"Never been done before" The General Service Administration credited the RFO Contracting Lead, Jean Todd, which contracting contributions that were nationally precedent setting. Memphis District photo. Back to Features

National Award!

RFO contracting chief, claims Ida Ustad Award for Excellence
By Dave Harris, public affairs specialist, Louisiana Recovery Field Office

NEW ORLEANS, LA. – The contracting officer who managed the critical Army Corps of Engineers response contracts for such key Louisiana recovery issues as Operation Blue Roof, New Orleans unwatering, replacing damaged and destroyed schools and public facilities, and the massive demolition and debris removal program has been recognized nationally for response and improving Corps contracting processes in an unprecedented situation.

Jean Todd has been awarded the General Services Administration’s 2007 Ida Ustad Award for Excellence in Acquisition. The award recognizes the individual government employee who embodies the contract specialist as business leader/advisor having a major impact on improving the acquisition process.

“Jean was faced with the tremendously difficult acquisition challenges of un-watering the City of New Orleans and removing debris generated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita,” said Sandra Riley, the Corps’ director of contracting in Washington, D.C.

“Within days, she skillfully established an on-site, full service Contracting Office in Baton Rouge, using innovative strategies to accomplish a $2-billion mission under unbelievably traumatic circumstances.”  The Louisiana Recovery Field Office moved to New Orleans in 2006 as work in other parishes ended.

Riley said the sheer volume of work performed at the Louisiana Recovery Field Office in 40 parishes at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency is a success story in and of itself.  If the work was done by the recovery office, Todd had a hand in it and her stamp of approval on it.

“Ms. Todd managed over $2 billion in contract awards associated with hurricanes Katrina and Rita.  The Louisiana Recovery Field Office has cleaned up more than 27 million cubic yards of debris, demolished over 6,200 structures, replaced 310 critical school buildings and public facilities, and roofed over 81,000 buildings after two major hurricanes and the New Orleans flooding – a task that has never been done before!” Riley said.

An average Corps field contracting office may manage about $100 million in contracts annually.

Todd also was recognized for her efforts to guide contracts to small and local businesses. The Louisiana Recovery Field Office awarded over $175 million to small businesses with almost $1 billion in subcontracts going to small and disadvantaged businesses.

On the home front, 45 percent of the Corps recovery subcontracted dollars have gone to Louisiana firms.  The Louisiana Recovery Field Office has awarded 395 contracts to large and small Louisiana businesses, 286 of those going to small business.

“Through her untiring efforts, Jean helped improve the quality of life for the Louisiana residents that were affected by not just one, but two natural disasters,” Riley said.

Todd Reflects

“After landfall, I had the back end of a Ford Explorer in Memphis fully loaded with contracts,” she said.  She then drove for hours to find the Corps ready for her to create a workplace.  Contracts had to be issued for phones, computers, tables, chairs, everything, before Corps recovery efforts could even begin, followed by contracts for companies with tens of thousands of workers needed to set the stage for Louisiana recovery.

“I could not have been successful without giving full credit to my staff at the RFO and my staff at my home district in Memphis,” she said. “This is definitely not a one-man show!”
    

Todd’s job is measured in goals, end results and bottom lines.

So she focuses on making sure contracts and the resulting work on the ground is “efficient, effective and legal, and what we’re doing here reflects positively on the Corps as we assist the recovery process in Louisiana.

Success in any endeavor always has a few bumps in the road, and Todd sized up the challenge.

“In being diligent in following the acquisition process, in full compliance with the law, often it just takes time,” she says, and time isn’t usually what people have too much of when responding to emergencies.

Todd points with pride to her quest to engage local workers – both prime and sub-contractors – resulting in stimulating the economy toward recovery.

“The mission consumed me,” she said. “I feel strongly it is something we as a nation and the Corps need to do. I’ve done things I never dreamed of doing.”

Todd recalled ribbon cuttings and dedications of Corps-installed FEMA temporary classrooms that returned normalcy to students and parents in East Baton Rouge Parish.

“Children told how proud and happy they were to be sitting in a classroom at desks with their books instead of sitting on the floor in makeshift temporary quarters.

“The bottom line is the people piece of this – helping people recover – to see their faces light up,” Todd said. “That’s why we do this.”

A student thanks Jean for her new classroom with a drawing