Tec-Masters, Inc.: Scaling Innovation One Mission at a Time

From Huntsville, Alabama to Orbit — a 30+ year journey of technical mentorship, with an unwavering commitment to aerospace and defense

ARLINGTON, VA—The Department of War Mentor-Protégé Program (MPP) recognized its FY2024 and FY2025 Nunn-Perry Award nominees and recipients at an annual luncheon on April 9, 2026 during an annual MPP Summit in Arlington, VA. The Nunn-Perry Award honors outstanding mentor-protégé partnerships that strengthen the defense industrial base by driving capability, expanding capacity, and delivering measurable results.

During the ceremony, Dr. Marvin Carroll, President and CEO of Tec-Masters, Inc., and co-founder of National BDPA’s Huntsville, Alabama Chapter, was presented with a very special Lifetime Achievement Award from Mr. James R. Mismash, Deputy Assistant Secretary of War for Industrial Base Growth; Director Office of Small Business Programs, and Ms. Kasey Diaz, Director, Small Business Programs and Operations; Deputy Director of Industrial Base Growth. Headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama, Tec-Masters, a contract-ready delivery partner and small business with over 30 years of experience supporting the Department of War (DoW) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), won its tenth Nunn-Perry Award.

The DoW Mentor-Protégé Program (MPP) was established in 1990 to help small, disadvantaged businesses grow their technical and business capabilities by partnering with established prime contractors. The Nunn-Perry Award — named for Senator Sam Nunn and former Defense Secretary William Perry — is presented annually to teams demonstrating exceptional protégé development. Today, Tec-Masters operates as a HUBZone-certified small business — a designation that reflects its deep roots in underserved communities

while enabling competitive access to set-aside contracts across the federal landscape. With more than $511 million in total prime contract obligations across 381 awarded actions dating back to 1998, and an active presence on federal contracting vehicles, Tec-Masters competes — and wins — at every level of federal procurement.

Very few small businesses within the defense industrial base can claim the long-lasting impact, extensive mission, and mentorship legacy that Tec-Masters, Inc. has developed over the past three decades. Founded and led by Dr. Carroll in Huntsville, Alabama — famously known as the ‘Rocket City’ — Tec-Masters has progressed from a defense engineering firm to a multi-domain contractor that delivers capabilities encompassing Army training and simulations, Space Launch System hardware, nuclear thermal propulsion research, missile defense, and state-of-the-art HUBZone-focused technology development.

Notable aerospace and defense projects include the Microgravity Research for Versatile Investigations (MaRVIn) system developed by Tec-Masters, which was installed on the International Space Station (ISS) in August 2023. In 2025, Tec-Masters announced a lunar partnership with Orbit Beyond to lead payload integration and mission operations for lunar missions. TMI is also involved in payload integration, cybersecurity, and engineering services, maintaining a strong presence in Huntsville’s emerging aerospace community. 

With over 700 delivered flight hardware items, 58,000+ hours of on-orbit ISS operations support, and a growing footprint in Ai, space, and next-generation defense solutions, Tec-Masters is proof that small businesses — when led with vision and integrity — can shape the future of national defense.

“With decades of mentoring experience, Tec-Masters has guided numerous small businesses through capability development, compliance readiness, and competitive positioning — empowering them to become stand-alone successes in the defense industrial base.”

For government program offices in search of a reliable delivery partner, or small enterprises looking for a Mentor from the Department of War (DoW), Tec-Masters, Inc. serves as a prime example of what disciplined, mission-focused growth entails over time.

Tec-Masters, Inc., the Pentagon’s Mentor-Protégé Program, and Giving Back

With this week’s latest award, Tec-Masters has earned this recognition nine times, guiding DoW/DoD protégés including PROJECT XYZ (2014), Paragon Research Corporation (2016), Certified Technical Experts (CTE – 2017), People Technology & Processes (PtP – 2018), ITSC Secure Solutions, LLC (formerly BMK Consultants, LLC – 2019), Linc Research (2020), Beshenich Muir & Associates (BMA – 2021), GeneCapture (2022), and Engenix Inc. (2024). Each of these relationships has helped a small business expand contracts, build federal compliance infrastructure, and develop a stronger workforce capable of delivering directly to the warfighter and our industrial base.

