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Volume 97: A Brief History of US Federal Govt Shutdowns

Author

Kit Conway
October 09, 2025

In This Week's Newsletter:

Opportunity Alert – USCENTCOM APOLLO

Contact Katie: [email protected]

US Central Command (USCENTCOM), APOLLO.

On September 30, 2025, the Contracting Office released an electronic Reading Room notice to OASIS+ UR. Market Assessment Discussion (MAD) Sessions are anticipated to start at the end of October 2025. USCENTCOM requires enhanced information operations and irregular warfare operations, as well as the integration of IRC operations across relevant domains, environments, echelons, and geographic boundaries. This $1.2B Full and Open/Unrestricted opportunity is estimated for release in March 2026, with a possible award timeframe of July 2026. Contact Hinz Consulting for Capture, PTW, and Proposal support today.

Four to Follow

  1. Department of Defense (DoD), Military Community and Family Policy Outreach Digital Enterprise Services III (MCFP MODES III). The DoD requires services for MCFP MODES III, including support for O&E activities, IT and cybersecurity disciplines, program management, outreach, and engagement support, as well as cloud migration. Based on October’s FEDSIM First Friday, the anticipated release date for a final RFP is around October 2025, with a projected award of April 2026. This $300M Small Business Set-Aside is due for release under OASIS+ SB. Continue to monitor SAM.gov and your eBUY portals for updates in the procurement schedule.

  2. Department of the Navy (DoN), Financial and Program Management Support Services (FPMSS).  On October 2, 2025, the government released the Small Business Round Table Slides, detailing responses to questions and a draft Staffing Plan. The program scope includes financial management, program management, comptroller support, and both program and customer support functions. This $100M Small Business Set-Aside opportunity is estimated to be released via SeaPort-NxG in November 2025, with a projected award timeframe of June 2026. Continue to monitor SAM.gov and your SeaPort portals for more information.

  3. Department of Defense, US Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM) Joint Distribution Process Analysis Center Distribution Analysis Support V (JDPAC V). USTRANSCOM requires services such as global deployment and distribution network assessments, operational courses of action, joint capability analysis, systems integration, data management, and enterprise data science solutions. This $100M Full and Open/Unrestricted effort is estimated for release via OASIS+ UR in October 2025 with an anticipated award for January 2026. Continue to monitor SAM.gov and your eBUY portals for any changes to the timeline.

  4. Department of the Navy, Engineering Services for Signature Silencing Programs Support. The DoN requires support for program management, magnetic silencing facility upgrades and repairs, future submarine R&D and design, and other services related to signature control technologies. The Navy anticipates releasing this $100M, Full and Open/Unrestricted solicitation via SeaPort-NxG in November 2025, with an estimated award date in September 2026. Continue to monitor your SeaPort-NxG portal and SAM.gov for updates to the procurement timeline. 

Role of the Capture Manager

Contact John: [email protected]

The Capture Manager plays a pivotal and strategic role in business development, particularly when pursuing large, complex, and high-value opportunities such as those in government contracting or enterprise markets. The primary goal is to increase the company’s probability of win (Pwin) by proactively positioning it for success long before a Request for Proposal (RFP) is released. Key responsibilities of a Capture Manager include:

  • Opportunity Qualification: Evaluate potential leads and make a "go/no-go" decision. This involves a thorough assessment of factors such as customer fit, competitive positioning, and potential return on investment to ensure the company only pursues opportunities that are worth the effort and resources.

  • Strategic Planning: Develop a comprehensive "capture plan" or "win strategy" that serves as a roadmap for the entire pursuit. This plan outlines key messages, value propositions, and strategies for engaging with the client and positioning the company as the preferred solution.

  • Relationship Building and Client Expertise: Build and maintain strong relationships with key decision-makers and stakeholders to gain a deep understanding of the client's needs, challenges, and procurement process. This proactive engagement helps shape the client's perception and influence the opportunity in the company's favor.

  • Competitive Analysis: Gather and analyze intelligence on competitors. They study past award patterns, competitive pricing, and the strengths and weaknesses of other companies to inform their own strategy and highlight the company's unique advantages.

  • Team Coordination: Serve as the "mastermind" behind the pursuit, ensuring a coordinated effort across all business areas. They act as a bridge between the business development, sales, and proposal teams, as well as SMEs, pricing, and legal departments. They also drive alignment across all team members on the strategy, roles, and deadlines.

  • Proposal Oversight: Guide the proposal team with the overarching strategy. They ensure the final proposal is compelling, aligned with the capture plan, and directly addresses the client's needs and pain points.

In essence, the Capture Manager serves as the driving force behind each pursuit, translating strategy into action, aligning teams and stakeholders, and guiding the opportunity from concept to contract award, ultimately delivering a successful win for the organization.

Importance of Competitive Assessments in Price-To-Win

Contact Dr. Tom: [email protected]

Competitive assessments are critically important in Price-to-Win (PTW) analyses because they provide the necessary external perspective to set a price that is both competitive and profitable.

A PTW analysis seeks to determine the most likely winning price for a contract or bid. Without a deep understanding of the competition, a PTW is essentially an incomplete internal cost-plus analysis, risking a bid that is either too high to win or too low to be profitable.

