Inside ManTech's $817M State Department win

ManTech International has strung together one large contract award after another over the past two years to bounce back from its decline during the defense spending downturn over the past decade.

Earlier this month, ManTech reported third quarter awards as its second-strongest period ever and now sees double-digit sales growth next year, as ManTech’s Chief Operating Officer Kevin Phillips told me last week. That would follow the 7.5-percent forecasted growth for this year and 3.3 percent reported last year.

One key award in the government IT contractor’s growth profile is the State Department’s potential 10-year, $817 million “Protective Technology Services” contract. ManTech first disclosed the award in its third quarter earnings statement and again in a Monday release.

The contract covers electronic and physical security services to State Department embassies and other facilities worldwide for protection against threats to personnel and infrastructure. ManTech will support the department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which maintains 285 facilities outside the continental U.S.

Herndon, Va.-based ManTech’s high third quarter award activity was reflective of “higher demand in those areas” of national security and data analysis, Phillips recently told me. The State Department contract also includes work to help maintain a computerized maintenance management system used to follow assets and supply chain activity.

That win has also been nearly a year in the making for ManTech, which protested the department’s first attempt at an award in October of last year to Olgoonik Global Security. The State Department took a corrective action, re-evaluated proposals and then awarded ManTech the contract in May of this year.

Olgoonik then filed a protest of its own in June and the Government Accountability Office denied the challenge in September.