City Awards 5-Year Airport Engineering Contract to Jviation

SAN ANGELO, TX – Following the expiration of the five-year engineering agreement with KSA Engineers, the airport submitted a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to which six firms submitted a proposal: GEE, KSA, Centurion, Jviation, PSC and Garver. 

The five-member review committee scored Jviation the highest, followed by Garver and then Centurion. The committee agreed Jviation was the most qualified based on the RFQ process due to their extensive knowledge in airport engineering, FAA grant administration, FAA familiarity and experience in similar projects. 

The review committee scored the submittals based off the criteria listed further below. The scores were presented to the public and Airport Advisory Board at the March 4 meeting. With no public comments, the vote was unanimous in Jviation’s favor. Since the majority of the projects listed in the RFQ will be funded through FAA Airport Improvement Program Grants, the scoring design criteria followed FAA Advisory Circular 150/5100-14E. The FAA does not allow for additional local preference outside of the design criteria. The scoring criteria is listed below:

• Capability to perform all or most aspects of the listed projects and recent experience in airport projects demonstrating competence in the referenced scope of work, including proper administration of FAA-funded projects. 
• Key personnel’s professional qualifications, experience, integrity and availability to competently perform the referenced scope of work, their knowledge of FAA policies and procedures, and experience working with the FAA Southwest Region.
• Demonstrated ability to meet schedules and deadlines.
• Quality of airport projects previously undertaken with a similar scope and capability to complete projects without having major cost escalations or overruns.
• Qualifications and experience of sub-consultants regularly engaged by the consultant under consideration.
• Capability of a branch office that will do the work to perform independently of the home office, or conversely, its capability to obtain necessary support from the home office.
• Ability to furnish qualified inspectors for construction inspections.
• Understanding of the project’s potential challenges and the sponsor’s special concerns.
• Degree of interest shown in undertaking the project and their familiarity with and proximity to the geographic location of the project.
• Capability to conduct a Value Engineering (VE) study for projects that are particularly complex or have unique features. 

The review committee was selected by the airport director and approved by City management prior to reviewing the submittals. The individuals chosen for the committee were familiar with the projects listed in the RFQ and could score the submittals as fairly and objectively as possible. 

Review Committee: 

• Jeremy Valgardson – Airport Director
• Bobby Frank – Airport Board Representative
• Bob Schneeman – COSA Economic Development
• Shaun Cookson – Former Airport Deputy Director
• Nolan Sosa – COSA Purchasing Manager

More about Jviation 

Jviation is an aviation engineering firm hyperfocused on the aviation sector. They are unique in that they do not split their services with civil engineering projects. Their staff consists of more than 185 aviation professionals with varying resources. These professionals are comprised of former FAA, state and county project administrators, as well as former airline and airport representatives. Several of their employees have worked with the Texas ADO directly. Their engineers work directly with their government liaison staff to help airports compete for highly competitive discretionary and supplemental grant funding.

Jviation designs shelf-ready projects that can be constructed immediately as time sensitive supplemental infrastructure grants become available. They demonstrated in their RFQ that they become an extension to airport staff and can provide important resources to help airports be successful. Jviation highlighted a 30/60/90-day plan to ensure airports can maximize their grant potential by completing projects on time and within budget. Within this plan, Jviation has committed to providing quality design projects that are ready for bid within 90 days from the initial design meetings. This will help the airport complete projects on time and become more competitive for future grants.

The majority of the projects completed under the agreement with Jviation will be funded by the FAA and Passenger Facility Fees. Because the airport is a user-based facility, local tax dollars will not likely be spent on the projects listed under this RFQ. As the engineer on record, Jviation will only be designing projects and providing construction management and grant administration. Each project will be bid out separately using the City’s purchasing policy. The contractors doing construction will be selected by the City based on the bidding process. Jviation will also have to provide a scope of work for each project and an independent fee estimate will be conducted to ensure their fees are fair and reasonable. 

Jviation will work closely with Centurion to complete projects listed on the masterplan. Centurion still holds the planning contract with the airport and all planning-related items will continue to be contracted through Centurion.