Hello, Defender 66,
I certainly apologize for not holding an all-hands call to announce my departure. Although we knew PMO changes were coming–we’d been shrinking since September 2019–it did come up suddenly. We notified only my team and the PMO. If he hasn’t already done so, I suspect Brian S will let everyone know if a future all-hands call.
By far, ISN is the best company for whom I’ve ever worked. We did challenge the industry culture, placed value on people and meant what we said about open communication. I know they will continue doing so going forward.
My best to all. Do good. Be kind. Fear nothing,
-Russ
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Hello, all,
ISN has not folded. Granted, the DCSA program is undergoing all the turmoil as all other vendors. ISN has multiple contracts and and is continually looking to expand that portfolio. The company will be fine.
Compared to other vendors, ISN’s DCSA BI program was growing tremendously, then the changes hit and we shrank. There was no longer a need for five directors, a large PMO, and 475+ FIs. The downsizing began in August 2019 and has been on-going. The only thing that will save the program in its current state will be the strong partnership with the ISN prime and the backlog of initial cases now building due to COVID-19.
By the way, I’m bent but not broken. I wish everyone the very best now and always. If I can help in any way, please contact me.
Stay safe and healthy,
-Russ
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Thanks for your transparency! Yes, ISN is by far the best company and you, by far, the best boss! I would still be there had this mess not started and I hope they rebound!
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Russ give us a powerful story! We need it right now! 
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How refreshing! Maybe the other companies that lay this claim will follow through and truthfully represent those words.
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ISN was a good company to work for. I was an IC for them for a couple years. ISN wasn’t organized with their invoicing process and their constant barrage of emails with no central repository was annoying but overall they treated Investigators with professionalism which is a heck of a lot better than what CACI and Perspecta can say for themselves. I believe ISN would have continued to treat people the best that worked for them because their management were all cast offs from USIS , Perspecta, and CACI that witnessed and observed personally how destructive and divisive those companies are.
I wish they were still around but the industry is going down a bad road with CE now in place and the other two major vendors (CACI and Perspecta) are hemorrhaging within the last year. I forsee DCSA not using any vendors once CE is in place across all agencies. It will be entirely a federal function.
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I think you are right I just don’t see a future or a large future for contractors. Despite that I have been one for many years and feel this should have always been a federal function. I have always been astounded that we carry this silver badge. I just wonder though why so many of the other agencies don’t use feds for their investigations? I have never heard of CBP, ICE, UNI…using feds? Why is that?
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Well DHS (CBP and ICE) to include all of the Intel agencies, FBI, ATF, USAID, and State Department don’t have near the volume of work that OPM/NBIB/DCSA has so they really couldn’t keep a F/T federal agent busy in most areas of the country. With the old OPM contract, 90% or more of all federal agencies use this investigative arm to conduct their federal background investigations. That is hundreds of federal agencies going through OPM/NBIB/DCSA for the investigations to be completed and accounts for all of the DOD work and DOD contract work, all of the Department or Energy work throughout the country to also include all of the public trust positions with the Dept of Agriculture, Dept of Interior, etc.
My hope is that DCSA dumps the vendors (CACI, Perspecta, and SCIS) and uses IC’s as direct federal contractors (no middle man vendor) just like the the FBI, Dept. of State, and ATF uses IC’s in this manner. It’s the best way. It also saves the government tax payers a third or more of what they pay the vendors to do this work. It’s a no brainer. OPM were just cowards and incompetent to ever set up such a program with direct federal contractors. I hope DCSA is more intelligent.
