USDA · Food for Peace Transition · RFQ 12314426Q0118

USDA insider depth.
Small-business price point.

House Strategies Group — SBA 8(a) prime — implementing the administration's America First doctrine on Food for Peace: time-bound, bilateral co-investment agreements with recipient-country counterpart contributions and glide-path self-reliance, replacing open-ended grant-based aid. Anchored by Maurice W. House (retired FAS Minister Counselor; first P.L. 480 soybean program in Pakistan), Kevin Latner (USDA Food for Progress commodity-monetization lead; consulting on development-to-business program transitions), and Audrey McGuire (Emax CEO; former Wall Street investment banker; Georgetown School of Foreign Service International Economics; 40 years of federal capital-markets and deal-architecture advisory).

Meet the FAS Bench PWS Coverage Map Eight Process Guides

38

Years inside USDA FAS (Maurice)

$300M

CCC GSM-102 oversight · Islamabad

25+

Years FAS career (Kevin)

8(a)

SBA-Certified Small Business

Three Pillars

Why House Strategies Group for this RFQ.

The PWS asks for a contractor who can bridge an experience gap USDA has not had to bridge before. HSG's bench is built for it.

Direct Title II Execution Inside FAS

Maurice W. House ran the first P.L. 480 soybean program in Pakistan from his Islamabad post, oversaw $300M of USDA CCC GSM-102, and executed the first U.S. wheat export to Taliban-led Afghanistan — direct Title II execution in precisely the unstable, non-traditional operating environment PWS 3.3 describes. Few firms competing on this RFQ, including the large primes, can field a former FAS Minister Counselor with that operating history.

Bilateral Co-Investment Deal Architecture

Kevin Latner led USDA Food for Progress commodity monetization — the sister program to Food for Peace — and currently consults on transitioning development programs from grant-based give-away models to business-focused designs. Audrey McGuire (Emax CEO, former Wall Street investment banker, Georgetown SFS International Economics) brings 40 years of federal capital-markets deal architecture. Together they bring the doctrine the administration is already deploying — the State Department's 31 bilateral Global Health MOUs ($20.6B total, $7.8B recipient co-investment) — to USDA's FFP transition.

AI-Augmented Delivery on Eight Process Guides

HSG's AI-augmented service delivery methodology — operationalized through the AI/Expert Reconciliation Log — compresses the eight process-guide deliverables this PWS requires into a more efficient cadence than traditional consulting can produce. Federal-AI compliance aligned to OMB M-25-21 / M-25-22 and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework. The portal itself is a working example of the methodology.

Eight Process Guides

The eight deliverables, one per PWS scope area

Each card maps to a PWS scope area, names the HSG senior lead, and previews the approach we'll bring on award.

Browse all 8
01Communications

Communications Strategy Guide

Food for Peace operates across foreign markets where U.S. visibility carries operational, diplomatic, and safety risk; across a U.S. domestic audience that needs to understand how the program connects to American farmers and ranchers under an America First framing; and across beneficiary communities who need to recognize the U.S. role consistently with host-country safety constraints. USDA inherits this triangulation problem without an established playbook.

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02Prepositioned Commodities

Prepositioned Commodities Guide

Prepositioned commodity strategy is a trade-off space — the cost of establishing and maintaining preposition stockpiles, the risk of holding shelf-stable commodities in volatile regions, the benefit of in-region response capacity when an unforeseen emergency strikes, and the supply-chain constraints around Cargo Preference compliance and U.S. domestic specialty-formulated commodity manufacturing capacity. USDA needs a single decision framework for that trade-off space.

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03Geography & Prioritization

Country Selection Guide

FFP country and commodity prioritization runs on different salience than USDA's established non-emergency food-assistance programs. The PWS explicitly calls for a methodology that considers more than just financial inputs and includes a contingency-reserve formula for unforeseen events. USDA inherits the prioritization problem without a transparent reproducible methodology.

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04Cross-Cutting

Stakeholder Relations Guide

FFP's stakeholder community spans the Food Aid Consultative Group (FACG, congressionally-mandated), the International Food Relief Partnership (IFRP), U.S. agricultural producer associations, Title II implementing PVOs, and host-country governments. USDA needs an engagement architecture rather than ad hoc outreach.

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05Non-Traditional Environments

Risk Management Guide

FFP operates in emergency, unstable, and otherwise non-traditional environments that USDA has not historically administered. Risk assessment, third-party monitoring, program evaluation, and implementing-partner personnel safety all require methodologies adapted to environments where standard pre-engagement diligence is unavailable.

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06Cross-Cutting

Programmatic Reporting Guide

FFP carries a portfolio of statutory and non-statutory reporting obligations including the Food Aid Quality Review (FAQR), congressional reporting touchpoints, and partner-facing reporting. USDA needs a reporting architecture that USDA can run.

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Explore the Portal

Seven sections. One quote package.

Team

Maurice · Kevin · Jelani · Senior Analyst · Emax surge

Past Performance

USDA APHIS · USDA FAS Org Redesign · VA · Syngenta · Emax

PWS Coverage

Every PWS section → team lead

Methodology

Five operating principles · AI/Expert Reconciliation Log

Solutions Library

Eight FFP process-guide scenarios

For Evaluators

Compliance crosswalk · evaluation-factor map