General Services Administration

History

Former President Herbert Hoover was asked in 1947 by President Harry Truman to lead a commission to make recommendations to the President and Congress on how to improve the administrative activities of the federal government. One of the recommendations of the commission was the establishment of an "Office of the General Services." This proposed office would combine the responsibilities of the Treasury Department's Bureau of Federal Supply and Office of Contract Settlement, the National Archives Establishment, the Federal Work Agency, and the War Assets Administration. GSA became an independent agency on July 1, 1949, following the passage of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act. General Jess Larson, Administrator of the War Assets Administration, was named as GSA's first Administrator.
The first job awaiting Administrator Larson and the newly formed GSA was a complete renovation of the White House. The structure had fallen into such a state of disrepair by 1949 that one inspector of the time said the historic structure was standing “purely from habit.” Larson later explained the in depth nature of the total renovation by saying, “In order to make the White House structurally sound, it was necessary to completely dismantle, and I mean completely dismantle, everything from the White House except the four walls, which were constructed of stone. Everything, except the four walls without a roof, was finally stripped down, and that's where the work started.” GSA worked closely with President Truman and First Lady Bess Truman to ensure that the new agency's first major project was a success. GSA completed the renovation in 1952.^[2]

[edit] GSA today

GSA employs about 12,000 federal workers and has an annual operating budget of roughly $26.3 billion, approximately 1% of which is appropriated from taxpayer dollars. GSA oversees $66 billion of procurement annually. It contributes to the management of about $500 billion in U.S. Federal property, divided chiefly among 8,300 owned and leased buildings and a 210,000 vehicle motor pool. Among the real estate assets managed by the GSA are the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC, the largest U.S. Federal building after The Pentagon and the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center which had previously been the Battle Creek Sanitarium run by John Harvey Kellogg.
GSA's business lines include the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) and the Public Buildings Service (PBS). Other divisions include the Office of Governmentwide Policy, and various Staff Offices, including the Office of Small Business Utilization, the Office of Civil Rights, and the Office of Citizen Services and Communications. The official U.S. government web portal, USA.gov, and the Spanish-language web portal to U.S. government services, GobiernoUSA.gov, are members of the Office of Citizen Services and Communication’s family of websites, which also includes pueblo.gsa.gov (the Federal Citizen Information Center), Kids.gov, ConsumerAction.gov, and WebContent.gov.
The National Archives and Records Administration was also part of GSA until it was made an independent agency in 1985.
GSA recently completed early-outs and buy-outs to reduce staff. It reorganized to merge the Federal Supply Service (FSS) and Federal Technology Service (FTS) business lines into Federal Acquisition Service (FAS). Bush Administration political appointee Stephen A. Perry resigned as GSA Administrator on October 31, 2005. On May 31, 2006, Lurita Doan, also a Bush Administration political appointee, took the oath of office to become the 18th GSA Administrator and the first woman to hold the position. Lurita Doan resigned from office on April 29, 2008.^[3] David Bibb was acting administrator from April 30, 2008 until September 1, 2008.
On June 25, 2008, the White House announced that Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner James A. Williams was nominated to be GSA's administrator, replacing Lurita Doan. Williams served as the first commissioner of FAS after the agency combined the Federal Technology Service and the Federal Supply Service. Williams is a career SES member, rather than a political appointee. The announcement came on the same day that acting administrator David Bibb announced that he planned to retire on September 1, 2008 to pursue work in the private sector.^[4]

[edit] GSA Schedule

GSA assists with procurement work for other government agencies. As part of this effort, it maintains the large GSA Schedule, which other agencies can use to buy goods and services. The GSA Schedule can be thought of as a collection of pre-negotiated contracts. Procurement managers from government agencies can view these agreements and make purchases from the GSA Schedule knowing that all legal obligations have been taken care of by GSA. Adapted from http://www.wikipedia.org