WASHINGTON: TRICARE, the healthcare provider for the Department of Defense, has awarded a $12 million, four-year education and marketing contract to CACI, a Virginia-based federal contractor.
CACI's traditional focus is IT and network solutions, but the publicly held company recently added a strategic communications and graphic-materials department. The far-reaching contract effectively puts CACI in charge of producing all the materials - as well as devising some strategy - for educating TRICARE's 8.7 million members about their benefits.
The award contract brings to a close a long and often frustrating pitch process that involved, sometimes unofficially, several of Washington's largest PR firms. A handful of public affairs executives had been contacted by TRICARE more than a year ago about the possibility of bidding on the business. Several firms submitted proposals for the lucrative contract earlier this year, and said as of last week that they still had not been informed that it had been awarded.
