Program Overview

Purpose

(1) Increase Overall Participation of qualified SB concerns, Employers of the Severely Disabled, Woman Owned Small Businesses, HUBZone Small Businesses and Service Disabled Veteran Owned Businesses. A major stumbling block to the achievement of the 5% SDB subcontracting goals mandated by Congress is the assertion by large DoD prime contractors that there are not enough qualified Small Businesses to perform as subcontractors on DoD work. Therefore, a primary goal of the Mentor-Protégé program is to increase the capabilities of eligible Protégés to the point where more of them can perform significant work on DoD contracts; resulting in an overall increase of subcontracting levels.

(2) Facilitate long-term relationships between Mentors and Protégés. Major prime contractors historically developed long term business relationships, generally with other large businesses, to permit effective competition for contracts that could not be performed entirely "in house." The long-term relationships benefit both prime contractors and their "team members." It is the intent of the Mentor- Protégé Program to foster this type of relationship between Mentors and Protégés in order to develop a stable small business vendor base.

(3) Provide incentives for major defense contractors (mentors) to furnish qualifying small business (SB) concerns with developmental assistance in order to increase their participation in DoD Procurement contracts. Incentives exist as direct reimbursement or credit against Small Business Subcontracting goals. Details are contained in the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations (DFARs) Appendix I: http://farsite.hill.af.mil/VFDFARA.HTM (click on Appendix I).