Mentor Requirements and Evaluation (APR 2015)

(a) The purpose of the NASA Mentor-Protégé Program is for a NASA prime contractor to provide developmental assistance to certain subcontractors qualifying as protégés.

Eligible protégés include certified small disadvantaged business concerns, women-owned small business concerns, veteran-owned or service-disabled veteran-owned small business concerns, HUBZone small business concerns, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, minority institutions of higher education, as defined in FAR part 2, Definitions of Parts and Terms, active NASA SBIR/STTR Phase II companies and nonprofit agencies employing the blind or severely handicapped as defined in 41 CFR chapter 51.

(b) NASA will evaluate the contractor's performance on the following factors. If this contract includes an award fee incentive, this assessment will be accomplished as part of the fee evaluation process.

(1) Specific actions taken by the contractor, during the evaluation period, to increase the participation of protégés as subcontractors and suppliers;

(2) Specific actions taken by the contractor during this evaluation period to develop the technical and corporate administrative expertise of a protégé as defined in the agreement;

(3) To what extent the mentor and protégé have met the developmental milestones outlined in the agreement; and

(4) To what extent the entities' participation in the Mentor-Protégé Program resulted in the protégé receiving competitive contract(s) and subcontract(s) from private firms and agencies other than the mentor.

(5) To what extent the mentor contributed to advancing the protégé's technical readiness level.

(c) Semiannual reports shall be submitted by the mentor and the protégé to the cognizant NASA center and NASA Headquarters Office of Small Business Programs (OSBP), following the semiannual report template found on the Web site at http://www.osbp.nasa.gov.

(d) The mentor will notify the cognizant NASA center and NASA OSBP in writing, at least 30 days in advance of the mentor's intent to voluntarily withdraw from the program or upon receipt of a protégé's notice to withdraw from the Program;

(e) At the end of each year in the Mentor-Protégé Program, the mentor and protégé, as appropriate, will formally brief the NASA Mentor-Protégé program manager, the technical program manager, and the contracting officer during a formal program review regarding Program accomplishments, as it pertains to the approved agreement.

(f) NASA may terminate mentor-protégé agreements for good cause, thereby excluding mentors or protégés from participating in the NASA Mentor-Protégé program. These actions shall be approved by the NASA OSBP. NASA shall terminate an agreement by delivering to the contractor a letter specifying the reason for termination and the effective date. Termination of an agreement does not constitute a termination of the subcontract between the mentor and the protégé. A plan for accomplishing the subcontract effort should the agreement be terminated shall be submitted with the agreement.