The Problem

Every year, United States Federal government departments and agencies spend approximately $500 billion on contracts to procure the goods and services necessary to fulfill their missions while advancing the nation’s broader social, political, and economic goals. However, far too often, these departments and agencies are tasked to “do more [contracting] with less [workforce]” within a legal and regulatory framework that hampers their ability to recruit, hire, and retain, qualified public-sector Federal acquisition professionals (e.g., GS-1102). As such, they rely heavily upon the support of private-sector professional services firms to augment their staff; yet, unfortunately, these firms have also lacked the ability to invest the resources necessary to recruit, hire, and retain private-sector Federal acquisition professionals, leading them to recruit from the already dwindling public-sector Federal acquisition workforce. Ultimately, this results in United States Federal government departments and agencies doing even more contracting with even less workforce – and, the cycle continues.

Our Solution

To overcome this challenge, IMSolutions LLC and its network of Federal government partners, colleges and universities, and nonprofit organizations, launched the ACQPASS™ (Acquisition Passport™) Fellowship Program – an innovative innovative, competitive, two-year paid “internship to full-time employment” pathway program designed to empower the next generation of civic-minded private-sector Federal acquisition leaders.