Layout 3 - San Diego Metropolitan

D E F E N S E B U S I N E S S
Mentors and protégés gain from DoD program
Northrop Grumman signs agreement with Juno Technologies By Manny Lopez
Since 1991, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has helped
small disadvantaged and women-owned companies get to the
DoD contracting table through the Mentor-Protégé Program
(MPP).
Enacted under the direction of former Sen. Sam Nunn and former
Secretary of Defense William Perry, the MPP provides incentives
for DoD prime contractors to provide mentoring for
small business protégés through tailored developmental assistance
plans. The program’s intention is to leverage a mentor’s technical
and business expertise, thus enhancing the protégés skills and ability
to compete in the larger arena as subcontractors, suppliers and
ultimately, DoD prime contractors.
On Aug. 6, defense contracting giant Northrop Grumman finalized
the signing of a two-year mentor-protégé agreement with
woman-owned Juno Technologies Inc. of San Diego — a subcontractor
on the U.S. Navy’s Consolidated Afloat Networks and
Enterprise Services (CANES) program.
The CANES program is supposed to achieve technology heterogeneity
across much of the Navy’s fleet of 280 ships and submarines,
including Maritime Operations Centers by 2021.
The Navy awarded a $37 million contract earlier this year to
Northrop Grumman for the initial design of CANES, which
Mike Twyman (left) vice president and general manager of
Northrop Grumman’s Defense System Division, is shown with Julie
and Daniel Ferraro of Juno Technologies. Twyman oversees the mentor-protégé
contract and the CANES program.