Under Contract

• The Department of the Army is spending more than $515,000 for “suicide prevention interactive role-play training services.” The contractor, Vetwork Learning Solutions, will craft a “branching storyline script; provide requirements for script content and writers, performers, understudies and all other requirements to produce and perform the training and role plays at Fort Hood, Texas.”
 
• The Department of Housing and Urban Development is contracting with two firms in an award worth $94 million to “modernize the Federal Housing Administration’s business processes and technology,” in addition to “[reducing] risk to the agency’s insurance fund.” The contract is part of HUD’s Mortgage Risk and Fraud Initiative. KPMG, the audit, tax, and advisory firm, and Salient Federal Solutions, a company specializing in information technology, won the contract, which lasts up to five years.
 
• The U.S. Forest Service is paying a person $23,100, plus overtime, to serve as a lookout for forest fires and lightening strikes in and around the Fremont-Winema National Forest in Oregon. The contractor, Michael Lucas, will be required to stand watch in a tower from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. seven days per week to report fires by Forest Service radio, among other duties. Contract documents detail that the contractor must have training in several areas, such as knowledge of “fire behavior, which includes, knowledge of weather conditions [and] identifying type of stands the fire is located in.”
 
• The Department of Health and Human Services awarded a $1.6 million contract to New York Medical College to help the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority develop new flu treatments. “The ever-present and ever-evolving threat of pandemic influenza presents a compelling need to optimize available medical countermeasures and develop entirely new modalities for prevention and treatment of influenza disease,” the solicitation document says. The agency cites the success of treatments and vaccines in fighting the H1N1 virus in 2009 but warns that future outbreaks might not be as easy to stop.
 
Contract information compiled from General Services Administration data and government press releases. Send announcements about government contracts to mwilson@digital-staging.thehill.com.