Event: MEA Magazine recognizing 50 Women of Power in Business

April 9, 2012

Data Solutions & Technology Founder Among 50 Women of Power in Business

Awards Luncheon Theme: Celebrating Global Leadership & Excellence

(LANHAM, Md.)—MEA Magazine, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Commerce Minority Business Development Agency, is hosting the U.S.-Africa Trade and Investment Conference 2012 at the Washington Hilton, located at 1919 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, May 15, 2012, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

 

During this event there will be a 1 to 3:00 p.m. luncheon recognizing 50 Women of Power in Business.   This event will honor 50 women leaders who are doing business nationally or internationally; women empowering communities around the world; and women shaping our economic future. Data Solutions & Technology Incorporated (DST) President and CEO Deborah Scott Thomas is among the 50 women who will be honored at the luncheon.

Fernando Galaviz, President and CEO, The Centech Group, Inc. (www.centechgroup.com) is keynote speaker during the awards luncheon. Mr. Galaviz is an expert lecturer and advocate for small/minority businesses. He is also the founder and president of the National Federal Contractors Association (www.nafcausa.com).

Other confirmed speakers include John Bryson, U.S. Secretary of Commerce; David Hinson, National Director, Minority Business Development Agency, U.S. Department of Commerce; and Gloria Parker, CEO and Senior Partner of Parker Group Consulting.  Ms. Parker consults for fortune 500 companies on government and business strategies. She served on the Obama-Biden Transition team, served as CTO and CIO of HUD, and Deputy CIO of the U.S. Department of Education. Moderators are Yvonne Davis, COO/ Director of International Affairs, True North Bridged Composites, and Collins Spencer, former CNN anchor.

A partial list of honorees include: Tomi Bannister, CEO, ARMA, Inc.; Jetta Bates-Vasilatos, Twist; Diane Hahn Bellegarde, Soundway Consulting; Angela Bradley, BTI Security; Kenya Brooks, Bonaparte Corporation; Dee Daniels, Noir Woman; Dr. Shirley Davis, Society for Human Resources; Betty Hines, Chair, Women Presidents Organization; Annette Johnson,CMT Services, Inc.; Latonia Jones, Alabama A&M University Research Institute; Valarie King-Bailey, On Shore Technology; Angelle Brigitte Kwemo, Congressman Bobby Rush’s Office; Dr. Madeline Lewis, Deline Institute; Viola Llewellyn, Praxis Asset Management Africa LLC; Sonia Lo, Chalsys Partners Limited; Jacqueline Lopez, Open System Sciences; Marsha Malone, Lockheed Martin; Amicitia Maloon-Gibson, MGAA Professional Development Institute; Rosalind McLymont, The Network Journal; Dr. Tendai D. Ndoro, SLIPPA/EDCT Trainers, LLC; Tammy Owens, City of Virginia Beach Economic Development; Necole Parker, ELOCEN Group; Tanaia Parker, T. White Parker; Dr. Suzanne Penn, MFS WealthCare;  Shalon Simmons, Global ICT; Janet Simmons, GRS, Inc.; Jennifer Streaks, Financial Expert; Peggy Seats, Washington Interdependence Council; Elizabeth A. Vazquez, WEConnect International; Desiree Watson, Wellness Interactive; Rosa Whitaker, The Whitaker Group; Patricia Williams, Omega Security International.

For more information, including ticket details, call 703-730-4091 or email at vpwilliams@comcast.net or meamagazine@yahoo.com.Visit the website at www.meecouncil.com.

Contact

Tammi L. Thomas, Vice President for Strategic Management, tthomas@dstincorporated.com,  240-487-1479, www.dstincorporated.com

Training Opportunity: E101 Foundations of Emergency Management

http://training.fema.gov/EMI/

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Course: National Emergency Management (EM) Academy  E101 Foundations of Emergency Management

This is an update to the announcement dated March 8, 2012. Please note the change in dates for the offering of E101 which had originally been scheduled for May 07-18, 2012. The new dates are April 30-May 11, 2012.

