The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD), Operations Support Directorate (OSD) has a continuing requirement for Advisory and Assistance, Program Management and Technical Support Services.

The Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (CWMD) Office is a support component within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen established the CWMD Office in December 2017 by consolidating primarily the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO) and a majority of the Office of Health Affairs (OHA), as well as other DHS elements. The establishment of the CWMD Office elevates and streamlines the Department’s efforts against the rising WMD threat. CWMD’s mission is to counter attempts by terrorists or other threat actors to carry out an attack against the United States or its interests using a weapon of mass destruction (biological, chemical, nuclear, or radiological). Primary responsibilities of CWMD are to:

• Support to DHS-frontline personnel who protect the nation from Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) terrorism;
• Close capability gaps along adversary pathways; and
• Invest in and develop innovative technologies to meet partner requirements and improve operations.

All activities are aligned to prevent, protect against, and prepare for to the full spectrum of WMD threats to the Homeland.

CWMD supports frontline operators by providing information, equipment, and expertise. Additionally, CWMD coordinates with the operators to determine their needs and requirements to execute their mission. This enables CWMD to provide the appropriate mission support and increase interoperability and data sharing across the operational partners. CWMD helps strengthen the medical first responder system nationwide to prepare for emergencies.

CWMD provides an integrated approach to identify the capability gaps and provide the means to close them. This entails providing the right material support in a timely and efficient manner and improving the counter WMD information-sharing and integration to support coordination across the United States Government. It also enables CWMD to provide rapid solutions to emerging threats based on intelligence. CWMD is enhancing security measures on and around critical pathways into the Nation in order to detect threats sooner to reduce the WMD risk.

These efforts require CWMD to look at current and new technologies to provide robust flexibility and increase the efficiency and situational awareness of our operators. CWMD is looking for Systems-of-Systems technology that can tie into integrated data networks to enable analysis and integration of the large data to improve decision-making. This will require robust data structures, communication pathways, algorithms, data integrity, and security to ensure the decision-makers have the right information at the right time. CWMD looks for technology to enhance the operational mission and to reduce the frequency of false and nuisance alarms to make the operators more effective. One of the efforts where CWMD is doing all of this is through the development and deployment of improved bio-detection technology to increase our response time and with a detection architecture pervasive across the Nation.

ORGANIZATION

The CWMD Office is awaiting congressional authorization. For the time being, CWMD is operating under an interim structure for mission effectiveness, relying on the existing authorities that governed the operations of DNDO and OHA. The organization consists of the CWMD Front Office with five mission Directorates comprised of DNDO and OHA personnel. Each Directorate has Joint Program Activities (JPAs) aligned to specific mission functions. The five Directorates are:

• Policy, Plans, Analysis, Requirements
• Operations Support
• Operational Medicine & Health Support
• Systems Support
• Enterprise Services

CWMD requires Advisory and Assistance Services (A&AS) support to execute its critical mission for the Department and for the Nation. The current A&AS support contract vehicles relied upon by CWMD were originally competed and structured for DNDO and OHA missions. These services do not contain the full scope of work required for the CWMD mission. To begin the period of transition to accommodate the changed circumstances relating to the CWMD reorganization, some sole-source orders pursuant to FAR 8.405-6(a) have been executed and other contractual options have been exercised to continue DNDO’s and OHA’s support until replacement A&AS efforts are put into place. These are interim measures while CWMD continues to plan for suitable contract vehicles to receive the necessary A&AS support. The Department published the associated Limited Source Justifications for these sole-source awards on FedBizOps (FBO).

In September 2018, DHS issued an RFI for A&AS support for the organization, anticipated the award of new contract vehicles.As part of this effort, CWMD performed a bottom-up review of all current A&AS support and initially consolidated the mission functions down to six separate elements:

