Now What? – A Culture Clash and an Incredible Opportunity

(*This article was published on LinkedIn May 19, 2025.)

Lately I have been ‘helping’ some former GSA executives understand a bit more about NASA’s stewardship of their GWAC program.  They clearly didn’t know or understand what they were speaking of when referencing it (I am being generous…I find many of these former GSA executives to be abhorrent and utterly self-interested), and I hope they now recognize the essential role this program now plays in the federal marketplace.  I no longer hear these former Architects of Inefficiency and their Coalitions of Self Interests publicly commenting about a program they obviously knew little about.  They now know that by all comparisons and measures, NASA established the most efficient and effective GWAC in government.  It is not a program to kill, but rather a program to keep.  That is a decision/conclusion that I believe has already been made.

The pattern and intent of the Administration are now clear.  They are integrating programs across government and centralizing some of public administration’s most basic organizational functions.  OMB identified the General Services Administration as the party responsible for integrating and executing these newly assigned functions that include human resource functions, buying functions, and program and policy functions.  It is acknowledged to be a difficult task.  So, what does that mean for NASA’s program?  At this point in time nobody is quite sure, but one thing has become clear, it is a program that government, contract holders and industry providers want to keep.  After all, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.”

Differences in Culture

NASA was tasked with applying an innovative mindset towards federal acquisitions, and they have succeeded in doing so by all measures: 11,000+ line item changes per day, 53,000+ transactions per year, a complete and accurate database of record, help desks and customer support where you can talk with a living person, single day scope reviews, and all with a staff of only 140 people.  The program has become the measure and standard of a well-run efficient program by which Schedules and the other GWACs are compared.  Should this program end up under GSA’s stewardship, figuring out the portfolio fit will be much easier than the cultural fit.  After all, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Will GSA “manage” the SEWP program and force it to adopt their standing culture, or will this be an opportunity for GSA to change their culture because of this new union? 

Cultural Differences Between GSA and NASA's SEWP Program

An Incredible Opportunity

This is an incredible responsibility for the General Services Administration, as well as an opportunity that should not be squandered.  Compared to all of GSA’s IT GWACs and its Schedules program, NASA created the most efficient and effective mechanism in government at facilitating the exchange.  They house marketplaces for government-wide use, as well as those that are specific to agencies.  It is a vehicle that every federal agency is familiar with, uses regularly, and is happy with.  GSA is receiving something they don’t have.  So, what to do with it now that they have it?

The answer should become obvious.  Use it.  NASA’s SEWP becomes GSA’s SEWP. 

GSA has several duplicative agreements that they must contend with and are likely to let some of these agreements simply run its course.  As NASA completes their obligations to award SEWP VI, GSA will have everything they need wrapped up in a nice little bow.  They will have a GWAC that covers all the bases.  They will have a platform of exchange that is used and utilized by all.  They will have a working and complete database of record and the largest dataset of commercial items in the world, and the highest quality dataset of procurement information in the federal government.

With SEWP as part of the GSA ecosystem now, those consolidation options are now self-evident.  GSA no longer needs the other vehicles or programs.  SEWP can now stand as the buying platform that agencies use to procure at the speed of mission.  This could be workable so long as GSA doesn’t muck it up (cough).  We all hope that this is the case so long as the new leadership at GSA keeps the prior Architects of Inefficiency and their Coalition of Self-Interests at bay. If one was making decisions based on results, then the decision will be an easy one for GSA to make. But if decisions are based on aspirations rather than actuality, or rhetoric rather than reality - well I guess that may just be part of GSA's culture that just can't be fixed.