CSULB Mentor-Protégé Team Garners 2006 Nunn-Perry Award

The Department of Defense honored 12 corporate partnerships with the prestigious Nunn-Perry Award during the 2006 Mentor-Protégé Conference held in Atlanta, Ga., March 6-9.

The award is named in honor of former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia and former Secretary of Defense William Perry, whose sponsorship and commitment were instrumental in creating and implementing the DoD Mentor-Protégé program.

Frank Ramos, director of DoD's Office of Small Business Programs, said, “The technologies and products benefiting today's war fighter in the field are, in part, the result of bringing small businesses into the forefront. We recognize these Mentor-Protégé teams whose extraordinary efforts have exceeded their developmental plans and helped transform the DoD acquisition process.”

Winners were selected from more than 30 partnership agreement nominations. A complete list of this year's winners and past winners is available at www.dodsbconference.com .

The DoD Mentor-Protégé program is the leading mentor-protégé model for similar programs in other government agencies. More information on the program is available online at www.acq.osd.mil/sadbu/mentor_protege.com , by emailing programinformationmp@osd.mil or by calling (800) 540-8857.

CSULB TEAM

MENTOR	PROTÉGÉ
Northrop Grumman Space Technology Redondo Beach, California with CSULB	KW Microwave Corporation Carlsbad, California

Northrop Grumman Space Technology (NGST) began mentoring KW Microwave, a SBA-certified 8(a) Small Disadvantaged Business, in July 2002. KWM manufactures miniature microwave filters, and supplies NGST with custom radio frequency filter devices for critical aerospace systems. KWM, during the past year, also has been involved manufacturing electronic products used to deter improvised explosive devices directed at US troops in combat in Iraq. Life-saving products such as these are the best form of return-on-investment in the DoD Mentor-Protégé Program.

Under this agreement, KW Microwave increased employee training while standardizing process controls, and manufacturing procedures, thus experiencing an 18% reduction in defects while lowering costs by 15%, reducing process waste by 15%, reducing performance time by 10%, and decreasing research and data gathering time by 30%. During this period of performance, KWM increased its employee base by 8%, and enjoyed a 14% increase in monthly gross revenue. Moreover, by taking full advantage of NGST's mentoring, KWM streamlined its purchase order procedures and product specification processes, thus enabling KWM to work proactively with customers, focusing on their design and delivery requirements while lowering design and production costs by 15% and decreasing cycle time by 25%, while achieving the highest quality standards.