The Deep Throat 2015 – Perfect Commerce Connection by Jon Hansen

Since the #CodeGate story broke, I have been kept somewhat busy with the inflow of information regarding the internal goings on at the NIGP.  It feels like I have taken more than 100 pages of notes and reviewed even more in terms of documents online and otherwise provided.

What has enabled me to write the posts that I have to date, is that I was able to corroborate – through different sources, a story that has taken more turns than an Indiana Jones movie.  Who said that procurement is boring!

In my most recent series of posts, I have been focusing on the somewhat questionable RFI process for a seemingly worthless piece of real estate – the NIGP consultancy arm.

An important part of this process was investigating the list of the organizations who had responded to the “competitive” RFI. “The List” was originally provided by NIGP Chief Executive Rick Grimm, and was part of his response to allegations made by Deep Throat 2015 in my April 6th post “NIGP CodeGate’s Deep Throat reveals troubling conflicts of interest at the “non-profit” association.”

Suffice to say, while Grimm’s commentary in both the Deep Throat and prior to that, Gettysburg post, did little to assuage concerns regarding the clear conflict of interest of the not-for-profit’s relationship with Periscope, they did create another path of insight.  It is this latter insight that is the focus of today’s submission.

To start, I think that it is important to tell you that the very origins of this blog was based and built upon an unwavering adherence to the five values of collective life that G. Stuart Adam and Roy Peter Clark refer to as being “journalism’s best practices and protocols.”  Specifically truth, empiricism, verification, impartiality, and clarity.

For me there is no other way to cover this story, or for that matter any story.

What is surprising, and the reason I am telling you this – even though as a regular reader you will already know it, is that some may not have realized this about me.

On Friday, I published a post NIGP Consulting RFI: A Case Of Too Close For Comfort?

In it I made reference to Purchasing Outsource, which was one the companies listed by Grimm as being a respondent to the RFI.

The two people listed as representing that company were Jill Klaskin-Press and Tom Blaine.

At the conclusion of that post, I indicated that I would be reaching out to both Ms. Klaskin-Press and Mr. Blaine.

Tom Blaine’s name of course stood out for me, because it was the one that was used by the first Deep Throat, when they sent me the e-mail that I had shared verbatim in the above referenced April 6th post.

However, and up until today, I did not make the connection between the Deep Throat Tom Blaine and the Purchasing Outsource Tom Blaine.  In fact, the Deep Throat Blaine sent me an e-mail indicating that “By now you have discovered Tomblain is a commune in France and a state on one of the tour de France.”  He was of course right, in that upon receiving his first e-mail I did a search on the Internet and that is what came up.

However, I could not ignore the fact that there was a possibility that Deep Throat Tom Blaine and Purchasing Outsource Tom Blaine were one in the same.

So I sent an e-mail to Deep Throat Tom Blaine and asked the following simple question . . .

Hello Tom . . .

I noted that Rick Grimm provided the name of a Tom Blaine along with Jill Klaskin-Press . . . do we need to talk about this?

Best,

Jon

Using a different e-mail from the one he previously used, Tom Blaine wrote the following;

The Purchasing Outsource was formed by 3 colleagues after their retirement from public service. The business model proved to be unsustainable and the firm was closed. They are now consulting under JKP Consulting Group.

I then responded with the following questions;

Why was it unsustainable?  Was it set-up to specifically respond to the NIGP RFI? If it was, why?

How did Purchasing Outsource hear about the RFI request, and why did Purchasing Outsource decide to participate in the RFI?

Were you aware of any prior commitment on the part of Periscope to pay the NIGP up front money for the consulting arm before the RFI was even considered?

The thing that continues to puzzle me is why did Grimm bother to emphasize in his comments on the blog that it was a competitive tender and proceed to provide names? Did he not think that I would check out the names?

Also, why even bother to go into a long explanation as he did of how the “blue ribbon panel” as I have called them, managed the process properly – all this for a seemingly useless business arm of the NIGP that he reportedly didn’t care about, and has done very little since Periscope took the helm.

It just seems strange that he would risk putting himself out there a second time in terms of making a public statement in writing to refute the claim of Deep Throat that the process was less than legit?  (His first public comment regarding the Gettysburg post) did not help his cause or his image.

Why not just keep quiet? Why defend a seemingly useless piece of real estate being the consulting business?

Tom Blaine – and we now know there is only one, replied as follows;

It was set up to provide consulting assistance to entities that were putting on reverse trade shows. There was just not enough revenue return for the amount of work involved. The NIGP opportunity just came along and we responded to the RFI. We presumed that ultimately there may be a sub contracting opportunity. I think I heard about the RFI from someone that was a current consultant under the NIGP run consulting practice. I have no knowledge about the other questions to answer them.

In my reply to the above e-mail, I asked the following;

Reverse trade shows? It doesn’t seem like that would be an entity that would bid on a consulting opportunity of this nature.  In fact, such a bid could be easily dismissed my the NIGP – especially given the contents of the RFI?  Why would a then current consultant from the NIGP tell you about it and why would you pursue it?

Did anyone from either the NIGP or NIGP consulting group reach out to other potential candidates such as an Accenture or IBM or someone of a more notable stature in the consulting community?

At the risk of asking the obvious question . . . did it bother you and/or Jill re the route the NIGP chose – going with Periscope?  Why?

Below is the last response I received from Tom Blaine:

We had simular qualifications to the current consulting staff. In the public sector bidding process many small firms respond to RFIs with the hope that a bigger firm might need their services. This was a RFI only. Your posting was the first time I saw the RFI respondent list. I am surprised that more firms did not respond. I have now idea how broadly the net was cast for responses. It is always better for a a government or quasi-government entity for the sake of transparency to follow the process they publish.

Jill and I pursued other opportunities shortly after the RFI process and probably would not have had time available to do NIGP consulting.

Now this already interesting and perhaps disturbing development might have ended here, with lingering questions as to whether or not Klaskin-Press and Blaine’s firm were part of an “exercise” to add legitimacy to a questionable RFI process. His statement regarding the presumption that “there may be a sub contracting opportunity” does not look good.

However what Blaine could not have known is that through my research I discovered that he is currently engaged with Perfect Commerce in what appears to be a consulting capacity. It should also be noted that he was at one time the Director of Purchasing for the State of Missouri.  That’s right Missouri.

This raises the question, what were his motives in approaching me as Deep Throat and, did he do it on his own initiative, or at the prompting of Perfect Commerce?

While Grimm – based on his comments alone, remains a troubling question mark, the Blaine-Perfect Commerce connection has a similar air to it as the NIGP-Periscope “relationship.”

At this point I have more questions than answers, but based on the fact that Blaine has also served as President of the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing in 1993 and as President of 3 of its chapters, as well as being a former member on the Executive Committee of National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO) and is also a lifetime member, one thing is certain . . . can the general public feel comfortable or for that matter trust anyone involved in government procurement.

Just started following the NIGP #CodeGate story? Use the following link to access the Post Archive; https://procureinsights.wordpress.com/nigp-codegate/

Follow my coverage of this story on Twitter using the hashtags #missbid and #CodeGate

On The Go? You can also listen to the audio version of this post as well as others through @Umano https://umano.me/jhansen

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