Dates and Location

       April 30 – May 11, 2012   Emmitsburg, MD
       July 23 – August 3, 2012   Emmitsburg, MD
       August 20 – 31, 2012        Emmitsburg, MD

Course Description:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) recognizes the need to tie training programs to an established set of emergency management competencies and to a career development program through a progressive training and education system that includes the entry-level Academy. Training objectives are based on the newly established EM competencies that the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA), the International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM), and local, State, territorial, and tribal emergency management professionals have established in coordination with the Emergency Management Institute (EMI).


The following topics in emergency management are covered in this course: legal issues, intergovernmental and interagency context, influencing, organizing, social vulnerability issues, managing stress, public information

Course Goal:

At completion of this course, students will have a basic knowledge of the history of doctrine and authorities of emergency management, the role of the emergency manager, and an overview of all hazards

Course Length:

Each Foundations course is 11 days in length with Sunday off after the sixth day of instruction. Class resumes on Monday through Friday for the final 5 days of instruction the second week. Travel days are Sunday of the first week, and Saturday of the second week.

Prerequisite:

The following courses are mandatory prerequisites to this course:


• IS 100 (any version) – Introduction to the Incident Command System (ICS)
• IS 700 (any version) – National Incident Management System (NIMS), An Introduction
• IS 800.b – National Response Framework, An Introduction
• IS 230.b – Fundamentals of Emergency Management

Continuing Education Units (CEU’s):

                  The Emergency Management Institute (EMI) awards 8.8 CEUs for completion of this course.


Target Audience:

This course is intended for newly appointed emergency managers from State, local, territorial, tribal, Federal emergency management agencies, and prospective professionals transferring from another discipline to emergency management. Veteran emergency managers willing to mentor are also welcome to apply.

Locations:

National Emergency Training Center
Emergency Management Institute
Emmitsburg, Maryland

To Apply:

Students attending any course(s) of the Academy are required to submit a FEMA Form 119-25-1, General Admissions Application to:


Admissions Office, Room I-216 National Emergency Training Center 16825 South Seton Avenue Emmitsburg, Maryland 21727-8998


Phone: (301) 447 - 1035 Fax: (301) 447 - 1658 


Email: netc-admissions@dhs.gov


For further information, please refer to the EMI website: http://training.fema.gov/Apply/.


Upon receipt of the FEMA Form 119-25-1, General Admissions Application, the Admissions Office will confirm acceptance into the course by providing students with an Acceptance Letter and packet. Acceptance into any of the Academy couses will be on a first come, first served basis
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                              Screen Fillable (Acrobat 2.1 and above)  633 KB PDF


Student Stipends:


State, local, territorial, and tribal students taking classes at EMI will be eligible for stipends to cover costs of transportation. Their lodging at EMI is provided at no cost.

EMI Point of Contact:

For course information for the May 7 - 18, 2012 offering, contact Mark Claveloux at (301) 447-1628, or by email at mark.claveloux@fema.dhs.gov.


For course information for the July 23 – August 3, 2012 offering, contact Paul Benyeda at (301) 447-1326, or by email at paul.benyeda@fema.dhs.gov.


For course information for the August 20 – 31, 2012 offering, contact Tom Gilboy at (301) 447-1535, or by email at tom.gilboy@fema.dhs.gov.

DOJ NIJ OJJDP Reentry Program Projects Solicitation

Evaluation of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention FY 2010 Second Chance Act Juvenile Offender Reentry Demonstration Projects

The U.S. Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) recently released a solicitation for the Evaluation of the Office of Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) FY 2010 Second Chance Act Juvenile Offender Reentry Demonstration Projects. The solicitation will fund a comprehensive evaluation of up to five juvenile offender demonstration projects selected for funding by OJJDP in FY 2010 under the Second Chance Act. States, local governments, federally-recognized Indian tribes, nonprofit and for-profit organizations, institutions of higher education, and certain qualified individuals are eligible to apply. The deadline for submitting an application is May 31, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. ET.
To download this solicitation, click here.

InfraGard Nations Capital Members Alliance (INCMA) for the April session of the 2012 Lecture Series

Please join the InfraGard Nations Capital Members Alliance (INCMA) for the April session of the 2012 Lecture Series!

