In This Week’s Newsletter:
- Opportunity Spotlight of the Week: AFRL MAC
- Four To Follow: Four Interesting Pursuits
- Capture Corner: How Loss of Key Personnel Can Impact Capture
- Pricing Insights: Gross Contribution
- The Interesting Section: A History of Resolutions
Opportunity Alert – AFRL MAC
Contact Katie: katie.clatterbuck@hinzconsulting.com
Opportunity Alert – Department of the Air Force, Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Multiple Award Contract (MAC).
On December 19, 2025, the Contracting Office posted the draft RFP and other solicitation documents on SAM.gov and requested questions by January 7, 2026, at 4:00 PM ET. This $10B IDIQ will be competed in both the Unrestricted Pool and the Small Business Pool. The anticipated RFP release date is tentatively set for February 2026, with an award timeframe of September 2026. Science and Technology needs for this requirement include, but are not limited to, basic and applied research; data science and analytics; technology development; digital architecture (via model-based systems engineering); modeling and simulation; manufacturing and fabrication; experimentation and testbed development; integration and demonstration; and technology transfer to military capabilities. Reach out to Hinz Consulting for any Capture, Graphics, Price-to-Win, or Proposal support, and continue to monitor SAM.gov for updates to the procurement timeline.
Four to Follow
- Department of the Army, Army Materiel Command (AMC), Base Operations Support Services (BOSS) for the Directorate of Public Works (DPW). On January 5, 2026, the Contracting Office released a notice on SAM.govstating that the solicitation remains anticipated for February 2026, with a potential award date in October 2026. Support for this $400M Small Business Set-Aside opportunity includes facilities maintenance instruction, grounds maintenance, vertical and horizontal facilities maintenance, cemetery operations, heating and cooling services, wastewater services, and water services. Continue to monitor SAM.gov for any changes to the procurement timeline.
- Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Cyber Dynamic Operational Multiple Award Environment (Cyber DOME). DHS CISA requires scalable implementations rooted in collaboration, accountability, and transparency, with technical planning, development, and operational support aligned with organizational strategies. This $18B multiple-award IDIQ is anticipated for release in Q2 FY2026, with a potential award timeframe of February 2027. The competition type is currently unknown. Continue to monitor SAM.gov for more information and any changes to the timeline.
- Department of State (DOS), International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), Airwing Worldwide Aviation Support Services (AWASS). The DOS requires worldwide aviation support services, including flight operations, maintenance, logistics, safety, and management. This $10B IDIQ is estimated to be released in June 2026 under both Full and Open Unrestricted and Small Business Set-Aside. The award date is anticipated for December 2026. Continue to monitor SAM.gov for further updates on this effort.
- Department of the Army, Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Job Order Contract (JOC) at Fort Bliss, Texas, IDIQ. USACE requires a broad range of real property repair and construction projects, including administrative facilities, barracks, maintenance shops, motor pools, hangars, and other areas. This $100M IDIQ is expected to be released in March 2026, with an anticipated award in August 2026. The competition type for this effort is currently unknown. Continue to monitor SAM.gov for further information or updates to the procurement timeline.
How Loss of Key Personnel Can Impact Capture
Contact John: john.amoriello@hinzconsulting.com
In the capture methodology, “Key Personnel” are often the most critical assets—not only for the eventual execution and service delivery of the contract, but also for the strategy and intelligence gathering required to win it.
When Key Personnel are lost during the capture phase, the impact ripples throughout the entire pursuit lifecycle. Specific impact areas are:
1. Disruption of Intelligence and Relationships
Capture is deeply rooted in “customer intimacy.” Key Personnel often maintain the primary relationships with Client stakeholders.
- Loss of Insight: When a key person departs, they take “entrenched client knowledge” with them (e.g., the customer’s actual pain points and unofficial preferences).
- Relationship Reset: The “replacement” must start from scratch to build trust. In long-cycle captures (12–24 months), losing a person in the final 6 months can be catastrophic because there is no time to rebuild rapport with the customer.
2. Technical and Solution Gaps
The Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) are responsible for the “Win Theme” and the technical “Discriminators.”
- Cohesion Loss: A new Account Lead may disagree with the established technical direction. This can lead to “re-solutioning” late in the game, introducing inconsistencies between the technical and pricing volumes.
- Knowledge Silos: If the methodology isn’t documented in a shared “Capture Plan,” the rationale for specific technical trade-offs may be lost, leaving the proposal team to guess at the original strategy.
3. Impact on “Price-to-Win” (PTW)
Key Personnel can help reduce cost assumptions.
- Risk Premium: When the person who understands the operational risks leaves, the remaining team often adds “contingency” to the pricing to cover their uncertainty and risk. As a result, this can lead to a bid that is priced out of the competition.