What truly continues to set Tec-Masters apart is not just winning contracts — put simply it is what they do with their position and key roles as a prime contractor. Through the DoW Mentor-Protégé Program (MPP), Tec-Masters has become one of the most decorated Mentor firms in the country, earning nine Nunn-Perry Awards — the department’s highest honor for Mentor-Protégé excellence.

ROI of the DoW MPP: What DoW Protégé Projects Deliver

The return on investment (ROI) from the DoW Mentor-Protégé Program (MPP) is quantifiable — and compelling. Across the program’s history, the vast majority of protégé firms that complete qualifying agreements report measurable gains in contract value, workforce size, and federal marketplace position. According to GAO analysis of program outcomes, approximately 93 percent of responding former protégés reported that MPP participation enhanced their firms’ overall capabilities. More than 70 percent attributed direct increases in the number and dollar value of contracts won to the mentoring relationship. For protégé cohorts, measurable outcomes are a direct reflection of structured, project-based developmental assistance.

Qualifying MPP projects generate a compounding ROI across three dimensions:

(1) direct contract growth, as protégés gain access to subcontracting pathways and competitive set-aside vehicles they could not previously access

(2) compliance infrastructure, including cybersecurity readiness assessments provided by the DoW Office of Small Business Programs (OSBP) as a program benefit, which reduces the cost and time to achieve CMMC or DCSA clearance readiness

(3) workforce and capability expansion, where mentors fund developmental assistance including proposal development support, quality management systems, and financial accounting infrastructure.

For DoW Protégés on the path toward prime contractor status, the DoW MPP effectively reduces the average time-to-prime by compressing what might otherwise be a decade-long capability maturation cycle into a focused two-to-three-year development sprint.

With the DoW’s FY 2027 budget request proposing an unprecedented $1.1 trillion in base discretionary defense spending and nearly $400 billion in mandatory funding for munitions, industrial base expansion, and defense manufacturing, the latest pipeline of qualifying DoW MPP project opportunities is expanding substantially. Tec-Masters, as a ten-time Nunn-Perry honoree, is uniquely positioned to help new DoW Protégés capitalize on this near-term opportunity.

Tec-Masters, Inc.: The Next “BDPA Story”

Tec-Masters’ involvement with BDPA-Huntsville is consistent with Dr. Carroll’s broader philosophy — the same commitment to minority small business and HBCU development that drives Tec-Masters’ Nunn-Perry Award-winning Mentor-Protégé work. Helping launch a BDPA chapter in Huntsville brings that mission directly into the community pipeline, connecting North Alabama’s defense, cyber, and STEM workforce to a national network that supports and develops technology professionals since inception since 1975.

Tec-Masters, Inc. served as a co-founding mission partner for BDPA’s Huntsville Chapter (BDPA-HSV), with Dr. Marvin Carroll, Perry Carter, and Mirie Westbrook recognized as co-founders. Chartered in 2011, BDPA’s newest chapter in Alabama aimed to foster inclusive partnerships with AMC, AMCOM, MDA, NASA, and regional HBCUs. This distinction is significant — it highlighted Tec-Masters’  role not merely as a sponsor or corporate member, but as an organizational co-founder.

Dr. Marvin Carroll, CEO of Tec-Masters, served as the institutional anchor connecting the BDPA-HSV Chapter to the Huntsville, Alabama defense and aerospace industry. Perry Carter, Tec-Masters’ Mid-Atlantic Regional Vice President and CIO, served in Washington, D.C. supporting the firm’s National Capital and Mid-Atlantic regional operations.  Carter’s Government relations liaison included engagements with the Pentagon’s Mentor-Protégé Program (MPP), NSA’s Provisional Industrial Security Approval (PISA) Sponsorship Program, and Capitol Hill advocacy via industry’s Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA).

With new grants through Meta’s [Facebook] Huntsville Data Center Community Action Grants program, Drake State Community & Technical College, and Huntsville City Schools, BDPA’s Huntsville chapter remains active today, continuing its legacy of providing advanced pipelines for technical talent into our aerospace and defense industries prevalent in the North Alabama region.