Who: InfraGard Nations Capital Members Alliance members and guests (this meeting is open to the public)

What: Anonymous Payment Systems, Virtual Worlds, and Cyber Crime

When: Wed., April 11th from 5:00pm - 8:00pm 

Light fare will be provided. The program will not start until 5:30pm, allowing for arrival, check-in, and refreshments.

Where: CSC, 15000 Conference Center Drive, Chantilly, VA 20151

Why: Anonymous payment systems and virtual worlds are providing a forum for cyber criminals to transact business outside the regulated banking system.  Come hear to experts, representing the perspectives of law enforcement and the private sector, as they discuss the proliferation of these tools by cyber criminals to stay outside the reach of the law!

How: Register at http://incma04112012.eventbrite.com. There is a $25 fee to attend.

Our speakers:
Scott Dueweke was appointed by President Reagan to the U.S. Agency for International Development at the U.S. Department of State.  He helped pioneer the field of ecommerce, specifically secure payments, presenting at the first Internet World Conference in 1994 on the topic.  Mr. Dueweke then led marketing for IBM’s Internet Payments group, and went on to develop P2P and non-traditional payment systems.  During this period he also created and led a humanitarian non-profit group called Freedom Flight International (FFI).  The organization flew small aircraft over the Florida Straits working with the U.S. Coast Guard to rescue Cuban rafters.  He now leads Virtual Identity efforts at Booz Allen Hamilton.  This role builds upon his decades of experience in the financial services industry, the Internet, and government, to examine identity holistically.  Virtual identity includes anonymity, pseudonymity, and the projection of identity in virtual worlds, online games, and social networking sites, as well as anonymous payment systems.

Catherine "Alden" Pelker is an intelligence analyst for the FBI, specializing in virtual currency and electronic payment processors.  She is currently assigned to the FBI's Cyber Intelligence Section through the FBI's Financial Crimes Section.  Prior to this assignment, Alden worked with the Asset Forfeiture/Money Laundering Unit on international money laundering investigations, identifying emerging tools, techniques, and methods used to evade law enforcement and formulating strategy to mitigate these threats.  Alden has served as the FBI liaison to the Global Illicit Financial Team and is spearheading an FBI Virtual Currency/Emerging Trends working group.  She graduated from Yale University with a degree in political science.

Directions:

CSC is located south of Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, VA. Directions are as follows:
Take I-66 west to exit 53, Route 28. Take Route 28 north for approximately 1 1/2 miles. Take exit for Westfields Blvd, heading west. Take the first right onto Stonecroft Blvd. Turn left onto Conference Center Drive. CSC (15000 Conference Center Drive) will be on your left. Large, red "CSC" letters are on the roof line of the building. The sign as you turn into the parking area reads "Washington Technology Park." Drive past the front of the building and follow signs for "Conference Center Visitor Parking." Proceed to the entrance marked "Washington Technology Park Conference Center."

There should be ample parking in the immediate area of the conference center. However, you may also park in the rear of the building or in the visitor spots (of which there are only a few) directly in front of the building.

FOIA, I hardly know ya! (Yearly Report Card on Federal Government’s efforts to track and manage Freedom of Information Act requests)

http://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/index.htm

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests are a critical element of business development and capture. This is how you learn about a pursuit’s history and your competition. The problem is – FOIA requests are tricky:

• They take forever to obtain – so someone needs to carefully track them and follow up relentlessly to get any results – sometimes taking months and rendering your requests useless for your capture effort.
• They have a potential to tick off your competition as they will know who is requesting – and if you tend to team with this competitor on occasion, you may want to be strategic as to what you request.
• Third-party FOIA requests through services such as GovWin IQ and Centurion are great. They are faster as these services have established contacts in FOIA offices and they have personnel to follow up. The party whose documents are subject to FOIA doesn’t know who is requesting the FOIA documents. The downside is, now that these services have gone through the effort of fetching the information for you, they may also reuse this information to provide it to your competitors. Brilliant move on your part to FOIA something. Now your competitors subscribing to these services will have a reason to thank you. This may or may not matter to you.

