Lockheed Martin wins three contracts to mentor smaller defense industrial businesses

As part of the United States Department of Defense’s Mentor-Protégé Program, Lockheed Martin recently won contracts to support three small businesses from the nation’s defense industrial base, and will help them to develop technical and business capabilities.

Run by the Missile Defense Agency, the program’s contracts will run for up to two years. Lockheed Martin, through its own Next Generation Interceptor (NGI) program, will work with Marotta Controls, Space Information Labs (SIL) and Valley Tech Systems (VTS) on engineering and technology.

“The Mentor-Protégé Program allows us to reduce barriers for small businesses; when small business wins, we all win,” Sarah Reeves, vice president of NGI at Lockheed Martin, said. “Lockheed Martin believes in the strength of this program, so we are mentoring three different companies and supporting them throughout our NGI development.”

To this end, each company will act as a subcontractor of Lockheed Martin. NGI will also be part of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) Weapon System, pursuing defense for the United States against intercontinental ballistic missile threats, so this will likely be intertwined with the mentorship efforts.

Marotta Controls is a New Jersey-based and family-owned small business specializing in sub-systems for the aerospace and defense sectors. SIL is a woman-owned business out of California, focused on the design, manufacturing and environmental qualification of Li-Ion Intelli-Pack® Batteries, AFTU and Space Based Range flight units for multi aerospace platforms. Rounding things out, VTS is a small business with two locations: Folsom, California and Reno, Nevada. Its focus is aerospace propulsion.

“Valley Tech Systems is excited to be selected by Lockheed Martin as a protégé under the DoD Mentor Protégé Program,” Phil Csik, VTS program manager, said. “Lockheed Martin’s mentorship will add depth and robustness to our engineering, manufacturing, supply chain and mission assurance processes— enabling VTS to accelerate the application of our advanced controllable solid propulsion technology to enhance homeland defense and protect our warfighters.”