A/E means architect/engineer.

Chief Acquisition Officer means the Assistant Secretary for Management.

COTR means Contracting Officer's Technical Representative or Contracting Officer's Representative.

DSPE means the Deputy Senior Procurement Executive, who is also the Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisitions. The DSPE must be career member of the Senior Executive Service.

FAR means the Federal Acquisition Regulation.

GAO means the Government Accountability Office.

HCA means the Head of the Contracting Activity, an individual appointed in writing by the DSPE under VA's Appointment of HCAs Program (see 801.695).

OGC means the Office of the General Counsel.

Resident Engineer has the same meaning as contracting officer's technical representative or contacting officer's representative (see 852.270-1).

Service-disabled veteran-owned small business concern (SDVOSB) has the same meaning as defined in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) part 2.101, except for acquisitions authorized by 813.106 and subpart 819.70. These businesses must then be listed as verified on the Vendor Information Pages (VIP) database at http://www.vetbiz.gov. In addition, some businesses may be owned and controlled by a surviving spouse.

Small business concern has the same meaning as defined in FAR 2.101.

SPE means the Senior Procurement Executive who is also the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisition and Materiel Management. The SPE is responsible for the management direction of the VA acquisition system. The SPE may further delegate authority to the DSPE.

Surviving spouse means an individual who has been listed in the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) database of veterans and family members. To be eligible for inclusion in the VetBiz.gov VIP database, the following conditions must apply:

(1) If the death of the veteran causes the small business concern to be less than 51 percent owned by one or more service-disabled veterans, the surviving spouse of such veteran who acquires ownership rights in such small business shall, for the period described below, be treated as if the surviving spouse were that veteran for the purpose of maintaining the status of the small business concern as a service-disabled veteran-owned small business.

(2) The period referred to above is the period beginning on the date on which the veteran dies and ending on the earliest of the following dates:

(i) The date on which the surviving spouse remarries;

(ii) The date on which the surviving spouse relinquishes an ownership interest in the small business concern;

(iii) The date that is 10 years after the date of the veteran's death; or

(iv) The date on which the business concern is no longer small under federal small business size standards.

(3) The veteran must have had a 100 percent service-connected disability rating or the veteran died as a direct result of a service-connected disability.

VA means the Department of Veterans Affairs.

VAAR means the Department of Veterans Affairs Acquisition Regulation.

Vendor Information Pages (VIP) means the VetBiz.gov Vendor Information Pages database at http://www.vetbiz.gov.

Veteran-owned small business concern (VOSB) has the same meaning as defined in FAR 2.101, except for acquisitions authorized by 813.106 and 819.70. These businesses must then be listed as verified in the VetBiz.gov VIP database.

VISN means Veterans Integrated Service Network, an integrated network of VA facilities that are focused on pooling and aligning resources to best meet local needs in the most cost-effective manner and provide greater access to care.

[73 FR 2717, Jan. 15, 2008, as amended at 74 FR 64629, Dec. 8, 2009; 83 FR 16208, Apr. 16, 2018; 85 FR 60074, Sept. 24, 2020]