Last year in 2025, BDPA Huntsville had an exceptional performance at BDPACON25 — they triumphed in National BDPA’s Student Information Technology Education & Scholarship (SITES) I.T. Showcase (ITSC) collegiate competition, achieving a remarkable “clean sweep” milestone of first, second, and third places. Moreover, this recent ITSC success is a clear indication of the impact of National BDPA’s Digital Workforce Transformation grant from NASA, which supports SITES via the local chapter’s Future Leaders in IT, Gaming, Healthcare, and Technology Sciences (FLIGHTS) program and community investment — including the Meta grant — that Tec-Masters helped initiate through its co-founding involvement in BDPA Huntsville.

HBCU Success Stories, BDPA Engagements, and the NDAA 2027 ROI Case

The ROI calculus for HBCU engagement within the DoW ecosystem — and for BDPA’s role as a talent pipeline connector — has never been more strategically significant. With the Trump administration’s FY 2027 budget proposal requesting $1.5 trillion in total defense resources and placing explicit emphasis on defense industrial base expansion and domestic manufacturing capacity, the demand for cleared, technically capable talent reaching back to HBCUs and grassroot STEM and SITES organizations such as BDPA is very high. BDPA Huntsville’s 2025 “clean sweep”   — first, second, and third place finishes during BDPACON25’s SITES collegiate ITSC competition — is not simply a local milestone. It is a measurable return on years of mentoring investment that Tec-Masters co-initiated by co-founding BDPA Huntsville in 2011.

The ROI of new DoW Mentor engagements with BDPA’s local or HBCU chapters and affiliated pipelines can be mapped across three outcome tiers:

1. First, at the individual level, BDPA SITES and FLIGHTS program participants — supported by National BDPA’s Digital Workforce Transformation grant from NASA — are moving into cleared defense contractor roles and STEM graduate programs at regional HBCUs, directly feeding workforce gaps that DoW’s new FY 2027 budget priorities are designed to address.

• Second, at the institutional level, HBCUs partnered with active BDPA chapters can gain unique access to federal research and cyber workforce development opportunities that align with the DoW’s stated interest in STEM and JROTC pipelines. The DoW HBCU/MI engagement framework creates participation incentives for HBCU, Minority Institution (MI), and APEX Accelerator-connected entities within MPP agreements — a structural financial advantage that rewards mentor firms like Tec-Masters for channeling protégé development through HBCU partnerships.
• Third, at the ecosystem level, the compounding effect of co-investments — where a Tec-Masters DoW Mentor relationship, a BDPA chapter, a NASA grant, and a Meta community anchor grant converge in a single geography (Huntsville) — creates a replicable model for building defense-ready talent in HUBZones and underserved communities.

Against the backdrop of NDAA 2027 planning priorities — which are being shaped by the FY 2026 NDAA’s mandate for a Secretary of War report on canceled contracts and acquisition performance beginning in FY 2027, alongside the DoW’s portfolio acquisition executive model designed to accelerate contracting — the Tec-Masters model offers an outstanding roadmap.

Program offices focused on Ai, cybersecurity, hypersonics, missile defense, and space systems — all sectors receiving expanded NDAA investment lines — need small business partners that are “procurement-ready”, cleared [at least SECRET clearance], and technically current.

The BDPA-HBCU SITES ecosystem, seeded four decades ago for talent acquisition and digital workforce transformations, continues to  produce exactly those candidates. For Tec-Masters, the long-term ROI of these investments is measured not only in Nunn-Perry Awards, but in the growing ranks of STEM professionals and small business owners entering the defense and organic industrial bases through pipelines that Tec-Masters helped build — one protégé, one chapter, one mission at a time. —bt

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References:

• 2024 and 2025 Nunn-Perry Awards — DoW/DoD 2024/2025 Awards  
• Tec-Masters, Inc. —  https://www.tecmasters.com
• BDPA™  —  https://www.bdpa.org  
• bdpatoday® —  https://www.bdpatoday.com  

Projects:

• Lunar Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) — Tec-Masters
• Tec-Masters launches “MARVIN” with NASA — MaRVIn
• BDPA S.I.T.E.S. — Coding Champions Kick-Off 2026!
• BDPA-HSV NASA Intern — NASA Intern Testimonial

^{Sources:
DoW OSBP announcements, MDA News, DVIDS, Tec-Masters, BDPA, BDPA Huntsville, corporate press releases; FY 2026 NDAA (P.L. 119-60); GAO-07-151 DoD MPP Program Review; DoW HBCU/MI Opportunities; White House FY 2027 Budget Proposal; DFARS Subpart 219.71; Defense Appropriations Act S.2572 (119th Congress)}

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