Competitive assessments play a vital role for several reasons:

Defining the "Winning Price"

  • Anticipate Competitor Pricing: The assessment predicts what your main competitors are likely to bid based on their cost structures, historical pricing behavior, financial goals, and strategic interest in the opportunity. This allows you to define a PTW target that is positioned strategically against the anticipated competitive field.

  • Prevent Under- and Over-Pricing:

    • If your price is set only on your own costs, you might overprice and lose the bid to a lower-cost competitor.

    • Conversely, you might underprice unnecessarily to beat a competitor whose actual bid is higher than you assumed, leaving profit on the table.

Uncovering Competitive Strategy

  • Identify Strengths and Weaknesses: The assessment looks beyond just the price number to analyze the competitors' technical approach, management structure, past performance, and cost/price strategy.

  • Inform Differentiation: By knowing where your competitors are strong (e.g., lower labor rates) and where they are weak (e.g., poor past performance in a key area), you can:

    • Focus your bid to emphasize your value and unique strengths in areas where competitors are lacking.

    • Justify a higher price if your proposed solution offers significantly superior value that the customer is willing to pay for.

  • Predict Behavior: It helps understand a competitor's strategic goals for the opportunity. Are they willing to take a minimal or even negative profit to win market share or retain an incumbent position? This insight is crucial for establishing a realistic and competitive price.

Aligning with Customer Value

  • Understand Evaluation Criteria: Competitive intelligence helps decipher what the customer truly values and how they are likely to weigh the cost/price factor against the non-cost factors (technical merit, management, past performance).

  • Balance Price and Value: The assessment ensures your final bid price is aligned with the competitive value proposition. For instance, if a competitor's low price is tied to a less capable technical solution, your assessment helps determine the maximum price premium you can charge for your superior technical solution and still win.

In short, a competitive assessment transforms the PTW process from an internal cost exercise into an external, market-driven strategy that significantly increases your Pwin.

A Brief History of US Federal Govt Shutdowns

A federal government shutdown takes place when Congress does not approve annual spending bills or a temporary funding measure for federal agencies. According to the Antideficiency Act, most government services must stop until funding resumes, except for those considered vital to public safety or national security. The current form of shutdowns started in 1980 after Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti, serving under President Jimmy Carter, ruled that agencies lacking funds could not continue operating during these lapses.

Notable shutdowns have happened since then. In the 1980s, during President Ronald Reagan’s administration, several brief shutdowns occurred, usually lasting from one to three days due to congressional budget standoffs. President George H.W. Bush oversaw a three-day shutdown in 1990, triggered by disagreements on a deficit reduction plan that involved proposed tax hikes.

The shutdowns of 1995 and 1996 under President Bill Clinton were especially significant, closing government operations twice for a total of 27 days amid disputes with Republican lawmakers over balancing the budget, Medicare, and discretionary spending. In 2013, President Barack Obama faced a 16-day shutdown after Congress could not reach an agreement on a funding bill tied to the Affordable Care Act.

The longest federal shutdown in U.S. history lasted 35 days, running from December 22, 2018, to January 25, 2019, under President Donald Trump. This shutdown centered on funding for a proposed border wall along the U.S.–Mexico border.

Interesting Awards

Lockheed Martin won a $9.8B U.S. Army contract for the production of 1,970 Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE) interceptors and associated hardware. The PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) neutralizes incoming threats through direct impact, delivering significantly greater kinetic force than traditional blast fragmentation methods. Combat-proven across ballistic, cruise, hypersonic, and airborne engagements, PAC-3 MSE is trusted by 17 partner nations, including the United States, as a cornerstone of integrated air and missile defense. This award isn’t just a missile buy, but a signal of a long-term deterrence strategy. It reinforces Lockheed’s dominance in layered missile defense.

CGI Federal has supported the State Department’s passport personalization mission since 2006, a nearly 20-year partnership that reflects deep operational trust and domain expertise. The latest $213.8M award expands CGI’s scope to deliver full-spectrum passport book personalization services, including facility operations, workforce management, security compliance, and technology integration for secure document production. This builds on a separate $478.1M  contract awarded in May 2024 for passport processing across three centers and 24 agencies nationwide, which continues through 2026. Together, these awards position CGI to modernize legacy passport systems through automation, analytics, and digital workflows, advancing the State Department’s broader transformation agenda.

Thirteen companies have secured positions on a potential $15B firm-fixed-price, multiple-award IDIQ contract to deliver construction services for the U.S. Air Force Civil Engineering Center. Selected from 19 competitive bids, the award spans a broad scope of design-build and design-bid-build efforts, including sustainment, maintenance, repair, restoration, modernization, minor and military construction, other procurement construction, and demolition. If all options are exercised, the contract will run through September 29, 2035. Awardees include ECC Expeditionary Construction, Gilbane Federal JV, Tutor Perini, CMS COLAS Construction, CDM Constructors, Flatiron Dragados Constructors, Parsons Government Services, Contrack Watts, SLSCO, Bering-Weston Solutions, Exp Federal, Hensel Phelps Construction, and Sea Pac Engineering. The mix of large primes, joint ventures, and specialized firms reflects an intentional strategy to balance capacity, geographic reach, and niche expertise.

About Hinz Consulting

Hinz Consulting provides services across the full business development cycle:

  • Proposals

  • Capture

  • Price To Win

  • Competitive Intelligence

  • Strategic Pricing

  • Production

  • AI Services

  • Training

  • BD Transformation 

  • Process/Methodology 

  • Tools and Template

  • Small Business