4. Organizational and Partner Confidence
Capture often involves complex teaming agreements with subcontractors.
- Teaming Stability: Partners often join a pursuit because of the reputation of the Key Personnel. Their departure can erode subcontractors’ confidence, potentially prompting them to withdraw or offer less
Gross Contribution
Contact Dr. Tom: tom.hudgins@hinzconsulting.com
When we’re deep in a pricing model, it’s easy to get tunnel vision. We obsess over the bottom line, Net Profit, and the “Price-to-Win.” But there’s a quiet number sitting in your metrics tab that actually determines if the project is a “good” win or just “busy” work: Gross Contribution. If Net Profit is the prize at the end of the race, Gross Contribution is the fuel that keeps the car running. Here’s why you should be paying closer attention to it.
Gross Contribution is the total amount of money a project brings in to cover your Indirect Costs (Fringe, Overhead, and General and Administrative (G&A)). This money funds things like the HR team, legal fees, the employer portion of the 401(k) match, and even office coffee. It’s the “membership fee” the project pays to the company for the right to exist.
Why It’s a “Must-Check” Metric
1. It Keeps the Lights On. A project can have a razor-thin profit margin and still be a massive win for the company. Why? Because if it has a high Gross Contribution, it’s absorbing a considerable share of your company’s fixed costs. If you didn’t have that project, your G&A and Overhead wouldn’t just disappear; they’d be dumped onto your other projects, making your other projects and bids more expensive and less competitive.
2. The “Subcontractor Trap”.We’ve all seen it: a proposal looks profitable, but it’s 80% subcontractor labor. When you use subs, you usually get only a tiny sliver of G&A or a “handling fee.” When you use your own people (the Prime), you recover Fringe, Overhead, and G&A. Gross Contribution exposes the truth: a “profitable” sub-heavy deal might actually be starving your home office of the indirect recovery it needs to grow.
3. Your Safety Net. Things happen. Estimates are missed, or work takes longer than planned. If a project has a healthy Gross Contribution, you have a “buffer.” Even if your profit takes a hit, the project still helps cover corporate expenses. Without that contribution, a small mistake can turn a project from a winner into a drain on the company’s bank account.
4. Is Escalation Working? If your contract spans five years, you need to ensure your Gross Contribution grows in line with your costs. If your labor rates rise but your contribution stays flat, you’re effectively giving the client a discount on your corporate services each year. Reviewing this metric helps you spot “margin creep” before it occurs.
Key takeaway: While it’s essential to focus on profit and fees, it’s equally important to track and estimate Gross Contribution. After all, you need to make sure you can cover your expenses and “pay the bills.”
A History of Resolutions
New Year’s resolutions trace a long and colorful history, stretching back about 4,000 years as people rethink time, morality, and self‑improvement. The familiar “new year, new me” impulse started long before modern self-help culture.
In ancient Babylon around 2000 BCE, people used the 12‑day Akitu festival to make concrete promises. They pledged to their gods that they would pay debts and return borrowed goods in exchange for divine favor and good harvests, treating these vows as serious religious commitments with real social and spiritual consequences.
Later, the Romans anchored the tradition in January, named for Janus, the two-faced god of beginnings who looks both backward and forward. Romans marked the new year by making vows, exchanging gifts, and swearing oaths of loyalty, turning the season into a moment of reflection and intention rooted in religious and political ritual rather than personal goal-setting.
Christian traditions then pushed resolutions toward moral renewal. In the 18th century, John Wesley helped popularize “Watch Night” services, where people gathered on New Year’s Eve to examine their lives, confess sins, and commit to spiritual improvement, remixing earlier devotional customs into a focused moment of yearly recommitment.
By the 19th and 20th centuries, resolutions increasingly shifted into secular, personal territory. As psychology and self-help culture expanded, people set goals around health, finances, and self-discipline, and early 1900s newspapers printed lists of resolutions that read strikingly like modern ones.
When the focus moves from ordinary resolutions to presidential promises, the follow‑through actually improves. Long‑running studies of U.S. presidencies show that, on average, presidents at least partially fulfill about 70–75% of their campaign promises once compromises and incremental progress count. However, if the standard includes only fully completed promises, that success rate drops to roughly 25–35%, with the rest stalling, changing shape, or dying under political and institutional constraints.
Set against the fate of most New Year’s resolutions—which collapse within a few months—presidential promises, as a group, show a noticeably higher rate of follow‑through, even if the outcomes rarely match the clean, confident simplicity of the original pledge.
- January 26-28th: National Small Business Conference in Nashville, TN
- February 1-4th: National Conference of Regions in Washington DC
- March 16-17th: 2026 Air Force Contracting Summit in Reston, VA