To be eligible for this award, the nominee must be a Government employee for an agency subject to the Federal Acquisition Regulation and have played a leadership or key role in driving a performance based acquisition. The employee may be anyone on the "Acquisition Team" as defined in FAR 1.102, excluding non-government employees, i.e., any participant in Government acquisition including representatives of the technical, supply, and procurement communities and the customers they serve.

The accomplishment for which the nominee is nominated must have taken place in fiscal years 2002 or 2003. Nominations must come from someone within the nominee's chain of command.

Nominations will be reviewed and judged by a panel of government acquisition experts, including:

David Drabkin, Deputy Administrator for Acquisition Policy, General Services Administration
Carl DeMaio, President, The Performance Institute
and
Stan Soloway, President, Professional Services Council
Melissa Wojciak, Staff Director, House Committee on Government Reform
Bob Welch, Acquisition Solutions
Eleanor Spector, Vice President of Contracts, Lockheed Martin
Deidre Lee, Director, Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy
Allan Burman, President, Jefferson Solutions; Former Administrator, Office of Federal Procurement Policy
Glenn Perry, Vice Chair, Federal Acquisition Council
Tom Luedtke, Assistant Administrator for Procurement, NASA

The Performance Institute and the General Services Administration today recognized Brendon J. Johnson, a contracting officer with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, a Bureau of the Department of Commerce, with the 2004 civilian Excellence in Performance-Based Service Acquisition award.

“The great work being done by the government’s most talented contracting officers was amply demonstrated in the nominations submitted for this year’s award,” Carl DeMaio, president of The Performance Institute, said. “But Brendon’s assembly and leadership of a team that included human resources, legal, business process, and procurement, as well as his insistence on integrating specific and efficient performance measures, is truly impressive.”

“More importantly, it is a demonstration of how the federal government is becoming a smarter shopper through performance-based contracting,” DeMaio continued.

The Excellence in Performance-Based Service Acquisition awards program was open to government employees at federal agencies subjected to the Federal Acquisition Regulation who have played a leadership or key role in driving a performance-based acquisition in fiscal years 2002 or 2003. Additional winners were selected from the Department of Defense and from the General Services Administration. The civilian government-wide award won by Johnson comes with a $2,500 prize from GSA.

In his nomination of Johnson, USPTO Director of Procurement Michael J. Anastasio, Jr. wrote:

Mr. Johnson led the acquisition team through planning, contract formation, and contract performance in ways exemplifying proactive and innovative contract management. The services delivered under this contract are helping the USPTO to meet its goals in the USPTO 21st Century Strategic Plan and the President’s Management Agenda. Specifically, the contract has produced significantly decreased turnaround times for all personnel actions, a reduction in backlog, and excellent data entry, coding, and filing accuracy. The contract is endowed with carefully selected performance standards, performance measures, and performance incentives.

“Performance-based contracting is an important initiative to ensure that the federal government achieves results for U.S. taxpayers,” said David A. Drabkin, the deputy associate administrator for acquisition policy and senior procurement executive at the General Services Administration. “These awards represent a significant effort from acquisition professionals throughout government and a level of achievement worthy of recognition.”

The Performance Institute is a private, nonpartisan think tank improving government results through the principles of performance, competition, transparency, and accountability. The Institute serves as the nation’s leading authority and repository for on performance-based management practices for government agencies. Our mission is to identify, study and disseminate the leading management innovations pioneered by ‘best-in-class’ public-sector organizations.

Performance-Based Contracting (PBC) has been around for over 20 years. The President's Management Agenda ignited interest in this area and involved improving the federal government's performance goals by converting 50 percent of all federal service contracts to performance based contracts.

On February 12, 2001, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memorandum requesting agencies to provide performance goals and management initiatives for the FY 2002 budget for making greater use of PBC. On March 9, 2001, OMB issued a memorandum directing agencies to award contracts over $25,000 using PBC techniques for not less than 20 percent of the total eligible service contracting dollars. The goal is based on the goals established under the Government-wide Acquisition Performance Measurement Program established by the Procurement Executive Council (PEC) now the Federal Acquisition Council (FAC).

On May 2, 2001, the interim rule, Preference for Performance Based Contracting (FAR Case 2000-307) was published in FAC 97-25. This rule affects the acquisition workforce explicitly establishing a preference for performance-based contracts or task orders and order of precedence stating firm-fixed price contracts as the first contract type to consider when planning the acquisition.

In July 2003, OFPP issued a recommendation report, Contracting for the Future, on how to improve the use of performance-based contracting in federal agencies. The report recommends changing the FAR, recognizing and improving the online Seven Steps to Performance-Based Service Acquisition (PBSA) guide as the government-wide PBC guidance, relaxing the performance goal for FY04 with all agencies striving to achieve 50 percent by FY05, and adapting new reporting rules to allow agencies to improve their performance and work toward using PBC techniques on eligible contracts.