← GovDiscovery AI Podcast with Mike Shanley
GovDiscovery AI Podcast with Mike Shanley
Ep. 59 DoD Procurement Changes: What’s new and what’s the same?
00:35:20
Will Roberts, former Acquisition Director at the DoD Joint AI Center and now Director of ASI Education, joins Mike Shanley to unpack the sweeping changes in federal procurement. The discussion explores the revolutionary FAR overhaul, the rise of best...
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the govdiscovery AI Podcast with Mike Shanley, your source for actionable insight into government markets and foreign policy. Gov Discovery AI leverages a decade of experience winning federal funding to deliver intel to sales proposal and capture teams working in defense and civilian markets. Now here's your host, Mike Shanley.
- [00:20]
B
Hello and welcome to the govdiscovery AI Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Shanley. Our guest today is Will Roberts. Will is the former Acquisition Director of the Joint AI center at the Department of Defense and currently is Director of ASI Education. We'll get into a lot more of what his role was at dod, what he's seen changed in the acquisition market since then, and what a bit about how ASI Education supports their clients. Will, great to have you on the podcast today.
- [00:51]
C
Yeah, thanks Mike. And yeah, just a little little introduction about myself. I especially for the purposes of this podcast here, about 17 years or so in defense contracting and acquisition. This will come out a little later in the discussion, but I despite the training that I was given, I made a very active focus on reaching out to industry and talking to industry, something that's not emphasized as much in training these days and maybe in the near future. But through that experience in these in the 17 years in contracting I really got to know how how to contract better with industry and work around the rules. So I'll talk about that a little bit. But I was a contracting officer, various DoD agencies, fourth estate, Air Force and then I finally became the Acquisition Director of the Joint AI center or the jake, which is now the CDAO Chief Data AI Office, I think, which has now been moved under OSD Research and Engineering R and E. So in that time though is where I developed a lot of experience about some of these tools that are now being mandated by SecDef Hegseth, which we can go into. I now I left down, I went down, moved down to Florida with my wife and kids and wanted to stay in Florida and not go back up. So I left the government amicably. It was a very peaceful transition and I but I wanted to continue my passion my last year in the DoD was focused on the dire need for the workforce to improve contracting, the federal acquisition workforce to include PMs and procurement and really to move beyond what training was already there and help them be masters of their craft. So when I left that's what I wanted to do. I met with Tim Cook is at ASI Government. I knew him already from my government space, but I talked to him about helping him out. So we started a branch called ASI Education, which is teaching government contracting the non boring way to both companies and government. We've even gone so far as to create a kids book called My First Far, which you can buy and read to your kids. But other stuff we've done, maybe more serious, but just as interesting and entertaining, is a series on how to buy and deliver artificial intelligence, which we call Buy AI, which we did with the cdao and we have a channel which we'll post later. Anyway, sorry, long intro, but that's me.
- [03:27]
B
Will, and that's why I was looking forward to having you on a very direct, I'd say insightful opinion on government acquisition the DoD market. So definitely check out ASI Education's YouTube channel and connect with or follow Will on LinkedIn. So Will, let's get right into it. The revolutionary FAR overhaul. What's going on there? We're now at, we're being recorded August 22, 2025 here. What's the current status?
