Patent and Trademark Office, Office of Procurement, Box 6, Washington, DC 20231

U -- COUNSELING, ACADEMIC ADVISING AND INDIVIDUAL ASSESSMENT SERVICES SOL None POC Naomi Sorrell, Contracting Officer, (703) 305-8563. E-MAIL: ERROR --, naomi.sorrell@uspto.gov. The Patent and Trademark Office, plans to award a sole source simplified acquisition to Northern Virginia Community College to obtain counseling, academic advising and individual assessment services for PTO employees enrolled in PTO's Corporate Learning Institute known as Patent and Trademark University (PTO-U). Since its inception in August 1994, PTO-U has provided academic and career counseling to all employees desiring to enroll in individual courses or programs of study. Additionally, each academic partner in PTO-U (i.e. Northern Virginia Community College, Marymount University, George Washington University, Syracuse University, etc.) provided counseling and advising to their respective students. PTO-U through its administrative management has also provided for extended career and professional vocational counseling services to all PTO employees regardless of their enrollment status. With the advances made in PTO's deployment of automated technology to support processing of applications in all majorcost centers and the implementation of new processes through reengineering, many employees will be facing upskilling and career transition assistance. This new effort will require a significant increase in both academic and career counseling. The contractor will provide an expanded variety of career counseling, academic advising and individual assessment services to employee/students applying for or enrolled in courses with one or more partners of PTO-U that supplements individual academic advising offered by each of the partner schools. The contractor will provide a full range of individual or group interest inventories, vocational batteries or technical aptitude batteries to employees/students, which will assist the individual and the agency in developing an employee career profile. The contractor will procure testing instruments, store, administer and interpret results; coordinate assessment of students and review of past academic course work along with an evaluation of related technical training; coordinate delivery of counseling, assessment services with each academic partner offering programs of study; coordinate with identified Office of Personnel Management officials to ensure concurrence with validity, reliability and test appropriateness; and adhere to stringent privacy procedures for assessment and conform with American Psychological Association (APA) standards for ethics in use of testing instruments. In addition, the contractor will provide professional counseling and coordination in support of the development, implementation and evaluation of PTO's Innovative Employee Program Pilot. Pursuant to the authority and guidance under Federal Acquisition Regulations Part 13, the Contracting Officer has determined that the proposed acquisition is within the simplified acquisition threshold, that the services needed by PTO are available from only one responsible source, and that the circumstances for a small business set-aside do not exists, and as such, the proposed purchase order will be negotiated using simplified acquisition procedures on an unrestricted sole source basis. This is neither a request for proposal nor request for quotations and a competitive solicitation is not available. Posted 08/18/98 (W-SN238392). (0230)

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