if* they have relevant current skills (like I did when I decided to leave). And not every contractor is experiencing a bloodbath because my very-large employer has had relatively few layoffs, and redirected DOGE-affected staff to new work. There were some layoffs in my current agency work group but they were either known non-producers or their projects were cut.

This. Someone with current knowledge, experience, and skills simply will land at Booz, Leidos, ManTech, or another for-profit firm. Part of Mitre’s mistake was growing without _sufficient_ differentiation in expertise and experience from the commercial contractors, particularly in IT, less so in RF, collection, and more exotic technology. It is fixable, but I will not hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

A lot of work that flows to FFRDCs (and to UARCs) does so primarily because it is easy to create a task order for an existing FFRDC/UARC contract vehicle and fund it using government-internal funds transfers (e.g., MIPR). UARC and FFRDC contracts are sole-source and the standard boilerplate text to justify using them is well known. By contrast, creating a new services contract competitively takes a long time, takes specialist contract-savvy civil service folks, and often will get protested/delayed. To some extent, there is so much subcontracting under services contracts that are put in place to avoid creating a new contract. The situation might well shift if Congress would simplify the services contracting rules, unlikely though that is.

As I said, whatever you think about MITRE's positioning/Jason's "Good Growth Strategy", this is not about FFRDCs. DOGE's hitting all the Fed Civil contractors (and Fed IT). See "Booz Layoffs" or "Feds and Fed contractors how are you holding up" threads. Or, if you care to where DOGE's Palantir buddies are coming from - "The Defense Reformation" https://www.18theses.com/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, in many cases the knowledge isn't gone because Mitre employees will jump back into for-profit government contracting, *if* they have relevant current skills (like I did when I decided to leave). And not every contractor is experiencing a bloodbath because my very-large employer has had relatively few layoffs, and redirected DOGE-affected staff to new work. There were some layoffs in my current agency work group but they were either known non-producers or their projects were cut.

Yes, but the FFRDC contracts are supposed to give some semblance of stability.

This. Someone with current knowledge, experience, and skills simply will land at Booz, Leidos, ManTech, or another for-profit firm. Part of Mitre’s mistake was growing without _sufficient_ differentiation in expertise and experience from the commercial contractors, particularly in IT, less so in RF, collection, and more exotic technology. It is fixable, but I will not hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

A lot of work that flows to FFRDCs (and to UARCs) does so primarily because it is easy to create a task order for an existing FFRDC/UARC contract vehicle and fund it using government-internal funds transfers (e.g., MIPR). UARC and FFRDC contracts are sole-source and the standard boilerplate text to justify using them is well known. By contrast, creating a new services contract competitively takes a long time, takes specialist contract-savvy civil service folks, and often will get protested/delayed. To some extent, there is so much subcontracting under services contracts that are put in place to avoid creating a new contract. The situation might well shift if Congress would simplify the services contracting rules, unlikely though that is.

As I said, whatever you think about MITRE's positioning/Jason's "Good Growth Strategy", this is not about FFRDCs. DOGE's hitting all the Fed Civil contractors (and Fed IT). See "Booz Layoffs" or "Feds and Fed contractors how are you holding up" threads. Or, if you care to where DOGE's Palantir buddies are coming from - "The Defense Reformation" https://www.18theses.com/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, in many cases the knowledge isn't gone because Mitre employees will jump back into for-profit government contracting, *if* they have relevant current skills (like I did when I decided to leave). And not every contractor is experiencing a bloodbath because my very-large employer has had relatively few layoffs, and redirected DOGE-affected staff to new work. There were some layoffs in my current agency work group but they were either known non-producers or their projects were cut.

This. Someone with current knowledge, experience, and skills simply will land at Booz, Leidos, ManTech, or another for-profit firm. Part of Mitre’s mistake was growing without _sufficient_ differentiation in expertise and experience from the commercial contractors, particularly in IT, less so in RF, collection, and more exotic technology. It is fixable, but I will not hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

A lot of work that flows to FFRDCs (and to UARCs) does so primarily because it is easy to create a task order for an existing FFRDC/UARC contract vehicle and fund it using government-internal funds transfers (e.g., MIPR). UARC and FFRDC contracts are sole-source and the standard boilerplate text to justify using them is well known. By contrast, creating a new services contract competitively takes a long time, takes specialist contract-savvy civil service folks, and often will get protested/delayed. To some extent, there is so much subcontracting under services contracts that are put in place to avoid creating a new contract. The situation might well shift if Congress would simplify the services contracting rules, unlikely though that is.

As I said, whatever you think about MITRE's positioning/Jason's "Good Growth Strategy", this is not about FFRDCs. DOGE's hitting all the Fed Civil contractors (and Fed IT). See "Booz Layoffs" or "Feds and Fed contractors how are you holding up" threads. Or, if you care to where DOGE's Palantir buddies are coming from - "The Defense Reformation" https://www.18theses.com/

Yes, but the FFRDC contracts are supposed to give some semblance of stability.

[Anonymous]

If one has specific skills that are in demand, there still are and will be contracting jobs - despite DOGE. The government recently told a contractor to reach out to someone I know to offer them a job - because they wanted a specific skill set (which happens to be scarce).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FFRDCs are dying. They may still exist in the future, but will be much, much smaller.

Yes. I think all of them will have RIFs sooner or later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FFRDCs are dying. They may still exist in the future, but will be much, much smaller.

Painful, to be sure, but maybe they can return to being sources of real technical expertise instead of Jason's generic IT help team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CNA has high overhead.

They’ve tried to lower it by getting rid of offices and combining or creating additional cost centers, etc.

This is happening to many FFRDCs.

RAND’s overhead is even higher than CNA. They have 20 Vice Presidents!

I think RAND’s overhead is like 80%, but I could be mistaken.

Is this correct? That seems really really high.

I think it might be even higher

That’s a problem if the overhead rate at RAND is so high.

I think RAND has more people working in Communications and External Affairs, HR, and Fundraising than people with PHDs in math, economics, and statistics.

[Anonymous]

MITRE, as well

[Anonymous]

Too many Communications and Organizational Change Management people that add very little

[Anonymous]

omg.... RAND's "Workday Financials Manager, Workday Service Center" makes nearly as much as a "Senior Defense Cost Researcher"

https://rand.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/External_Career_Site/job/Santa-Monica-CA-Greater-Los-Angeles-Area/Workday-Financials-Manager--Workday-Service-Center_R3115

https://rand.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/External_Career_Site/job/Washington-DC-DC-Metro-Area/Senior-Defense-Cost-Researcher_R3228

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:omg.... RAND's "Workday Financials Manager, Workday Service Center" makes nearly as much as a "Senior Defense Cost Researcher"

https://rand.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/External_Career_Site/job/Santa-Monica-CA-Greater-Los-Angeles-Area/Workday-Financials-Manager--Workday-Service-Center_R3115

https://rand.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/External_Career_Site/job/Washington-DC-DC-Metro-Area/Senior-Defense-Cost-Researcher_R3228

This is the definition of bloat.

[Anonymous]

And hundreds of executive admins