- [03:54]
C
Yeah, so before I get into the current status, I am going to give a disclaimer here. When we're talking about the changes and the revolutionary far overhaul. These opinions I'm about to express my thoughts, my professional take on the matter. I'm not representing ASI at this point. I am going to take my the gloves off. This will be very candid and very honest when I give this opinion though. I am very dedicated to the workforce and I'm rooting for the success of all this. So this is not coming out of a place of embitterment or resentment about what's going on. What I'm hoping to do is just call it like it is for the sake of the two biggest stakeholders. And the revolutionary far overhaul are the, the, for the far, it's the contracting workforce and the federal government. So the contracting officer, contract specialist, but the second stakeholder group are the companies that are going to be affected by these big changes. So the revolutionary FAR overhaul came from a executive order from President Trump called common sense and Procurement. Now, my criticism of what's going on, I'll prove that this is not a political at all. I'm trying to be very neutral and apolitical. Case in point, the executive orders, I love, I love the wording. If you read common sense in federal procurement, I don't think there's anyone who would read that and say, well, I don't agree. It's, it's, it's common sense, right? It's, it's calling for common sense. In a lot of ways. We didn't have common sense. And it's basically saying in that executive order that the FAR needs to be reduced to basically statutory language. And we know not to get to all Schoolhouse Rock on us, but we know the three branches of government, right? And only Congress, the legislative branch can affect statutes. So anything in the FAR that references statutes, that's actually a good thing. If we were to take all the statutory language out of the federal acquisition regulation, which this is an old copy, it's not like it would remove the statutes, but it would create this really hard job for contracting professionals to try to now do a scavenger hunt of all of these different, all these different laws that they have to follow. So the statutes is good. But then it also said in the executive order that they need to remove all non statutory language except that language which deals with efficient contracting. And this is where it gets a little wonky right now. And I'm going to talk about what's really happening and then I'm going to talk about the takeaways for industry. What's really happening with the revolutionary FAR overhaul. And I know I got to be a little careful because I know a lot of folks at the FAR council and working on this right now, but it is not really changing things in the revolutionary way that it's claiming. It's using words like streamlined. It's using words like reaching out to industry. What I've seen from these changes is it's actually, it's not going to do any of that. It's actually has the, the, the danger to do the opposite of that and, and lead to more bureaucracy. And I'm going to use one use case for you guys as examples. I'm not going to get too technical because I know we're talking to companies that you guys familiarity with some of the, the boring aspects of the FAR, but we will, we'll use one use case and that's FAR part 8. Part 8 of the FAR handled mandatory sources of supply. So it talked about federal supply schedules like gsa. We'll get to that later because that's a big point for, for you guys. But it also dealt with like using AbilityOne. If you guys have heard the AbilityOne program that's like blind and disabled Americans helping them find work. And there's a lot of abilityone really good abilityone contracts. That's a mandatory supply. So, so there's a lot of different parts to part 8. What the RFO basically did with part 8 is they, they removed. So if you read part 8 now, if you look at the new part 8, you can just have a morning coffee and go through part eight. It is so short and so condensed and on its face, it looks like that means that all these rules were taken away and they did a good job. Right. So Trump did this executive order, clean up the far. Take away the regulations. The FAR council and OFPP said, check. Look at the new part eight. It's. You can read it with your morning coffee. The reality is all that bureaucracy and regulation, or a lot of it's still there, it's just been moved somewhere else. It reminds me of like, you know, when you tell your kids to clean their room and, and then you go up to their room and you see it actually, like, if, if your executive order to your children is your room needs to look clean. When I come up, by the time I come up, I want the floors to look clean, I want the room to look clean. If that's your executive order, then have you ever been a situation where you've said that and you go upstairs and then you see that the room is clean, but then you get on your hands and knees and look under the bed and you find out that the mess is still there. It's just all of that got crammed under the bed and under the carpet and in drawers. Right. In other places. But your kid can say, dad, all you told me was the room needed to look clean. And look, it's clean. Even though the intent behind your executive order to your kids was that all of the pizza crusts and moldy yogurt cups and all of that needs to be thrown away and your items put away. That was the intent of what you meant by that. But what your children are reading it as, sure, we'll make it look clean. Right?
- [09:30]
B
Yeah. The language of the IO was complied with, but the spirit of it was not.
