GSA Mends Fences, One Customer at a Time Top executives of GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service say they are courting Defense Department buyers to try to repair relations with their biggest customer. FAS Commissioner Jim Williams said the conflict between GSA and Defense is “old news.” He said the message GSA is sending to customers is, “We’ve changed.” Williams and his top managers spoke April 12 at a conference in McLean, VA, sponsored by FedSources Inc. Sales through GSA schedules grew only 4-tenths of one percent in 2006, ending years of double-digit gains. Sales on governmentwide acquisition contracts dropped by almost one-third during the year, the agency said. GSA officials have acknowledged that a big reason was the loss of sales to the Defense Department because of a number of policy conflicts between the two agencies. In December DOD and GSA signed a letter of agreement to settle many of their differences. Following up on the agreement, GSA is now sending marketing representatives “calling on our customers one customer at a time,” said Gary Feit, FAS assistant commissioner for customer accounts and research. He said FAS is also posting its marketing materials at its online Vendor Support Center and urged contractors to use those materials as part of their marketing. GSA officials believe reaching those individual customers is the key to turning around the relationship with DOD. “As big as they are, getting that policy to flow down” is the challenge, said Michael Sade, FAS assistant commissioner for acquisition management. As part of its agreement with DOD, GSA agreed to stop allowing customer agencies to “park” money and save it for the next fiscal year. “I don’t want to be known as the agency that people come to so they can get away with something,” Williams said. But GSA faces obstacles in trying to win back DOD business. Shay Assad, director of defense procurement and acquisition policy, has said the department and the military services may create more of their own large multiple-award task order contracts like the Navy’s Seaport-e. “Seaport is a best practiced,” he told a contractor forum earlier this year. (SAA, 2/23) By using its own contract vehicles, DOD can avoid paying fees to GSA and can control its procurements from start to finish.