• Requirements, Pre-Acquisition, and Acquisition Support
  • Requirements – Support to the Government in gathering, determining, and assessing capability gaps through our mission space. Support is required for Functional Area Analysis, Functional Needs Analysis, Functional Solutions Analysis, and Capability-Based Assessments. The support will enable Capability Collaboration Teams to identify near, mid, and long-term capability gaps and needs with recommendations for Strategic Plans and potential areas for investments. Additionally, the support personnel will assist in the preparation and execution of the DHS WMD Requirements Oversight Council (WROC), run out of CWMD.
  • Pre-Acquisition – Support to the Government in Research and Development (R&D) across WMD (biological, chemical, nuclear, and radiological) from Basic to Applied Research to include Advance Technology Demos and Pilots. The support will range from WMD Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to R&D Program Managers. All skills necessary to ensure the proper development of technology to a Technology Readiness Level whereby it can be initiated or inserted into a program.
  • Acquisition – Support to the Government in programs to deliver material capabilities. The skills include Program Management, Systems Engineering, Engineering, Acquisition Logistics, Risk, and Program Scheduling.
• Policy, Plans and Operations Support
  • Policy and Plans – Support to the Government in assessing and creating policies related to the CWMD mission. Additional skills are needed to create and assess strategy and plans for CWMD and our mission partners to execute. Personnel will aid CWMD personnel in coordinating across the USG through the Departments and Agencies to coordinate, reduce redundancy, and to improve the posture for the USG across CWMD space.
  • Operations – Support to the Government in the effective conduct of the CWMD mission execution. This entails support to implement higher-level guidance for the operational users across WMD space as well as the Medical Operations and programs. This will require personnel assigned to complete limited-term tasks with an operational background and planners to create products to aid in the execution of the mission from the USG down to operational partners. Support to Operations includes the following:
  • Personnel are required to support readiness capability across the WMD space through multiple tiered exercises and training. Personnel needs to have knowledge of all hazards exercise design, development, conduct, and evaluation. Supports the delivery of training to operators in the field and in classroom settings, and capabilities to safely, legally, and professionally provide operational, logistical, and scientific support for CWMD Training Curriculum and Events.
  • Provide personnel to work in an operational environment to assist CWMD and DHS components and operational partners in the field to develop a chemical defense, biological defense, and radiological/nuclear detection capability.
• Information Analysis Support
  • Information Analysis – Support to the Government across the Intelligence Community (IC) through All-Source Intelligence Analysts, WMD SMEs, and personnel who can help CWMD communicate intricate problems with an interdisciplinary approach. The personnel will aid in IC product assessment, WMD assessments, operational risk, and provide input to threats to acquisition and operations. Conduct intelligence analysis on nuclear, chemical, or biological materials, agents’ weapons, or delivery.
• Test and Evaluation Support
  • T&E – Support to the Government to ensure robust and credible testing across acquisition programs. This support will require Program Managers, Engineers, Test Engineers, SMEs, Schedulers, and Analysts. Personnel will aid the Government in test plan creation, execution, data collection, data analysis, system assessments, and report generation.
• Mission Support
  • Administrative – Support to the Government with administrative assistance in the execution of the day-to-day mission.
  • Budget & Finance – Support to the Government with financial and budget analysts to aid in day-to-day mission execution and assistance in developing documents for the Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE) process as well as the use of the Financial Management System.
  • Security – Support to the Government with physical, personnel, and network security compliance.
  • Facilities – Support to the Government to ensure CWMD has all of the necessary resources required to execute the day-to-day mission.
  • Travel – Support to the Government with a Travel office to enable CWMD mission execution.
  • Human Relations (HR) – Support to the Government to aid in the staffing of federal employees and execution of all HR functions.
• Mission Operational Technology
  • Mission Operational Technology – Support to the Government in assisting SMEs on assessing, developing, and implementing IT policy to include cyber issues, assistance in defining data structures and algorithms to deal with big data and performing data analytics, and aiding the Government with cloud computing/architectures.

In September 2019, the government decided to issue only three solicitations, which will support the Policy, Plans, Analysis and Requirements Directorate, the Operations Support Directorate, and the Systems Support Directorate. This Opportunity will track the Operations Support Directorate solicitation.

Operational Support Directorate

The CWMD Operational Support Directorate is broken down into four Joint Program Activities (JPAs); Implementation Support, Training and Exercise Support, Medical Operations Support, and Information Coordination & Continuity.

• Implementation Support JPA
  • Develops and implements CBRN threat-related solutions to support operators
  • Provides CBRN subject matter expertise to operators and other public agencies
  • Chemical Defense – Leads coordination of chemical defense-related activities of DHS Components and provides subject matter expertise to authorities at all levels of government
  • Securing the Cities (STC)
  • MDDP
  • BioWatch
• Exercise Coordination & Training Support
  • Coordinates the national CWMD training curriculum by working to determine training requirements for DHS components and state & local agencies and documenting these requirements in a training plan
  • Represent CWMD and Department equities in national-level and interagency exercises and support exercise development and execution for state & local CWMD exercises
• Medical Operations
  • Support Chief Medical Officer and Medical Liaison Officers, providing health & medical advice & engagement, medical direction for DHS operators; recommendations for border detainee health; global health security; BioDefense activities; and food, agriculture, and veterinary defense activities
  • Support Emergency Medical Services with Electronic Patient Care Records (ePCR) & License Management (LMS); medical direction (online/offline); doctrine & directive development; interagency engagement for national first responder collaboration; intra-agency engagement; and EMS education, training & protocol development
• Information Coordination & Continuity
  • Maintains a CWMD watch desk 24/7/365 at the DHS National Operations Center to provide CWMD senior leadership and staff early recognition and situational awareness into incidents and events
  • Provide alerts and notifications
  • Disseminate information to provide awareness of CWMD mission space
  • Establishes policy and planning to ensure continuity of operations for CWMD’s mission essential functions
  • Provides direct operational briefing support to CWMD Senior Leadership
  • Ensures secure communications for all of CWMD to operate
  • Leads CWMD incident management structure during an event

The OSD contract will provide support to CWMD activities responsible for addressing key mission areas to include,

• Program Support
• Training and Exercise Support
• Current Operations
• Field Operation
• Medical Support
• Requirements Generation

Mission Operational Technology – Support to the Government in assisting Subject Matter Experts on assessing, developing, and implementing IT policy to include cyber issues, assistance in defining data structures and algorithms to deal with big data and performing data analytics, and aiding the Government with cloud computing/architectures.

Tasks

• Implementation Support
  • Program and Project Management
  • Program Oversight and Management Liaison
  • Systems Engineering Support
  • Securing the Cities & Regions and Mobile Detection Deployment Program
  • Chemical Defense Support
  • Biowatch Support
• Training and Exercise Support
  • Training Support
  • Exercise Support
• Medical Support
  • Medical Operations Program Support
  • Medical Operations Training Support
  • Medical Operations Surge Support
• Information Coordination and Continuity
  • CWMD and CW3 Support
  • CW3-OPS Briefing Staff Support
  • CWMD Watch Desk Officers and Support
  • CWMD Incident Management Support
  • CWMD Secure Communications Support
  • CWMD Continuity Program Support
  • Additional Functions and Related Program Support
• Source Support Requirements
• Security Requirements
• Business Continuity Plans