- [09:36]
C
It's exactly what's happening with the rfo. Exactly what's happening. So this is not even my hunch or opinion. This is what's going on. For example, part 8.4 is the GSA schedule. All these instructions in 8.4, that has been removed from the FAR. So if you look at the FAR part 8 now, the deviation, you don't see any guidelines on how to order from these huge multiple award schedules, which seems like, oh, that means that the contracting officers have a lot of leeway. No, they've just been put into a potentially more problematic area that they've been put into the GSA's ordering guide. And so what we have now is all of the bureaucracy now dispersed. And so you can argue that in a way that makes it easy because if it's put in, if the GSA now handles all the ordering procedures for what, multiple award schedules, then they have a lot more flexibility and freedom to make the changes without a big FAR rule. I think the counter argument to that is it sometimes a bad thing to have a major rule at the mercy of constantly being revised? Right. At least with the far, it was so hard to change any rules that everyone always knew that that was the rule and there wasn't kind of version control. And do you have the right ordering guide? So the other thing about this is that makes it more challenging with the RFO is at least with the old far, we knew where the pizza crusts and yogurt cups were to continue the we knew the mess was on the floor. Everyone knew where it was.
- [11:11]
B
There was, would you say predictable inefficiency.
- [11:13]
C
Or predictable predictable inefficiency. Now contracting officers have to go on the scavenger hunts to find all the rules. Here's another point. The ability one that was far subpart 8.7, and it had a lot of rules. They just took all of 8.7 out. You can read it. It's now 8.2 of the new form of ability one. And it basically says ability one's mandatory. Go use ability one if you have to. Okay, but that's it. So the regulation's still there. It's just now they don't give you the link to the Procurement list of ability 1, which is something you have to look at. They don't give you any link, all that guidance. Now that contracting officer has to go on the scavenger hunt to go find that themselves. So part eight is business as usual, except maybe a little more challenging.
- [12:00]
B
So let's lot of angles. I want to go with this. Let's get to DoD specifically. How are you seeing this playing out for DoD procurements? And of course we want to get to the what does this mean for industry?
- [12:12]
C
Yeah, so for DoD particular, in particular, they, you know, DoD uses a lot. When we're talking about the RFO, by the way, we'll talk about non far, like if you hear the words like other transactions, commercial solutions opening, that's another new change that I think is actually really good. We'll talk about that in a minute. But with the FAR, the DoD will still heavily use the FAR. It's just going to be one of the biggest changes is the reason I mentioned part eight is there is now a mandatory requirement for all Federal agencies, that includes the DoD when it comes to commercial items. And you're using the far and you have to use what's called best in class vehicles. And again, it's a little bit of that talking out of both sides of your mouth. They're saying they're empowering the workforce and saying yeah, we're going to create a lot of flexibility and streamline. But then on the other side of their mouth they're saying for every single commercial item, you don't have a choice anymore, you will order from the vehicles that GSA makes for you or any other enterprise wide vehicles, which I think what OFPP is trying to do is make GSA be the only owner of enterprise wide vehicles. So basically gsa. So here's a couple consequences for that for companies. One is that you need to, you need to try to be part of every best in class vehicle you can. Unless you go into, outside the far, other transactions with, with dod. If you are offering a commercial service or product, which I'm assuming most of you guys are, even research type things can be commercial, then you need, it's going to be harder and harder for you to get into a contract with a government agency in the DOD that's not on a best in class vehicle. What do I mean by best in class vehicle? That's the Federal Supply schedules under part A. It's IDI, they call them IDIQs. But these large multiple award contracts, if you've heard, you may have heard things like alliance or Oasis or NASA Soup. These are just these big vehicles. The challenge to that is there's a couple challenges if you're not on that. So when I was a contracting officer, I worked in the D.C. area in the Air Force and I would again, like I mentioned my leadership and my training did not necessarily prioritize or train me on, on going out and talking and connecting with industry like that. And that's still not a thing. So just for you guys, awareness, I mean they say it is, you can go to these industry days and you hear these leaders say really