One résumé ended The MIL Corporation's bid for a $156 million Navy IT task order, and GAO says the Navy was right to reject the offer over it. In a decision dated October 19, 2026, GAO denied in part and dismissed in part MIL's protest of the Navy's task order to BAE Systems Technology Solutions & Services, Inc. for IT services at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD). The Navy found that MIL's proposed industrial production manager had a bachelor's degree where the solicitation required a master's, and GAO held that the requirement allowed no substitution.
The ruling (B-424664; B-424664.2) leaves the order with BAE, whose proposed price was $156,141,117. MIL, of Bowie, Maryland, had also challenged the Navy's evaluation of sample tasks and raised alleged organizational conflicts of interest. GAO never reached those claims. Once the Navy properly rejected MIL's offer as unacceptable, MIL no longer qualified as an interested party to challenge anything else in the procurement.
How the NAWCAD Task Order Was Competed
The Navy issued request for offers N0042124R3040 on June 12, 2025, under FAR subpart 16.5, to holders of SeaPort-NxG multiple-award contracts. The RFO asked for labor in set categories to perform “rapid design, fabrication, installation/kitting, and fielding of systems and capability enhancements via technologically-derived solutions.” The Navy said it would issue one task order to the offeror with the Highest Technically Ranked Offer (HTRO) at a fair and reasonable price, comparing technical offers on two elements: sample tasks and key personnel.
Five offerors, including MIL and BAE, submitted offers on or before July 25. Because the order is worth more than $35 million, GAO had jurisdiction under 10 U.S.C. 3406(f)(1)(B), which covers orders placed under title 10 multiple-award IDIQ contracts. Rockville, Maryland-based BAE, the awardee, intervened with counsel from Vinson & Elkins. Fox Rothschild represented MIL, and Navy counsel represented the agency.
The solicitation also warned offerors that “the failure to comply with terms and conditions of the RFO may adversely impact the Contractor's evaluation results, and could result in the Contractor being removed from consideration for award.” That clause is the backdrop for the decision.
Which Labor Categories Allowed Experience in Place of a Degree?
Paragraph 3.4 of the statement of work, “Personnel Qualifications,” listed each labor category with its required degree, either a bachelor's or a master's. A separate “qualification substitution chart” explained how experience could stand in for education. A bachelor's degree plus four years of additional related work experience could replace a master's, and an associate degree plus four years could replace a bachelor's.
The table, however, offered the substitution for only some categories. For the senior general and operations manager, the solicitation read: “Master's degree in any discipline, or a qualifying substitution.” For the key personnel category of senior industrial production manager, it required a “Master's degree in Engineering or Engineering discipline, Computer Science or IT discipline, or Technical discipline” and left out any substitution language.
MIL proposed an industrial production manager who held only a bachelor's degree, along with over four years of relevant work experience. The technical evaluation team found that the candidate “did not meet the degree requirements, as he holds a Bachelor's degree while the position explicitly requires a Master's degree with no substitution allowed.”
Even so, the team ranked MIL's offer second overall, behind BAE's. The selection official then made his own assessment. He agreed that BAE had the highest technically ranked offer and wrote that “MIL is technically unawardable due to failing a mandatory Key Personnel degree requirement.”
Why GAO Rejected MIL's Substitution-Chart Argument
MIL argued that the Navy disqualified its candidate by reading into the solicitation a requirement that does not appear in its text. In MIL's view, the substitution chart “broadly allowed offerors to substitute relevant work experience for a Master's Degree, without limitation,” so the Navy had applied an unstated evaluation factor.
The Navy answered that the solicitation allowed substitution for some categories and not others. If the chart applied everywhere, the phrase “a qualifying substitution” attached to certain categories would mean nothing.
GAO agreed with the Navy. It applied its standard approach to solicitation interpretation: read the solicitation as a whole and give effect to all of its provisions, and find an ambiguity only when there are at least two reasonable readings. “Here, we conclude that the agency has presented the only reasonable interpretation of the solicitation,” the decision states. MIL's reading, GAO wrote, “would render meaningless the specific language in the solicitation that authorized substitution of experience for degree requirements--but only for certain labor categories.”
GAO said the chart set the terms for substitution only where the solicitation expressly allowed it, and it rejected the unstated-criteria claim. Because there was no dispute that MIL's proposed key person lacked the required master's degree, GAO denied that part of the protest.
The Unacceptable Offer That Ended MIL's Other Challenges
The other protest grounds failed on standing. GAO's Bid Protest Regulations define an interested party as an actual or prospective bidder or offeror whose direct economic interest would be affected by the award of a contract or the failure to award a contract. “Where, as here, the agency properly determines that a protester's proposal is unacceptable, the protester does not qualify as an interested party to further challenge the procurement,” the decision states.
GAO also noted that the Navy rated the three other offers “substantial and good overall,” and MIL did not challenge that determination. GAO dismissed MIL's sample-task and conflict-of-interest complaints without deciding them.
What It Means for Contractors
The decision shows how GAO handles key personnel tables that treat labor categories differently. If a solicitation spells out a substitution for one category and not for another, GAO will read that difference as intentional. A general substitution chart does not override the specific requirement for each category. Offerors who think a requirement is unclear, or want experience to count toward a degree requirement, would be well advised to raise it during questions and answers before proposals are due rather than argue it after award, as MIL did without success here.
The case also shows how one compliance failure can end a protest. MIL had the second-ranked technical offer and a full set of evaluation and conflict-of-interest arguments, but once its offer was properly found unacceptable, GAO did not consider any of them. Before submitting on SeaPort-NxG task orders, and on any RFO that warns noncompliance can remove an offeror from consideration, check every key person's résumé line by line against the degree requirements for that category. One requirement missed this way can disqualify the whole offer, however strong the rest of the proposal is.
For the Navy, the decision confirms that a selection official can rule a technically strong offer ineligible when the solicitation states plainly what is mandatory. The NAWCAD order stays with BAE.
