NASA’s ‘Protégé’ program

Professionals across trade industries general praise the benefits allying with veteran companies with energetic startups with proven business acumen, fresh perspectives, and bleeding-edge technological capabilities. David Brock, manager of NASA’s Mentor-Protégé Program, agrees those are high-value rewards. When it comes to teaming space industry leaders with prospective subcontractors – particularly among small, disadvantaged businesses and minority-serving academic institutions – he’d put one more mutually beneficial gain atop the list: People. State-of-the-art hardware and technology are cornerstones of NASA’s missions, but for 60 years, “talented, engaged, diverse human beings have been the driving force behind everything we do,” said Brock, the small business specialist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. NASA’s Mentor-Protégé Program nurtures that shared tradition, helping industry refine the skills and qualifications of the Artemis Generation workforce – and forming a pipeline to bolster and replenish that workforce for generations, he said. Launched in 2008, the program facilitates agreements between NASA’s large contractors and eligible small businesses and academic institutions. (Source: NASA 07/22/20) https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/releases/2020/nasa-mentor-prot-g-program-cultivates-space-industry-firms-skills-know-how-and-talent-pool.html