Sustainability is a We Issue

Tina Richards joined SAIC in 2011 and has held roles including IT/hardware category purchasing manager, procurement director in charge of direct materials, and vice president of procurement. She leads a team of about 260 procurement professionals and over-sees more than $3 billion in direct and indirect spend. 

Prior to joining SAIC, she worked in the nuclear industry in marketing and account management, procurement, and contracts. Richards serves on the University of Tennessee Global Supply Chain Institute Advisory Board and was recently named to the WashingtonExec Top 15 Supply Chain Executives to Watch in 2022.

NCMA CEO Kraig Conrad, MBA, CAE, CTP, sat down with Richards in April 2022, to discuss her career journey and why sustainability is a vital part of the future of the contract management profession. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Kraig Conrad (KC): As you grew and took on greater roles in your career, which of those steps were purposeful moves and which were accidents?

Tina Richards (TR): My first job here in Tennessee was as a temp. My husband and I had just moved from a three-year stay in England, and while I was looking for a career job, 

I took a temporary position in the nuclear industry as a receptionist for a radioactive waste processor. That ended up being a great way to learn. I started volunteering to work on proposals and took a job in the marketing department. 

I had some great mentors in the Oak Ridge area, one of whom was Faye Orick, an NCMA Fellow, who later got into procurement. She was a subcontracts manager working for a Department of Energy (DoE) contractor. I was taking some time off after my second son was born and she heard that I was thinking about coming back to work. 

She told me her company needed help with audits to make sure they were compliant. I didn’t know what she was talking about. Government contracts? The FAR? But I said, “I’m game, if there’s some training. That sounds interesting.”

I fell in love. They sent me to Arlington, Virginia, for training, and I did a bunch of reading on my own. They offered me a sub-contracts administrator position, and that became my first procurement job. That was really serendipity – from the temp job to the nuclear industry, and then into DoE contracting – but it served as the kickoff for my procurement career. 

KC: You mention a mentor who was very influential in your career. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Once you got into contracting, what kept you here?

TR: The mentor who brought me in was a big proponent of getting involved in the community, not just within your company, so she got me involved in NCMA. I don’t know how she did it, but somehow, I ended up in volunteer positions. I just couldn’t say no to her. That said, it was a great learning experience.

When I was studying for the CFCM, she had this crazy suggestion, “Read the FAR into a tape recorder and then listen to it on your commute.” And you know, it’s not the most interesting thing to read, record, and listen to, but I did it. It really worked! She helped me to think beyond just the job, to think about the community, and about always improving and growing.

That’s what led me to SAIC. I was working for a small DoE contractor, and I was heavily involved in NCMA, where I had met several people who worked at SAIC. They had started a shared-service center where multiple functions were located, procurement being one of them, and they had an opening for a manager. 

Someone I had just met through NCMA reached out and said, “Hey, don’t you do a lot of federal procurement? We really need someone who understands the FAR and is conversant with federal procurement.” I said, “That is what I do.” It turned into a lunch with the procurement director. Within a few days I had my offer. That was more than 11 years ago, and I have been there ever since.

When the company split in 2013, that provided an opportunity for me to be promoted to director of procurement for the new SAIC shared-service center. From there, I became a vice president and then, a little over five years ago, senior vice president and chief procurement officer. 

It’s about keeping that curiosity and that desire to learn and grow, plugging into industry, meeting your peers, and learning from them. Those things have colored my career and helped me to get to where I am today.

KC: I want to move now to your focus at SAIC on sustainable contracting. How did you come into that work, and why has it be-come so important at SAIC, which is certainly not a manufacturer with large greenhouse gas issues?

TR: I got the role because it makes sense that the head of procurement or supply chain would be engaged in sustainable procurement. This is important to SAIC because as you know, it is primarily a service provider, but it also does what I’d call light manufacturing. 

SAIC builds cable assemblies in Indiana and the afterbody tail cone of a torpedo in Rhode Island. So, we do have a stake in that. 

But why do we want to do it? Because it’s the right thing to do. It's important as part of our overall environmental, social and governance (ESG) effort and I hope it's important to everyone. It’s not a you or them issue, it’s a we issue. We all want a planet that’s going to be around for millenia. 

The federal government has an enormous budget. If we can influence that spend in a way that does no harm, takes into account the total lifecycle costs, and makes for more sustainable purchasing, why would we not do that?

KC: You and Holly Elwood are co-chairs of the NCMA Sustainable U.S. Procurement Community of Practice (COP). Members of our community often wonder how someone gets that type of leadership role. Could you share the story about how you and Holly came to be the leaders of the COP?