Anyone that has worked in this business know that the vendors corrupt the process. The vendors treat Investigators horribly minus ISN. The vendors rape and pillage the Investigator and suck every ounce of blood like a vampire from the Investigator through over assigning them, over working them, underpaying Investigators, threatening us, holding unattainable metrics and stats over us, and the list could go on and on. I’ve worked for them all. I have first hand experience. In fact, I do believe in less than 5 years, DCSA will dump all the vendor relationships and initiate a direct federal contract program to allow IC’s to provide the ancillary support on this DCSA contract once CE is up and running and there will be no need for these big vendors on the contract any longer. That will be a happy and blessed day for me because I’ll be sitting pretty with an existing SAM account and other existing direct federal contracts that I currently have. I’m just waiting out the self destruction of the vendors and it will happen. When it does, I’ll take advantage of the opportunity.
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@Duetooversight, Spot on! I just have a few additions.
CACI is doing an internal competitive ranking system with it’s investigators. They call it the tier system with tier 4 at the bottom. If you are a tier 4, you are not assigned work unless all the other investigators are full on work. There is no transparency based on what the team numbers are, you are only told (if you are told) which tier you are in. I believe it’s the way to force out investigators without announcing that they are downsizing.
This has been the worst job that I have ever had in my life. I have never been treated so badly before. The stress is ridiculous they put on us and expect us to perform better? My hat is off to all the investigators out there still doing this work. You are doing important work and is well appreciated by other investigators that know what you do everyday! Good luck to you all.
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You should leave F/T hourly work and become an IC and leave DCSA altogether if you want to stay in this industry. I wouldn’t tolerate their silly ranking system. What a slap in the face.
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ISN is still clicking! Just trudging along and surviving looking to come out on the other side intact…
I have always said the same thing: dump these companies, appoint Contractor Liaisons at DSCA and let us deal directly with DCSA, The government would save a fortune. These companies suck the blood from their employees and throw them to the wolves by cutting hours. They know darn well that most areas around the country are not hiring at the moment and they know this. We could perform training and other tasks which equal to 40-hour work weeks. I look at this as disloyalty to their employees. They want your blood when you are working, but won’t give theirs in return. It’s quite sickening. I have been continuously looking for other employment OUT of this industry. It’s a shame because the job itself is not the problem.
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The job duties and work we perform has never been the issue. It’s the vendors that make this job miserable. It’s very unfortunate but the old OPM/NBIB and now DCSA know full well what they are doing. The federal OPM/NBIB/DCSA program only functions if the contractors and vendors are doing their job which in the past has equates to more than 50% of all output on this federal investigative services contract. The federal agents with their GS 12 salaries, government work vehicles, and pensions wouldn’t be able to be sustainable without the contractor work force doing 50-60% of the work. In fact, when the vendors agree on contract pricing, OPM used to take 1/2 off the top from the vendor for what was paid to them from the agency. Think of all that extra revenue. Where does it go? Well only OPM can account for that. I think anytime there is a disparity of forty to fifty thousand dollars between a contract investigator and a federal agent salary doing the exact same job, there should be some serious distrust going on in my opinion. Makes no sense. Most contractors in most all other government sectors are paid better than a federal employee. That’s why military personnel like to go work for Lockheed and Raytheon in various DOD contract entities after their military retirement. But here in this industry, it’s one of the few where the federal employee makes double or triple what the contractor makes for doing less work. I’ve never understood that.
With CE coming into fruition, DCSA May be able to be self sustainable with much less contractor/vendor assistance but I think they’ll always be contractors (direct federal or through the vendors) albeit there will not be a five to six thousand number of contract Investigators like there have been in the past. I see a contractor work force of perhaps 500-1,000 in the coming years. All the more reason why DCSA can initiate a direct federal contract program because it will be smaller than the 5,000 to 6,000 person CI program that OPM would never consider in the past due to the numbers and oversight of so many CI’s.
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The only problem with that is IC can come and go as they please. An employed workforce is always there. It takes only one weird world event or war to have the need to ramp up investigations. Without a ready investigator force they’d be out of luck.
You must not understand how a direct federal contract works as an IC. That model has worked for decades with other agencies in lean and heavy times.
