Federal Construction Contracting Made Easy

After a 35 year career of doing only federal construction contracts, completing more than a thousand of them all over the United States and off shore, I purchased the Kindle version of this book to see if there was anything that could have helped me. It turned out to be only a simplistic primer.For the most part, it is just a compilation of government regulations copied and quoted directly from the Federal Acquisition Regulations a/k/a the FARS. Just visit the government's purchasing portal known as FedBizOpps, download any of the construction documents, and you'll have the same regulations that make up most of this book.What Stan Uhlig does not cover in sufficient detail is the fact that the main problem with selling construction services to the federal government, particularly to the US Army Corps of Engineers, is that you are going to have to sign their contract, which is heavily weighted in the government's favor. Stan doesn't tell you that the government isn't always going to play fair. I can assure you from personal experience that they can be as ruthless as the mafia if they don't have the money to pay for necessary changes or they think it is in their best interest to bend or even break the rules.Something important for you to know: Under the FARS, the government's representative, the Contracting Officer, has the authority to direct work you may have not have even bid on. When that happens, the contractor is obligated to fund the extra work and go through a lengthy appeal process to get his money. Failure to follow a Contracting Officer's directive can result in a default termination, even if you didn't have the money to do the extra work.Many a naive contractor has gone broke before ever having the opportunity to make his case in front of an agency judge.On the other hand, if you start with this book or a reading of the FARS as they apply to construction, then do a Google search for "Government Construction Experts" (website is GCExperts with a dot com at the end), and get expert training and access to the tools, templates, technologies and systems that only a select few contractors have access to, then this can be the greatest business available to contractors, particularly in these economically challenging times.To conclude, there's nothing new in this book for an experienced federal construction contractor. It's clear that the author has only traditional construction experience. During his career he followed the rules and a very traditional path. Unfortunately, if you try and use this book as a primer on how to be successful against the current hyper-competition caused by the weak economy, you'll be very disappointed. In today's federal construction market, you'll need a lot more than "Federal Construction Contracting Made Easy" to be successful. That said, if you are seriously looking for a "lot more" and what it really takes to be successful in the federal construction market, then "Government Construction Experts" 3-Day, high-intensity Workshop is where you'll find it. Visit[...] or [...] to learn more.Last but not least, get a subscription to the Federal Construction Magazine. It will keep you ahead of the learning curve and the stories are of real projects being completed by real contractors.