great stuff about how the government needs to talk to industry. That's not happening at like on the training level, DAU fai. It's just not happening. Right. There's not a focus on that because whenever contracting officers take their time to really connect with industry and talk to industry, they're not doing something else that their contract office needs them to do, which is medial paperwork and taskers and stuff like that. So it's generally unwritten law, discouraged to connect with you guys And a lot, a lot of offices, but I did anyway. And so in some of these industry days, I really wanted. I talked to these new companies, these new participants coming in who had a lot to offer. They were brand new. And this is where I think it's going to be most hurt by what's going on on the far side. And in a lot of ways you can forget far contracts for a while if you're a brand new entrant and just focus on the non far and I'll explain why. But for new entrants into this area, non traditional companies, we really hit it off. I would explain a problem I was having at the Air Force working for the secretary of the Air Force offices. They would come out with something that they do. I'd say, great. And then I'd say, then I'd try to figure out how they can be part of any kind of competition. Right. I wasn't trying to sole source to them necessarily. I was trying to break any rules. I just wanted them to play, you know. So I said I had to ask my list of questions though, because there was an unfortunate requirement at my Air Force office at the time to use Best in Class. I had to use Best in class vehicles. And if I didn't use best in class vehicles, I had to do a lot of paperwork to justify not using them. And it just wasn't worth the paperwork. It wasn't worth me arguing with some policy person who their whole job security was to make sure I was using Best in class. So I would say, are you part of the Air Force multiple award contract? Of course. This is a company that's just started talking to government. So of course the answer is no. Oh, okay. Are you part of the Oasis or Alliant? Like, do you know what that is? No. Okay. Are you on a GSA schedule by any chance? Like, are you part of that? What is that? So I'd be so to automatically that conversation just stopped. Right. I knew that I could not. There was no feasible way that I could talk to this company, get them on contract fast to get something happening because they were not on all of these things. And the most I can do, which I eventually just had these materials, I had to give it to these companies, follow these on ramping procedures on how to get a contract on a GSA schedule.
- [17:13]
B
And just noting there will we do support clients on that BD side of getting on the GSA schedules and then then maintaining those and. And we've seen an uptick on that, but definitely, yeah. So I would Say we've seen the trend from the BD side of there is growing awareness in industry, but you're absolutely right, there's a lot of ideas and new tech companies that are coming to DOD that are learning this and not familiar with these various market entry mechanisms.
- [17:41]
C
Yeah, yeah, and that's. I'm glad, I'm hoping it's getting better. I will say, and this is again very candid conversation. Historically in working with gsa, especially in my role at the Joint AI center and Joint AI Center, I didn't have a contracting office. So I got to forum, shop and use all these different offices across the DoD and the federal agencies, Department of Interior, by the way, those guys are awesome. Like there's a little hidden gem of good workers. But anyway, GSA, other than there's one office and really that office, the FedSim, had to do with a couple personalities there which were really good historically. I can say that the offices I worked with had very little knowledge of the market and their vendor pools reflected that. But because they had set up these vendor pools, these massive vendor pools, they really didn't have to know the market anymore. So it kind of calloused their priority to talk to companies. And that's what's gonna happen with best in class is all of these contracting offices. When you talk to someone like a program manager at an industry day or a contracting officer, just know when it comes to the far, they now have to use this huge manufactured cookie cutter, one size fits all series of best in best in class contracts that's going to really water down their need or ability to be trusted business advisors with any sort of pulse on the market and your company just becomes another data point and a huge supply list.
- [19:11]
B
So what's the so what there you're DoD contractor and you're engaging with your CEO maybe through current contracting vehicles and or you're meeting acquisition senior acquisition officers at a industry conference. What should you know about what their work life is like and what their day to day responsibilities are now? And what advice would you give to industry on how to most effectively and efficiently engage with those COs?
