Hey guys, new here.
I’m career law enforcement and after doing my time as chief, I stepped down into a reserve special investigator position and opened up shop for myself as a legal investigator in the private sector. I’ve noticed there seems to be constant advertising for independent contractors in the federal BI arena and am interested in adding that on as an a-la-cart service to several other licenses/services I already offer out of my office.
Before I got serious about law enforcement, I had a couple failed attempts at military service. Same situation both times. Wanted to serve, but completely unable to adjust. Have zero ability to live in close quarters with a bunch of naked dudes in a high stress environment. In both instances, I got entry level sep’ed out citing personality disorder. This was back when they still slapped that on every other jacket for convenience discharges.
So I came home and decided to serve on the law enforcement side of the table. I have since passed all my psych evals without a hitch, never a mention of any personality disorder. And I found that in 2008 congress rescinded the military’s ability to continue using PD as a blanket characterization to mitigate liability for fast tracking problematic troops back out of the service. They now can only use that for people genuinely suffering from a debilitating long term condition and they have to use “Failure to Adjust” for the rest.
Technically, if somebody has a personality disorder to the extent it makes them a security risk it can be grounds to refuse a clearance. It should be obvious on the face that’s not the situation with me. Is it worth the time and effort to go through the long drawn out process to have my DD214s changed from PD to FTA before I begin a background process for OPM contract investigations? Or is the distinction clear enough to them that it won’t be necessary?
Appreciate any insight you guys can offer.
Thanks, SD
I suspect that the adjudication has allowed for the change ten years ago and this shouldn’t be a problem.
You can’t get your own “license” to do clearance BI’s. You will need to be hired on to one of the agencies that contracts for investigations. I’m not sure that they are going to be looking for part-time investigators. That’s not, in my understanding, what the independent contractor investigators are doing.
Thank you for your response. I appreciate the help.
Most of the companies state that they are only interested in full time dedicated investigators and their descriptions do sound more like an employee. But there are still several that use terminology like “part time” or “on your own schedule.” Further reading details that they expect somebody to have their own DBA and corporate entity setup to operated under and then they just take whatever open cases they want when they want to take one. Clearly an independent sub-contractor. They don’t even pay you during training. But that begs the question, if you’re holding the bag, keeping the insurances, and responsible for all costs, taxation, etc., why not just apply to have your agency that you’re already operating approved as the contracting agency and just go directly through the OPM or DOJ or whoever is ultimately contracting the agency placing such ads. Do you know what the process would be to become an approved vendor? Or is that even open to small one man offices?
Small operators can not go directly to OPM or DoD to become direct contractors. The contractor is sent to big every 5 years or so where they are awarded to contract companies.
In your position, you would have to sub-contract (independent contractor) to a larger company.
Google is always a great place to start.
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Clearly you put that life behind you and achieved personal levels of success. I would recommend pursuing the change just for personal satisfaction. Much like a WWII vet who didn’t get to graduate. I saw a few of these awesome types recently cross the stage to get that diploma. Does anyone really care an 80 plus year old guy got a diploma? No. But it meant the world to them. So in that vein I would seek a lawyer specializing in that business and get a feel for what amount of red tape it requires. If it is something reasonably affordable and on a quick enough timeline, go for it. Then set out to find the companies with contract awards for BI’s.