CAOCL Continuation of Services

Subject: Request for Information (RFI), United States Marine Corps, Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning (CAOCL). PURPOSE: This RFI is an effort to conduct market research for use in formulating an acquisition plan/strategy to obtain essential contractor services for operational, technical, logistical, and programmatic support of CAOCL mission requirements. Principal operations will occur each of the the three (3) Marine Expeditionary Forces (MEF) I MEF Camp Pendleton, CA, II MEF Camp Lejeune, NC, III MEF Okinawa, Japan, 29 Palms, CA, and other subordinate commands at various locations around the world; and providing senior level experts in regionally oriented, ethnically relevant culture to serve as cultural advisors to operational unit commanders, normally in a forward deployed environment. CAOCL's current advisory focus is on Afghanistan, Bahrain, and other areas in the Middle East. However, cultural advisors for areas other than those previously listed may be required in the future based on current events and deployment locations for Marine units. This RFI allows potential contractors to submit a non-binding statement of interest and documentation demonstrating their corporate capabilities and suggestions that will allow the Government to refine its potential course of action. The RFI effort is intended to assess industry service capabilities and solicit feedback for acquisition planning purposes. The qualifying NAICS code for the majority of this effort is 611710. This will be for an 7 to 8 month period of performance beginning on or around September 26th, 2015. The contractor will be required to implement services immediately both in CONUS and OCONUS locations. This continuation of the highly specialized exisiting services is essential to the CAOCL program and any unacceptable delays in fulfilling the agency's requirements would be detrimental to the program. Responses are to only be received from sources that can both resume services the day after the contract end date without transisiton and can match the highly specialized training and advising program that is currently in place. OCONUS and CONUS employees shall be in place the day the contract begins to prevent any delay in service. BACKGROUND: As the central Marine Corps agency for operational culture and language familiarization, the Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning (CAOCL) ensures that the Marine Corps is globally prepared, regionally focused, and effective at navigating and influencing the culturally complex 21st Century operating environments in support of USMC missions and requirements. CAOCL provides education and training solutions and serves as the proponent for capabilities related to operational culture and language familiarization for the Marine Corps' general purpose force. CAOCL supports the Marine Corps primarily through career-length education and pre-deployment training a. CAOCL provides operational culture and language familiarization pre-deployment training to over 28,000 Marines deploying worldwide for missions that span the range of military operations. CAOCL training solutions range from briefs to five-week classes to field assessments, and focus on those aspects of culture and language that will enhance Marines' capabilities in a specific mission and locale. Once deployed, CAOCL supports Marine units through the attachment of cultural advisors and through a reach-back capability. b. CAOCL provides operational culture instruction, support, and staff exercise participation for several MCU schools and other Marine Corps formal schools. CAOCL also offers Language Region Culture (LREC) related electives in support of MCU. c. CAOCL's principle education program is the Regional, Culture, and Language Familiarization (RCLF) Program, which is a career-length program designed to instill, develop, and sustain basic language, region, and culture capabilities in our career Marines. The end state of this program is to provide a basic foundation to enhance cross-cultural competence within the general purpose force through a familiarization with culture general concepts, culture specific context, and tactical phrase usage in a regional language. CORE OBJECTIVES TO BE ACCOMPLISHED: 1. Provide professionally delivered and effective culture-both country specific and regional-and native-level quality language training and education instructional program support as needed for all six Geographic Combatant Commander Areas of Responsibility. Instruction should incorporate specific information on local populations and military cultures as well as operationally relevant knowledge. Instruction shall be applicable and understandable for Marines at all levels of maturity, grade, and responsibility. 2. Provide cultural and language experise and advisory support to Commanders from the battalion level to the Marine Expeditionary Force level at both home station and deployed areas of operations. Support may require deployment for up to a year at a time. 3. Provide policy, planning, task, and operations analysis of operational culture and language services. In order to ensure institutionalization of LREC across the DOTMILPF Pillars. 4. Conduct translational scientific and socio-cultural research and analysis in support of operational culture and language services. 5. Provide the following services to augment operational culture and language support: administration, logistics, information technology and web development. INSTRUCTIONS: Responses to this RFI shall not exceed ten (10) pages, including cover letter and contact information. Subject response must contain: (1) Capability statement sufficient to demonstrate performance acumen directly related to the objectives stated; (2) If the respondent holds a General Services Administration (GSA) schedule, then the schedule and contract number should be included; (3) Three customer Citations describing similar work efforts; and (4) Other material relevant to establishing core competencies of the firm. Please identify Large/Small Business size status. All responses are due via email by 1100 hours EDT, on Friday July 10, 2015. Please submit responses to Kelly Bell and Hal Jones at Kelly.e.bell@usmc.mil and Hal.D.Jones@usmc.mil. NOTES: Issuance of this notice does not constitute any obligation whatsoever on the part of the Government to procure these services or to issue a solicitation. The Marine Corps is neither seeking proposals nor accepting unsolicited proposals, and responses to this notice cannot be accepted as offers. Any information the vendor considers proprietary should be clearly marked as such. The U.S. Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI. See FAR 52.215-3, Request for Information or Solicitation for Planning Purposes.