By: Alexis Wagner
After a hard-fought battle with stiff competition, Houston minority-owned small business, Decision Information Resources, Inc. (DIR), has won a $16 million dollar contract to provide data collection, analysis, and performance measurement support to the National Office of Job Corps in the US Department of Labor.
They only had five days to bid on the Job Corps contract, and in typical DIR nature, the DIR team prepared and submitted a substantial proposal to put themselves in the running for the deal.
On June 29, 2017, Dr. Russell H. Jackson, President and Chief Executive Officer of DIR, was on vacation in Florida when Job Corps called to let him know that DIR won the contact over the incumbent contract holder. But, the celebration and excitement soon came to a standstill when the incumbent protested DIR’s victory, resulting in a stop work order. When the protest was overturned, the persistent incumbent found another way to protest the contract again, forcing another stop work order. Dr. Jackson engaged lawyers to handle the protest, and submitted a strong rebuttal providing evidence that the protest held no real weight. Nearly 6 months later, the incumbent withdrew their protest and DIR was finally able to celebrate their triumph with no interruptions at the start of this year.
“After working so many years with the Job Corps program, we were pleased to have a chance to do work that would allow us to share feedback with the program from their participants to help improve the performance of Job Corps. From a business perspective, this new contract will also allow us to hire up to 50 additional people in our call center. So, it was very gratifying that our proposal and prior work were strongly endorsed by the Department of Labor. We are now able to get on with the business of helping improve the Job Corps program and expanding our Houston operations” Dr. Jackson said.
The same traits that won DIR their multimillion dollar contract are the ones that Dr. Jackson possessed when he started the company: faith and perseverance.
“God has favored us, we are blessed”, Dr. Jackson said when looking back on the company’s success throughout the years.
DIR started in 1984 with Dr. Jackson’s first proposal being written in the evenings and on the weekends when he was not working on his day job. The proposal was submitted to Texas Department of Community Affairs, Training and Employment Division to conduct the Evaluation of the Texas Older Worker Demonstration Projects.
“I was going up against several large businesses from my living room.”Dr. Jackson said, “Just me and my computer working late nights.”
Needless to say, Dr. Jackson won his first contract despite the odds, and started R&L Research and Evaluation, Inc., which has successfully survived as DIR today.
DIR’s Executive Vice President, Dr. Sylvia Epps, attributes a notable amount of DIR’s success to all of the relationships that they have made and kept throughout the years. The newly won award expands DIR’s 25 year working relationship with the U.S. Department of Labor and the National Office of Job Corps.
DIR’s commitment to creating and maintaining relationships extends to their staff. A numb
er of DIR’s employees have been with the company for over a decade, and they are looking to expand their talented team to meet the needs of the Job Corps contract. Up to 50 English and Spanish speaking interviewers are being hired now for positions in their call center.
The period of performance for the Job Corps contract is up to 5 years, during which DIR will conduct over 60,000 telephone surveys per year with former Job Corp graduates and participants from their Houston based call center. There is no doubt in Dr. Epps’ mind that together, their new and seasoned staff will meet and exceed expectations on the Job Corps project.
“Part of what makes us so successful is our ability to recognize talent, maintain talent, and cultivate relationships.” Dr. Epps said.
