ManTech scores $1B NSA IT win

ManTech International has won an almost $1 billion National Security Agency contract for global enterprise IT services.

This award secures ManTech's role on one of three successor contracts to the NSA's Groundbreaker IT infrastructure program, Washington Technology has learned. Groundbreaker was won by Computer Sciences Corp., which became CSRA and was acquired by General Dynamics.

When it came time to recompete Groundbreaker, NSA broke it into three parts.

The ManTech contract is worth up to $959 million over 10 years. In a May 1 earnings call with investors, CEO Kevin Phillips said the company won a managed IT services contract of "meaningful size" with a DOD agency in its first quarter but did not offer further detail.

ManTech has been on a resurgence over the past two years after a return to growth in 2016, followed by an acceleration last year and a streak of large contract wins in enterprise IT and other technology areas projected as growth markets. The company climbed nine spots to No. 21 on the 2018 Washington Technology Top 100 rankings.

Details are sparse for the much-classified Groundbreaker recompete endeavor, but a Government Accountability Office decision on a protest against one of the recent Groundbreaker recompetes sheds much light on how NSA took its approach to the new IT services procurement.

NSA this time around chose to award three contracts under the umbrella of "Greenway" to continue the services provided Groundbreaker, which CSC won in 2011. CSC spun off its federal business four years later to form CSRA, which General Dynamics then acquired in April this year.

CSRA won the first $2.4 billion recompete called "Global Enterprise Services" in September of last year, ironically besting General Dynamics. AT&T then secured the $2.5 billion part called "Regional Infrastructure Services 1" in January of this year after DXC Technology lost a protest against that award.

GAO's 20-page decision on the DXC protest released in March is redacted but does spell out in broad terms what NSA is trying to do with its IT environment.

CSRA's work for the GES track is for global services "more virtual in nature," while the RIS pieces are for localized and physical infrastructure that are provisioned in specific zones throughout the world.

That description, plus the size and specs of ManTech's award, signal the company won the RIS 2 portion.

RIS 1 and 2 contracts are for localized and physical infrastructure that are provisioned in specific zones throughout the world.

AT&T apparently has two zones, according to the GAO report. Information isn't available on what zone or zones ManTech will support under RIS 2.