HIRING CONTRACTING SPECIALISTS, THE SMART WAY

The 1102 contract specialist series has a compound problem: there aren’t enough of us and we are getting older. The 1102 contract specialist series has a compound problem: there aren’t enough of us and we are getting older. Generating a pipeline of young talent with analytical, scientific and artificial intelligence (AI) integrated critical thinking skills to steward the profession is the solution to that problem. Promoting and generating awareness of programs like Science, Mathematics and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship-for-Service Program and the Defense Civilian Training Corps, to feed that solution is imperative to the future of federal procurement, and the defense of our Nation. There are only 25,857 contract specialists in the Department of War (DoW), handling 54% of the department’s budget.

The total population of warranted contracting officers is comparable to the population of the endangered Florida manatee. How do we rekindle an endangered species? The same way conservationists have been doing it for decades: create a habitat and grow the next generation. In my own efforts to solve this at the grass roots level, I had no idea the length of road and the struggles I would face to get just one of these brilliant minds. The realization that we need thousands more is daunting. The DoW has a program called the SMART Scholarship-for-Service Program, which unfortunately,