Achievement of Excellence in Procurement

For the seventh consecutive year, Delaware’s Government Support Services contracting team received the National Procurement Institute’s (NPI) Achievement of Excellence in Procurement Award. Among only 172 recipients nationwide among cities, counties, higher education, and state agencies, Delaware was one of only 4 state agencies in the nation to receive this award in 2022 recognizing organizational excellence in procurement.

Top 100 Fleet

The Delaware Fleet Services team continues recognition as “100 Best Fleets in the Americas” as reported by the National Association of Fleet Administrators (NAFA). The State earned the ranking of #49 in the nation, and is only one state central fleet receiving this recognition. This program recognizes “peak performing fleet operations” and “encourages the ever-increasing levels of performance and innovation within the public fleet industry.” This marks the fifteenth year in a row the state of Delaware, Fleet Services, has been honored.

Jessica “Jessie” Durham has been with the State Messenger Services for 19 years. Over the course of the last year, we have put Jessie in a position to take more of a leadership role within the division and she has done an excellent job. Jessie is the go-to person for new stops looking to be added to our routes. She overviews the request and determines the best possible route to assign them to, as well as coordinating the days they will be getting mail service. This ensures optimizing efficiencies for the agency and the GSS Messenger Services operation.

Further, Jessie has taken the lead for many of our upstart projects. The biggest of the projects, is the assumption of Archives Delivery service. Agencies will contact us with requests retrieve storage boxes from their location and deliver the same to the Archives building in Dover for either storage or shredding. These can range from something as simple as 1 location and 10-15 boxes, to multiple locations with an upwards of 120 - 130 boxes that need to be collected. This variability requires our team to ensure adequate transportation, coordinate the retrieval and not directly impact existing customer expectations.  Read More

• She has continued to be the main cover driver for our Kent and Sussex routes. If someone calls out, she fills in on the route needed. Jessie has also become our main trainer for Messenger Services. Any new hire is trained with her for their first two weeks to maintain consistency within our trainings of new hires. They will ride the assigned route with her, and then come back to the office where she will walk them through using the mail machines and how to meter, or sort mail accordingly. Moreover, Jessie is also my backup when it comes to the management aspect. If I am out on vacation, or sick, Jessie fills in the roll and we barely miss a step. This includes researching discrepancies, handling complaints or lost mail, and designating people to get the afternoon mail over to the Post Office for deployment to their final destinations.

  Finally, Jessie also helps out with other divisions as needed. By example, if Fleet needs vehicles picked up and delivered and are shorthanded, Jessie is who they go to. Over the past several months she has helped Fleet move an upwards of 10-15 vehicles between New Castle and Kent. Whether they need to be picked up from the fleet pool on the Herman Holloway campus, or delivered to another location for outfitting, Jessie is always there to help along with the process.

Carmen is all about the data, documenting processes, continuous process improvements, and identifying efficiencies. While Carmen remains dedicated to finding efficiencies, with changes in leadership this year she also shows great flexibility by taking time to explain her “current” role, learn what metrics are important to the new leadership, as well as anticipate and answer questions you may not have thought to ask. Having a shared interest in maximizing efficiencies and providing excellent customer service, Carmen has been an invaluable partner to collaborate with. With every report or project she has involvement in, she shares the who, when, and why. She takes it a step further by sharing where it used to be; reporting by example, time it took to complete when she joined GSS compared to the time it takes to complete now. Carmen's analytical skills make her my go to person when I have an idea I need help with figuring out the "how".  Read More

• Putting the volume of analytics into perspective and clearly demonstrate the vast data collection and analysis efforts undertaken on a continuous basis, I will point to three unique responsibilities. They are:

  • Day-to-day oversight of the Management Analyst teams that aggregate, collate and load vendor expenditure from 260 awarded contracts with 821 unique vendors that must be tracked every month. The subsequent analysis accounts for the $328 million FY2022 spend, which is pushed to Open Data for vendor transparency initiatives.
  • Second, the same team is responsible for the oversight of the eMarketplace purchasing portal with the 4.5 million items published and available.
  • Third, is the provision of quarterly and the annual OSD diversity spend reports which are an obligatory data analytical service required by GSS to the Office of Supplier Diversity as identified by Executive Order No. 49. The collection of data requires gleaning information from multiple databases for certified and self-declared vendor spend by all state agencies (including the 19 SD and 30+ charters), which demonstrate the state's efforts to procure from diverse vendors. And, to this end, in FY2022, Carmen was able to determine the expenditures which accounted for $720.9 million to diverse and Small Business Focus vendors.

  Her commitment to State government, through collaboration and efficiencies is greatly appreciated.