Now it promises to be even harder to get FOIA documents – the length of time is stretching to close to a year. On March 15^th, 2012 the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released their yearly Report Card on Federal Government’s efforts to track and manage FOIA requests. This report is critical of the federal government’s tracking of how it processes and responds to FOIA requests. Agencies got anaverage grade of C-. FOIA logs were requested to be graded based on a few criteria: names of FOIA requesters on log, tracking numbers for requests, descriptions of material sought, and whether records were in fact released. There are now as many as 13-months delays in some requests.

There are two things to consider:

1. These grades are an indication of a willingness and ability by certain agencies FOIA offices to show accountability and transparency. You should be concerned about how difficult it is to obtain the information needed to help us decide to pursue an opportunity, enrich our capture efforts, and produce a proposal.
2. See if the agencies that received an F grade are part of your customer list. There were two reasons to receive this grade: either the agency did not respond to FOIA requests – which in itself is a bad sign – or failed to produce them in digital format (which is a FOIA rule). In this case, save yourself an effort and don’t count on FOIA information – try to find it in other ethical ways.

If you would like to see the report card, you can download it herehttp://bit.ly/HQfLx4

What does this report mean to you? Well, a couple of things. First, start waaaay early with your capture. If you feel that you need to FOIA documents, plan for months of waiting to get them. Second, use the resources available to you to their maximum, such as the paid services that can help you. However, be strategic about it, you may get the information faster and anonymously, but know that others may get it as well. There is no difference in the thought process when asking questions about an RFP in a public forum: is getting what you need worth making your competition better off?

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Capture and Proposal Seminars

Don’t miss early bird registration pricing – it ends 3 weeks before each class. Register at www.ostglobalsolutions.com/training/schedule

Date, 2012	Class Name
April 17-18	Foundations of Capture Management
April 19-20	Foundations of Proposal Management
April 23-24	Proposal Speed-Writing and Persuasion
May 14-15	Preparing Winning Multiple Award and Task Order Proposals
May 16	Cost Proposal Strategy for Proposal Managers
June 19-20	Advanced Capture Management
June 21-22	Advanced Proposal Management
July 19	Proposal Win Themes Development Workshop
July 20	Executive Summaries For Winning Proposals Workshop

If you don’t find a class that suits your schedule, consider us for on-site corporate training at your company, or for a webinar for your dispersed workforce if you have multiple locations.

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Useful Proposal Resources

• Blueprint for Winning Government Contracts – Find opportunities, write winning proposals, and win multimillion dollar contracts to grow your small business in the federal market.
• Task Order Manual Template – Reusable professional toolset (electronic Word template) – instant download.
• Executive Summary Secrets – Self-study course (workbook and audio CD) to persuade evaluators to award the contract to you.
• How to Succeed as a Proposal Consultant – Get more work, higher pay, and better clients – instant download!
• A Proposal Manager’s Essential Checklists – Reusable toolset for consistently successful proposal management and coordination.
• Proposal Resources Estimating Guide – Guide for determining required manpower and hours to calculate how much a proposal should cost

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P.S.: As always – if you need business development, capture and proposal consulting or training support, contact us at 301-384-3350 or at service@ostglobalsolutions.com

P.P.S.: Feel free to forward this newsletter to others who may find it useful. If you have received this from a colleague and would like to sign up yourself, here is where you can do it: http://www.ostglobalsolutions.com/eZine-signup.htm.

Written by Olessia Smotrova-Taylor, President and CEO of OST Global Solutions, Inc. Olessia is a currently practicing capture and proposal manager who has won more than $17 Billion in new business. As one of the proposal industry leaders, she served on the Board of Directors of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals' (APMP) National Capital Area (NCA) chapter as the editor and chair of the APMP NCA Executive Summary eZine for 4 years since 2008, and as a president for 2012. She regularly presents at the APMP's international and other conferences, roundtables, and proposal boot camps, and runs popular training webinars on business development. She has 16 years of experience in proposal and capture management, marketing, and communications. She is a prolific author, speaker, trainer, and blogger, and is well-known in the global proposal community. Her self-study course, Executive Summary Secrets, sells worldwide. Prior to starting her own consulting company, she won business for Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, and wrote for the Financial Times of London. Olessia can be reached at otaylor@ostglobalsolutions.com or at 301-384-3350.