In the mid 1990’s NASA fulfilled their liability recordation requirements by hiring contractors to perform an assessment of their environmental cleanup projects at NASA centers throughout the country. At the time, this same contractor would conduct annual financial assessments to update and document the previous year’s liability estimates. Though these reports passed initial audits for their intended purpose, an internal review of the data later suggested the annual estimates were inaccurate and misleading. As such, in 2003, NASA began to address the issue by shifting the responsibility for estimating environmental liabilities to its Restoration Program Managers (RPMs) at all NASA centers.

In 2008 NASA contracted with Team Analysis to implement a comprehensive enterprise level estimating solution to be used by RPMs to address their cost estimation requirements. In meeting NASA’s objectives in this area, Team Analysis provided historical cost analysis, planning and development of systems for managing financial data which has addressed NASA’s emerging responsibilities in liability recording at each of its centers. Indeed the solution developed by our team has since been imbedded into NASA’s restoration program such that it is now a key component of their overall financial management system.

About the Presenter

Bill J. Hombach is President of Envision Cost Solutions LLC who provide the ENVision library of environmental remediation cost models developed using the Parametric Cost Modeling methodology. Before starting his own company, Bill worked with Team Analysis Inc for over ten years managing their estimating and software development professional services. Bill was the primary analyst for the development of NASA's NETS-XPRESS estimating system used by NASA to develop and manage their Unfunded Environmental Liabilities (totaling over $900 Million).