I had enormous help writing this second edition of the Past Performance Handbook. First, I must recognize the late Peter S. Cole, coauthor of the first edition, whose guidance on using past performance information in source selection is as valid today as it was eight years ago. Peter's experience as a Navy procurement officer and as a consultant and trainer in government contracting provided valuable insight and knowledge.
I want to also acknowledge Thomas L. McGovern, a partner with Hogan & Hartson LLP, and Timothy D. Palmer, a former general counsel with Lockheed Martin Systems Integration, who wrote the original Chapter 13 on legal issues in past performance. They emphasized the importance of Government Accountability Office (GAO) decisions in informing federal contractors of their legal rights and in guiding agency procurement officials in future procurements.
I am particularly grateful to Lawrence W. Byrnes, former Dean of Education at Florida Gulf Coast University, for providing insights on how to achieve my goal of convincing the procurement community that evaluating contractor performance and using past performance information in source selection are interdependent. In other words, objective performance evaluations produce constructive past performance information for use in selecting the best qualified offerors.
My appreciation goes to GAO for the many decisions cited in the text and abridged in Appendix B. The GAO also provided data to support the claim that to make past performance information consistent and useful throughout the government, we must first standardize evaluation criteria and rating scales in evaluating contractor performance.
Many thanks also to Management Concepts for inviting me to prepare this second edition, supporting the effort, and allowing me to use the invaluable research tool, the FAR Update Service.
Most of all, thanks to my wife, Patricia, who has been my sounding board and has such a gentle way of letting me know when I need to change something.
