Contract Specialist, Gs-1102-14

**Duties**:
You will serve as a senior advisor, consultant and liaison to top management officials, policy makers, and nongovernmental organizations and institutions on challenging, new developments in contracting/procurement initiatives which are Coast Guard-wide (CG) in scope.

Being a CG civilian makes you a valuable member of the Coast Guard team. Typical work assignments include:

- Managing acquisitions involving diverse areas such as major acquisitions, state-of-the-art systems and subsystems, engineering and technical support services.
- Negotiating the majority of acquisitions, employing a variety of contract types, such as: cost reimbursement, incentive, indefinite delivery and firm fixed price,
including new concepts, state-of-the-art procurements and the use of originality in formulating acquisition strategy.
- Negotiating price, contract specifications, delivery date, incentives, and other critical terms of conditions; awards or recommends award of the contracts; investigating and resolving contractor delays, contractor performance appraisal, subcontractor surveillance, disposition of claims and similar matters.
- Interpreting and implementing procurement policies, regulations, and assisting in the development of acquisition related standard operating procedures for use by the Program Office and CG-91 subordinate Office organizations.
- Acting as a business advisor for CG-91 major and non-major acquisition programs, responsible for managing contract negotiations which require balancing between contract cost, schedule and performance concerns.
- Conducting in-depth compliance reviews and evaluation of complex, unusual, or unprecedented contract actions requiring higher-level approval.

**Requirements**:
**Conditions of Employment**:

- U.S. Citizenship is required.
- You may be required to serve a one-year probationary period.
- Employment and Financial Statement is required.

All qualification requirements must be met by the closing date of the announcement.

**Qualifications**:
**_For the GS-1102-14 positions:_**

**You must meet all three requirements listed below; unless you are covered by an exception**:
1) Completion of a 4-year course of study leading to a bachelor's degree with a major in any field, that included or was supplemented by at least 24 semester hours in any combination of the following fields: accounting, business, finance, law, contracts, purchasing, economics, industrial management, marketing, quantitative methods, or organization and management.

**NOTE**: The Defense Acquisition University (DAU) does not grant Academic degrees; therefore courses completed at the DAU are not creditable towards meeting the 24-semester hour requirement, in the fields identified above, unless the coursework has been evaluated by an accredited institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education and appears on a college or university transcript.

AND

NOTE: The agency may obtain a waiver for any individual not meeting the training requirements. The Coast Guard Head of the Contracting Activity must obtain the waiver from the DHS Chief Procurement Officer prior to the extension of an employment offer.

NOTE: If you are currently employed with an agency other than DHS and seeking a lateral transfer AND you were promoted to an 1102 position at or above the GS-13 level (or equivalent) after 12/31/99 based on a waiver of the agency's training requirements, you will need to be approved for another training waiver before you can be hired into a GS-1102 position at or above the GS-13 level with DHS. If you were hired into your current GS-1102-13 or higher-level position, with a non-DHS agency, based on an educational waiver, you will still have to meet the educational requirements stated in Qualification Requirements #1.

National Service Experience (i.e., volunteer experience): Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) must authorized employment offers made to current or former political appointees. If you are currently, or have been within the last 5 years, a political Schedule A, Schedule C, Non-career SES or Presidential Appointee employee in the Executive Branch, you must discuss this information to the Human Resources Office.

**Education**:
This position does have a positive education requirement. If you are including education on your resume, report only attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U. S. Department of education. See Requir