TR: I was at World Congress in Denver this past July, and I was approached by Wendy Masiello, who now is NCMA president. She was aware that sustainability was already on my radar at SAIC, and she chatted with me about it. 

She introduced me to Steve Schooner2 and I’ve never met anyone more passionate about the subject. We had a great conversation. Then another member of the coalition of the willing, Tim Cook,3 sat down with me at the advisory board meeting. 

By the end of the conference, I knew I was going to be co-chairing this and it was going to be a really great experience. And, selfishly, I felt like this could help me with my own sustainability journey. The timing was perfect. 

Holly came a little later. She participated in some early webinars and every time she opened her mouth, I learned something. So, I called her and said, “Why don’t you come co-chair this with me? You would be fantastic.” We hit it off, and we haven’t looked back.

KC: Great story. Are there some key outcomes that the COP wishes to achieve?

TR: I think so. We’re already behind Europe in terms of sustainability, as you know, so seeing some of the recent executive orders has been very encouraging. The COP has members from both government and industry, and it would be great if we could start to help shape some of the regulation we would like to see.

I think if we can help shape sustainability regulation, we can help it take effect over time so that people are able to catch up. I want government and industry to have more empathy for each other in terms of how these regulations affect us. 

It can’t be all-or-nothing on day one. We have a lot of people in our community of practice, and some are at the very first step of their journey. They’re saying, “I’m a little curious, why do I keep hearing the word ‘sustainable?’ What does it mean?” 

It reminds me a little of the NIST 800-171 standard for protecting the confidentiality of controlled unclassified information. We had a timeframe during which we had to get our system security plan in place. 

I see sustainability standards being something like that. But until this is really taken seriously by both industry and government, it’s going to be hard to make any kind of sustained progress. I’d like our COP to be part of that conversation and part of that shaping.

KC: That’s a great point. In contract management, we often have to think and work within a very small window and focus just on getting to contract within that window. We’re not necessarily thinking about sustainability, and what it’s going to cost in the long run. 

I’d like to close with a question about those coming into contract management to build their careers. Is there something you learned, or wish you had learned, earlier in your career that would have been more supportive of your growth? And is there anything else that you would like to share with those considering a career in contract management?

TR: Don’t be held back by your degree or your initial experience. If you find that this is a field of interest, that’s what it takes. It’s not like being an engineer or doctor who has to study for years just to get in the door. I definitely recommend it if you have the passion and the aptitude and you are curious, interested, and prepared to do the work. Read the Contract Management Body of Knowledge and this streamlined guide of 2,000 pages called the FAR. 

I’ve recommended this career field to so many different people from different backgrounds. I’ve hired some of them who have told me, “You know, I never would’ve considered it.” 

I never would have thought that I would love procurement the way I do, either. And this is especially true if you understand not just what you’re doing in your procurement role, but how everything you buy, service or material, fits into a mission that our executing body is fulfilling for the government, for the military, for civilian agencies. It feels good. 

I have been in my car and heard a story on the news and thought, “Oh yeah, we bought stuff for that today.” It’s a rewarding career. 

I would tell people to stay curious, ask questions, but don’t expect everything to be handed to you. Do the work, and not just what you can do between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sometimes it takes a little bit of time and extra effort go to those NCMA meetings, watch those webinars, listen to those podcasts, and do that reading. But it pays off. 

Something I didn’t appreciate when I was younger, but now that I’m older, I see how important it is to listen to older people in the field. They’ve already lived through so many of these scenarios that you’re tackling. They’ve got a wealth of knowledge and if you take time to listen to their stories, they can help you avoid some pitfalls in your own career.

KC: Is there anything else you would like to share?

TR: Only that I’ve been in this field now for a long time, and I find it so rewarding. I love the people. 

I encourage every young person I meet. I ask them, “Have you thought about contracting?” And even if you come from a scientific discipline, or engineering, there’s always some contracting or procurement job that could use those skills. 

So yes, I’m a big fan of this field. And I hope we will continue to bring in a lot of talented young people to finish what we have started. CM

ENDNOTES

Steven L. Schooner, Nash & Cibinic professor of procurement law, The George Washington University Law School, “Warming Up to Sustainable Procurement,” Contract Management, April 2022

Timothy Cook, CEO and Owner, ASI Government, Alan Chvotkin, Partner, Nichols Liu, Holly Elwood, Senior Advisor, EPA Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program, Tina Richards, CFCM, Chief Procurement Officer, SAIC, Stephen L. Schooner, Nash & Cibinic professor of procurement law, The George Washington University Law School, NCMA’s Climate & U.S. Sustainable Procurement Series