Lockheed Martin Corporation has announced it intends to mentor three small businesses as protege firms in connection with its pursuit of the $20 billion U.S. Army's IT Enterprise Solutions-2 Services (ITES-2S) contracting vehicle.

The Lockheed Martin ITES-2S team was selected by the Army on December 5 as one of 17 competitors who will be considered for the final contract. Eight companies are expected to be awarded the nine-year contract by the end of June 2006.

The three new protege companies include BLACKHAWK Management Corporation, Houston, Texas; Daston Corporation, McLean, Va.; and Object CTalk, King of Prussia, Pa. All were selected because of their experience working with the Army and in the IT technical areas covered under ITES-2S.

BLACKHAWK Management is a small woman-owned Native American company that currently has contracts with the Army's Communications and Electronics Command (CECOM) at Fort Hood, Texas; and Fort Monmouth, N.J. Daston is a minority woman-owned professional services firm that supports both the Chief Information Officer-G6 and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Object CTalk is a minority woman-owned small business with existing contract work with Ft. Detrick, Md.

Dr. Sonia Schmitt, Army IT business development manager for Lockheed Martin Information Technology, said, "After reviewing the capabilities of more than 100 small businesses, we selected three which fit our strategic needs over the life of the contract," Schmitt said. "These three protege firms will complement our strong business process expertise by helping us market to our distributed Army customers, improve awareness of performance-based contracting, and stay abreast of new technologies, especially in biometrics and wireless networks."

Gerald Miller, Director for Army IT Programs for Lockheed Martin Information Technology, said, "Lockheed Martin is committed to collaborating with our protege firms and in coaching them in areas of task order marketing, writing proposals, and developing expertise in information security. Our protege teammates have already begun looking at how they can extend their capabilities to better benefit the Army based on their work with Lockheed Martin, and we are learning from them about their focus and flexibility on customer service and support."

The ITES-2S contract will be established by the Army Program Executive Office, Enterprise Information Systems, to succeed its existing ITES vehicle. The purpose of ITES-2S is to support the Army's enterprise infrastructure goals with information technology support services and solutions that transform the Army into a single Army net-centric enterprise using performance-based contracts. ITES-2S entails a wide range of services from information assurance to systems operation and maintenance. Lockheed Martin hopes to earn one of the contracts the Army will establish for large companies.

Lockheed Martin and its three small business protege teammates will be joined in this pursuit by other Service Disabled, Veteran Owned small disadvantaged businesses with specialized Army capabilities: The Ginn Group, Inc. and Maze Technologies. Other small businesses that have joined the Lockheed Martin team include All Points Logistics, Eagle Group International, Inc., GC&E Systems Group, Knowledge Advantage, Sigmatech, and SMS Data Products Group, Inc. The team also includes IT vendors who will provide solutions as well as services including Dell, BEA Systems, Computer Associates, iLog, and Microsoft.

The large teammates include CACI International Inc., ManTech International Corp., SRA International, Inc., PricewaterhouseCoopers, and two Lockheed Martin business units: Lockheed Martin Integrated Services and Solutions (IS&S) and Lockheed Martin Information Technology Services (LMIT).

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin employs about 135,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture and integration of advanced technology systems, products and services. The corporation reported 2004 sales of $35.5 billion.

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SOURCE: Lockheed Martin