- [19:42]
C
Yeah, so the first thing I'd say you definitely want to do for the FAR is get on those vehicles, make sure you're on. I know that's kind of a no brainer, but make sure you're on those because that will be probably the only option right. When it comes to the far. Once you do that, if you're on that vehicle, you know the game's not over yet. Right. Because Then you're now you're just part of a huge competition. But, but you're using Part 8 or the GSA guidelines or whatever. So in that realm, TBD on whether or not contracting officers have a lot of flexibility, we're being told that they do. So even though they're being forced into GSA contracts and stuff like that, they say once you're there, there's a lot of flexibility that you have. And actually the contracting officers can now use, they can award multiple award contracts from GSA schedule so they can create their own. So it's really, then just as long as you're on those schedules, it's connecting with the company and doing your standard stuff that's valuable. State their problem, state how your solution meets their problem, state why you're the best company to do it. And then they'll start be thinking about, okay, how do I get this person in the competition and the competitions. The good side of this is that if you're on those schedules, we're being told, and there's some evidence of this already, that this is true. We're being told that the source selections are actually going to be very fast and efficient. And one of the reasons why is they're saying that in fss, your quote is not an offer. And based on that little fact alone, that means that things can move really fast. Some rules then don't have to be applied if you're, if your submissions were offers.
- [21:16]
B
So what does that mean for your BD team at industry?
- [21:22]
C
Yeah, so for the, for the BD team and industry, you want to, you want to make sure you're up to date and getting to know all of these vehicles, know the ones that are the most active. Again, that's going to be like Alliance, Federal Supply schedules, Oasis, and then start to learn and read, by the way. So 8.4 doesn't exist anymore. That was how to order. Read the new GSA ordering guide. I'll try to get a link, Mike, afterwards, because I know we got to get to the order.
- [21:48]
B
Put that in the show notes then.
- [21:49]
C
Yeah, yeah, read that ordering guide and get to know that ordering guide. That is how any contracting officer, regardless of the agency, we're talking DoD as well, DoD is not immune to the GSA takeover. So get to know gsa, then get to know their procedures and then work within those.
- [22:07]
B
Now we're hearing a lot on OTAs. You mentioned commercial transactions. There's some high profile sole sourcing in DoD and across the government. What trends are you seeing for those types of contracting Approaches. Yeah, under this administration.
- [22:24]
C
So hey. On March 6, SecDev Hegseth released a memo to the DoD workforce that for software other transactions and commercial solutions opening are mandatory for software purchases just across the board. Like not. This is one of your options. We recommend it, you have to use it. Trump followed up with an executive order just for any sort of requirement, not just software recommending the default be commercial solutions openings and things like other transactions. So you're going to see an uptick of this. Just be aware the Department of Defense currently uses OTS the most at scale and as an organization, they do not know how to use other transactions and they are still learning how to use commercial solutions opening. So this is new for everyone and what you're going to see is commercial solutions opening. Just just as a reminder for the folks here, if you guys aren't aware of what that is, it is a solicitation. So it's like an rfp, a request for proposals. But it works more like if you guys on the research side, if you've ever heard of a baa, a broad agency announcement, it works more like that. Right? But instead of research R and D, like basic and applied non commercial stuff, it's basically a BAA for existing commercial items. They call them commercial innovations. Commercial solutions openings have to be for a. Not an existing commercial thing, but a commercial innovation. Which sounds a little like conflicting, but really a commercial innovation could be something new in the market or. And this is the hilarious part of this, not hilarious, but it just broadens this. It's. It could be an existing commercial item that's new to the government. So if the government hasn't been using LED televisions this whole time and they decide they want to start using like maybe flat screen TVs, if they've just been using the huge tube televisions, those have been around for decades for the purposes of the government. That's an innovation. So a Samsung could come in and provide a commercial innovation through a CSO. So you want to get to know CSOs, they're written to be incredibly flexible and incredibly fast. So if you start seeing stuff from CSOs and OT terms and the way they do the competition, that's really unusual and strange and like, whoa, I haven't done this before. Chances are it means they're doing it the right way and they're a little further along in understanding the flexibilities that they have. What you'll probably most likely see though is a DoD agency saying they're doing a CSO, but it looks a lot more like an RFP where you're required to your submission is basically looks like a 50 page proposal. Right. And the way that they select from the CSO looks more like a drawn out, 60 day trade off selection process. That's what you may see more of. And then when it comes to the ot, the other transaction where a lot of, where the FAR doesn't apply. Right. So the rules go away. You can come up with your own IP terms, you can come up with your own forward pricing terms which, or if you're a really small new company, you can say I, I, you gotta give me some of this, like 40% of this upfront so I can even fund this and get this started. Under far, it's incredibly challenging under OTS doesn't have to be at all. But what you may see is just because people have not, are not used to this and it's very scary to step into the deep side of the pool when you're used to being wearing your wings with the far, you're gonna see a lot of these ots that really look like part 15, part 13 so far requirements. My recommendation to you is just have patience and learn. There's a lot of industry teaching government in this environment right now. So not a shameless plug. But call us after we do this. We do trainings to companies to teach how you can teach the government. Yeah.
