Kamalu Tinnell (“KT”) spent over 40 plus years in federal service specializing in the Acquisition Career field.  She has extensive experience as a former Operational Contracting Officer and Agreements Officer both with unlimited authority spanning a wide variety of types of procurement instruments.  Kamalu was co-founder of a fee-for-service business model for the Army which eventually obtained a new parent organization within the Department of the Interior (DOI) Office of the Secretary, National Business Center (NBC) (now named the Interior Business Center (IBC)) with a portfolio of $2.1 Billion.  The transitioning to DOI eventually allowed for the increase of clients for example within the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of the Interior (DOI) to name a few.  

At IBC, Kamalu became the principal contracting advisor and senior subject matter expert liaison to agency senior management, program management offices, customers/clients, and other agency contracting offices.  Contracting examples would include firm fixed price (FFP), cost-plus award fee (CPAF), cost-plus fixed fee (CPFF), cost-plus-incentive-fee (CPIF), cost no fee, cost-sharing, time and materials, Indefinite-Delivery-Indefinite-Quantity (IDIQ), and other common types of contract vehicles.  Several contract awards were accomplished through the formal source selection process.  Financial Assistance Agreements examples primarily for research and development efforts would include Grants, Cooperative Agreements, Other Transactions (OT), and Technology Investment Agreements (TIA).  

Kamalu selected the appropriate instrument, executed, and administered the resulting contract in support of Research and Development contracts and Financial Assistance Agreements.  Contracts were executed for Systems Engineering and Technical Assistance (SETA) contracts; Scientific, Engineering and Technical Assistance (SETA); Information Technology Contracts; Construction Contracts; Services, Supplies, etc.  For several years, Kamalu executed SETA contract awards utilizing the formal source selection process on behalf of five of the six technical offices for the Defense Advanced Research Policy Agency (DARPA) and the United States Army Electronic Proving Ground (EPG).

Customer and management appreciation of Kamalu’s knowledge and execution of a variety of requirements came in many forms.  One most memorable is when Kamalu became a recipient of the United States Department of the Interior Distinguished Service Award.