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I left DCSA all together and I’ve never been so stress free on the other contracts
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Let’s be honest here. ISN was a great company because It didn’t hold investigators accountable. An investigator who had been in the field 3-4 years (what they called associate investigators) was only required to do 2 points a day. The management staff (some) was made up of former investigators who were fired from previous investigations jobs. They lured people over by promising them management jobs that they already had pinned. Let’s talk about the SI’s who knew nothing and pointed everyone to someone else. Sorry but ISN were nice people, but on the business side, they failed repeatedly. They stopped having work in March of 2019. Dragged us along as if they were going to get another contract. I knew my time was up when the VP got on a conference call with all of us bashing GDIT and CACI. It was highly unprofessional. I’m glad I was able to get out. So yes, ISN was a great employer. They paid you while you did absolutely nothing.
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Wow. I was an Associate with 1-2 years in and had a quota of 2.5 to 4.5 per day And was ready for promotion and a quota increase for year 3 which would’ve been 3.5 to 5.5 I believe but easily managed 4.5 as an Associate. Had two amazing SI’s while I was there and I never heard the VP bash CACI. He did bash GDIT and rightfully so! GDIT shafted ISN for over $14,000,000.00. GDIT paid the price. ISN PAID THEIR STAFF FULL WAGES after the GDIT divorce until the contract with CACI started. ISN is still operating and I was proud to be apart of the company until this whole new DCSA change which affected everyone. ISN NEVER pushed their Investigators and was also open and upfront. I had plenty of work and also had time to produce quality reports without being pressured to over push myself. Loved everything about the experience. Sorry, but you are obviously disgruntled and it probably showed then like it does now.
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I’m not disgruntled at all. I left on great terms. I still speak with some of them in leadership and their investigators use me as a reference all the time. I am just speaking the truth. But with you only having a short time in the field you wouldn’t understand anyway. But I’ll break it down for you. There were three levels Associate, Investigator and Senior Investigator. As an associate, you did not have to make 4.5 points a day that is simply untrue. An investigator had to make 4 points. As a senior investigator you only had to get 5-5.5 points a day. So you saying that makes no sense. You only had to make 2 points a day. Year 3 as an associate making 2-3 points a day is unacceptable. You do realize that as an investigator with 3 years experience you were only required to make 10-15 points a week. For THREE YEARS! 
Let’s not forget all of the things you could get credit for. How does an investigator learn if they don’t have to do any work. I am willing to place a bet that the new investigators who went on to CACI, PERSPECTA or any other vendor are struggling. Brian absolutely bashed CACI and sung GDIT praises. Not sure when you came but ask him if he frequently bashed them on conference calls. I have no reason to make things up. I’m simply telling the truth. Anyone who says anything different are probably still tied to the company. With that said, I loved not having any stress after 15 years in this business. Trust me it was welcomed. Do you think paying their staff full wages was smart? Or did it essentially put them where they are today. It’s amazing they did what they did for employees. You’re thinking on a personal level. I’m thinking on a business level. What are you doing today? I’ll end with I had a great time at ISN. Not disgruntled but knew this day would happen. What GDIT owed ISN is none of our business. As a leader, Brian should have kept that with upper management.
I retired after 31 years in the AF. Started with ISN in Dec 2017. As an Associate my expectation was 2.5 to 4.5 SU’s per day. I easily made 4.5. I had all the work I needed. ISN kept the burn out from happening and you criticize that? ISN paying is through the summer of 2019 has nothing to do with where they are today. After April 2019, I never heard Brian praise GDIT and I never heard him bash CACI. I was in in every call until I left in Jan 2020. What am I doing now? I would still be at ISN getting the job done under some great Leadership, had these changes with DCSA and CE not occurred as would hundreds of others. However, I had to move on, by no fault of ISN. I’m now with the Dept of Veterans Affairs and I left ISN with a clean slate and and open invitation to return when and if things change. Oh, at the time, yes, Arvin made a great decision to
maintain his staff and I think his company, as a whole, shows he knows what he’s doing.