- [26:15]
B
And I will say will, for what your service on the business development side, sure. There's having the rfp, shaping conversations, engaging with government, doing the white papers, all that. A big piece of it sometimes is also sharing. Here's the mechanism through which you could contract with us. Say it's a new CEO you're working with. Yeah, we do find that that can be really useful. All right, couple more questions here. One is for the subs, what does this mean for those first tier subs for the big primes? Then let's go down the supply chain there. When we get to third, fourth tier subs. What, what, what if anything, do these procurement changes mean for them?
- [26:54]
C
Yeah. So when it comes to the rfo, what we're finding regardless of the different administration change is a lot of the priorities are still there in terms of small business categories like tribal organizations, Indian owned businesses. That's still something that can be. If you're partnering with a tribal organization, you're partnering with different classes of small business, those opportunities are still there. So, so, so that's good. I think that there's, I think that as a sub you're just going to also just want to be aware of those contractors who have best in class contracts, you know, and if you don't have that contract and you want it to be a prime, you may be a sub and that, that may be your, your option too.
- [27:43]
B
But also that can be a BD strategy for those who have none of those.
- [27:46]
C
That.
- [27:46]
B
That new partner about that new organization coming there.
- [27:50]
C
Yeah.
- [27:50]
B
If you don't have time to get on those vehicles, then you do look for one of those primes that that is a. Or the holder of one of those vehicles and that they're often interested in.
- [27:59]
C
That's great.
- [27:59]
B
You're bringing us an opportunity. You're going to be the sub. We just, you know, you need to use our, our contracting vehicle and that's.
- [28:06]
C
What we do at asi. I'm sure you guys have done this as well. We, we have a really good tribal organization that we know and whenever that comes up, we say, you want to do this together? Or we have people that are in different like stars contracts, like big vehicles, even though we're not, if the announcement goes out only on that vehicle and we know we could really do a good job, we have to partner up. So we're.
- [28:29]
B
What about talking about working with our allies and their industrial bases, the European industrial base, the, The Australian industrial base. Couple questions on that. What are you seeing in terms of the priorities of both the America first buying priorities and the need to strengthen the global. The global industrial base, the global supply chain and then also what is any of this transaction or any of these, the revolutionary fire overhaul, any of these other regulatory changes? What might they mean for those EU partners that are looking to sell to Dodge?
- [29:08]
C
Yeah, I mean that's a good point. I know that there's been a lot of talks about with export import, with tariffs, how that's affecting contracting now that maybe the thing that dampens this a little bit or at least muffles the impact was that we always did have the Buy America act. And so we always did regardless. The Part 25 by the way, foreign acquisition, one of the most confusing parts of the far because it says Buy America and then it lists all the treaties that we. You still have to follow. So you know, like in World Trade Organization treaties. So even though I'm sure there will be an impact to costs, especially when we're talking about the supply chain, like for AI for example. But you know, it's just my personal opinion that the fact that we do have the Buy America act, this could one optimistic way of saying that these new changes in the administration, which is exactly what the intent is, is that this is actually going to help us maybe fund follow the Buy America act more closely. And it's maybe that's our only option. Now there are exceptions to the Buy America act, such as IT and computers and things like that. That is where those major exceptions to the Buy America act that's going to be most impacted. And yeah, we probably will. I think we need to budget accordingly for the price hikes that are going to come up. I mean, it's affecting I just saw recently, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about how Swiss watch companies like Rolex, they're delivering a whole bunch of watches to the US right now in anticipation of a huge like 40% price increase on even Swiss watches. So it surely will impact and it's just one of those where we, we budget for it and we we Buy America when we can.