Beginning in 2020, working with DFM, GSS signed a lease for newly constructed facility at Landing Square off Bay Road. Throughout the process, Larry has kept GSS leadership on track and aware of events as construction proceeded and coordinated the often-overlooked activities to ensure a successful move. GSS was originally scheduled to move into the facility as of October 2021, but given market conditions, construction delays and supply chain disruptions, GSS did not officially move into its new facility until June 2022.  Read More

• From the original anticipated move, there were periodic starts and stops as turnover drew near only to be delayed. Each of the four separate delays, while seemingly minor, it was necessary to reset expectations, send communications, coordinate schedules, etc. Further during this time, Larry managed a GSS leadership change where its long-time Director retired, its new Director took over and a new GSS Deputy Director joined.

  Throughout the office transition process, Larry has assisted in the following activities:

  • Selection, ordering, delivery and processing of new reception, cubicle, and conference room furniture and equipment.
  • Coordination, delivery and payment processing for all fixtures, and reimbursement submission for grant monies to pay for fixtures; saving thousands of dollars (for the citizenry) by deferring costs to available outside resources.
  • Assisting with the color scheme selection, including carpet, paint and cubicles for the new facility.
  • Coordinating the rollout out of new technology equipment to multiple sections over the same period for pre and post move delivery.
    • Working with 0MB IT and DTI to complete the same.
  • Coordinate installation of conference room technology by two separate vendors which will allow GSS to offer state agencies dynamic, multimedia space (without charge).
  • Oversee multiple pre and post facility move walk through with landlord, DFM and GSS leadership.
  • Create a move plan with internal and external partners and adjusting as delays took effect.
    • Include sublet partner (DTI Output Management) in discussions and preparation for the move and where able, to offer access to coordinated move services.
  • Coordinate the creation of internal section move teams to ensure each area is prepped.
  • Bid out and offer selection advice on services to janitorial, movers and furniture vendors for the move.
  • Coordinate security access control protocols, conferring with multiple partners (DTI/Advantech).
  • Message building tenants to ensure move awareness and establishing expectations.
  • Communicate with continuing business partners and transitioning services to new building (trash and USPS)
  • Where necessary, personally removing installed items (whiteboards, pictures and accessories)

  Throughout the process, Larry has demonstrated exceptional project management, task and communication skills. His willingness to own many processes, act as intermediary and alleviate leadership engagement from email and coordination activities has been indispensable to the process and project.

  As of this submission, GSS has moved into the facility. And while there will continue to be small tasks and obstacles to overcome, these additional items are insignificant when compared to the overall move. Larry has been indispensable to the entire process and should be recognized for his efforts.

Since the COVID 19 pandemic hit in March of 2020, Dan Ramsey, as the warehouse supervisor, has continued to demonstrate his extraordinary dedication to the program serving so many Delawareans. He and his team have worked in person, receiving and delivering USDA foods to over 200 locations throughout Delaware under very difficult circumstances. Due to social distancing requirements, we had to change the way food is delivered so that only one person is in the truck cab performing the deliveries which put even more responsibility on our professional CDL drivers. Like many agencies, several of our employees tested positive for COVID and others stepped up to fill in the gap, with Dan and Terrance being the leaders. While we have struggled for years to attract and retain CDL drivers, the pandemic has exacerbated this problem as there is now a nationwide shortage of drivers needed due to the increase of home deliveries caused by COVID.  Read More

• Over the last year, we lost all 3 drivers in the program to external employers and other state agencies leaving only Dan Ramsey as our sole Food Program driver. Terrance Clark received a promotion from our Food department into Surplus in July of 2021 but with the loss of our last Food driver, he has returned to Food to ensure that deliveries continue. Terrance has willingly gone wherever needed and whenever possible, returns to Surplus to work extra time to assist that area which has been short staffed as well. Between Food and Surplus, we should be staffed with 6 employees with CDL licenses. From November 2021 through late January 2022, Dan and Terrance were the only two drivers covering both programs. Additionally, both Dan and Terrance took on the additional task of providing driver training to Steven Scaffedi who successfully passed his CDL driver exam in late January 2022.

  The pandemic itself has added further challenges as sites have had to cancel deliveries at the last minute due to staff shortages. Incoming shipments have been delayed or shown up with no appointment and Dan continues to manage his warehouse staff despite being out on the road delivering every single day. During the first quarter of 2022, there were also school closures due to inclement weather which necessitated rescheduling and doubling or even triple deliveries in one day.

  As referenced above, the Food Program has continued deliver and meet our various customers' needs. Since the beginning of FY2022, the Food Program has delivered over 3.2 million pounds of food equating to over 1 10,000 cases to eligible agencies and school districts.

  Both Dan and Terrance have worked extremely hard to continue to provide exceptional service to our schools, food banks and pantries and senior citizen centers and their efforts deserve to be recognized!