Aug. 26/12 (Washington Post) — More than a year after leaving SRA International, Stanton D. Sloane is now spending his time talking cosmic rays as president and chief executive of Chantilly-based Decision Sciences International.

Sloane is promoting the the company’s signature Multi-Mode Passive Detection Systems — or MMPDS, which is now on display at Freeport Container Port in the Bahamas.

Essentially, the technology uses naturally occurring cosmic rays — called muons — to scan cargo containers, seeking suspicious materials that pose a nuclear or radiological threat. Sloane said the technology is safe, and the scans can be completed relatively inexpensively and quickly — a scan that doesn’t detect a problem takes about 30 seconds.

Decision Sciences has paid several million dollars to install the technology at Freeport, where cargo trucks drive through what looks like a car wash. Sloane hopes the demonstration unit will help convince port owners and the government to purchase the technology.

The company is also lobbying on the Hill, trying to prevent Congress from overturning existing legislation to expand cargo container scanning requirements.

GAO upholds CyberData Technologies’ protest
The Government Accountability Office earlier this month upheld Herndon-based CyberData Technologies’ protest of a General Services Administration decision.

The GSA asked companies already on its Schedule 70 for quotes on a contracting program for its public building service’s chief information officer. The request called for a best-value evaluation, but GSA only assessed the competitors’ technical scores before narrowing the pool to 12.

Those 12 were to be invited to give oral presentations, and CyberData was ranked 14th, the GAO wrote in its decision.

“[T]he agency’s elimination of technically acceptable quotations, such as CyberData’s, without consideration of their price, was inconsistent with the requirement that price be considered in a best value analysis,” the GAO wrote.

The agency recommended the GSA adjust the evaluation approach in its solicitation, ask for revised quotes and make a new decision.

This is an excerpt from Washington Post as it appeared on August 27, 2012. For updates or to read the current version of this post in its entirety, please click here.

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