- [30:46]
B
So let's talk about what do you do at ASI Education? Will, I'm curious, in addition to your services, what are the, what are your trends? What are the last six months? What have been the most common requests your team's gotten from from industry and your clients?
- [31:01]
C
Yeah, so most recently. So a lot of our training just has to do with being a procurement professional, like a master and a champion of your own domain, which is sorely missing right now in the government. And so we're trying to cultivate people who regardless of whatever nonsense is happening from the E ring of the Pentagon or, you know, the OFPP or whatever, they're making stuff happen no matter what. And that's just as just a quick side point, that's whenever the government signals to the workforce, which is what they're doing right now with the rfo, I don't think that the EO necessarily signaled this, but what the rfq, RFO is signaling to the workforce. Whenever the government signals to the workforce that they are the solution to the problem, we will provide new rules so that you can contract better. We will provide the GSA for you so that your contracts will be better. We're going to be the answer. Whenever they signal that, two things happen. One is that they're just going to just they can't live up to that promise. The government can never do that. And the government has historically never been a good answer to problems. Right. So the second more problematic though is that companies and the workforce just get so frustrated in the government for failing them. When you flip that paradigm around and you say the government, when the government says and they don't do this right, the training requirement for the RFO is one tiny little paragraph giving the authority, you know, to, to instruct to DAU and fai, which are the organizations who are largely responsible for why we don't have mastery in the field to begin with. But if the government were to say, you are the answer, we need you, you don't need us, we need you. OFPP needs the workforce, then it switches to a priority. Not on rules, not on, you know, these best in class, whatever. The priority becomes the people themselves and focusing on the mastery of the workforce. Now the good optimistic point of view for this is that the government's never going to do that. They're never going to make that switch because they're always going to look at themselves as a solution and they never will be the solution. So the real change is gonna happen from people who take it upon themselves to be the answer, and that's industry and government. Regardless of the far looking like this or the far looking more like this, right, they're gonna be able to do great things. Regardless of an EO coming in from the president saying there needs to be common sense or a president coming in saying there needs to be more rules, doesn't matter. This master of contracting is so good at, and industry is so good at working with government that the nonsense is just noise and they're making stuff happen. So a lot of our training is about that. Started going to a tangent.
- [33:46]
B
No, that's. That, that's interesting. How can, how can our audience get in touch with you?
- [33:50]
C
Will, check out our channel. We have a YouTube channel where you can. A lot of this stuff is free. We do special trainings and videos though. That's, that's how we do get. 70% of what we offer is free on the channel. So we'll drop a link for that ASI education on YouTube and then we offer training. So reach out to us. It's ask ASI sigovernment.com we'll do a link there. We have a lot more to say about FAR overhaul and ots and stuff. So if you really want to know how to strategize your company and really take advantage of these contracts and get more profit in this new era, give us a call. We could help.
- [34:26]
B
Excellent. Well, Will, thanks a lot for being on the show, sharing your insight. Sounds like there might be some follow up conversations we'll have to have in the coming months and going into 2026. So appreciate you taking the time to share your, your thoughts and insight with us today.
- [34:39]
C
Yeah, this is Great Mike. Happy to come back anytime. Thank you so much for having me.
- [34:43]
B
Thanks Will.
- [34:44]
A
Thank you for tuning in to the Gov Discovery AI podcast with Mike Shanley. Gov Discovery AI leverages our team's decade of experience winning federal funding to deliver federal growth intel to sales, process, proposal and capture teams working in defense and civilian markets. Each market intel report is delivered by federal growth experts leveraging our proprietary deep data discovery process. If you enjoyed today's show, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and connect with Gov Discovery AI and Mike Shanley on LinkedIn or learn more at govdiscoveryai.com.