Cardinal Point Captains, Inc.

Cardinal Point Captains, Inc., a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business headquartered in San Diego, California, operates as a prime contractor delivering vessel operations, marine engineering, dive services, and oceanographic research support to federal agencies, with extreme concentration in NOAA work and a track record of near-total self-performance across large task orders.

The company holds dual SBA certifications as a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business and Veteran-Owned Small Business (both expiring June 15, 2028) and competes predominantly under SDVOSB set-asides and small-business set-asides on its prime awards. Cardinal Point Captains' capability portfolio centers on vessel operations, field research support, marine engineering services, dive center operations and supplies procurement, and technical support for NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary system. Representative named work includes a $11.99 million fixed-price-level-of-effort delivery order from NOAA under the ProTech 2.0 Oceans Domain IDIQ (awarded September 16, 2026) for technical, educational, and administrative services for Pacific Islands Region National Marine Sanctuaries through September 2031; a $49.9 million single-award VFROSS (Vessel and Field Research Operations Support Services) IDIQ with NOAA's National Ocean Service and Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (awarded June 24, 2024, through June 23, 2029) supporting vessel and field research operations across the national sanctuary system; and a $40.9 million Naval Sea Systems Command STRIDENT production units IDIQ (awarded September 29, 2023, through September 28, 2029) for diver navigation systems, engineering support, and sustainment services.

Customer concentration sits at 99% NOAA dominance by award count and 99.5% by combined potential value. NOAA accounts for 246 of the vendor's 306 recent prime awards ($19.23 billion combined potential value), followed by Naval Sea Systems Command (12 awards, $58.9 million), EPA Region 5 (1 award, $32.5 million), and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (8 awards, $9.3 million). The top three customers by award count and combined potential value are virtually identical—NOAA anchors both rankings at extreme scale.

Cardinal Point Captains places substantial task-order volume under three primary IDVs: the indefinite-delivery contract 1305M224D0002 (VFROSS-V2, 26 task orders, $45.6 million combined potential value), the NOAA ProTech 2.0 Oceans Domain multiple-award vehicle (documented parent vehicle supporting numerous task orders), and the NOAA ProTech 2.0 Fisheries Domain multiple-award vehicle (also supporting multiple task orders). The vendor also holds single-award IDIQs for dive center services ($5.32 million, through September 2029) and dive center supplies ($7.75 million, through September 2029), both awarded September 20, 2024, and the Naval Sea Systems Command STRIDENT production units contract ($40.9 million). Additional named parent vehicles include NOAA's ProTech Services Solution (PROTECH) and the $8 billion ProTech 2.0 professional and technical services contracts.

Activity trajectory shows volatility: 14 awards in 2022, 12 in 2023, 32 in 2024, 20 in 2025, and 7 through mid-September 2026. The recent uptick in FY2024 reflects expanded NOAA task-order issuance, particularly under the VFROSS-V2 and ProTech 2.0 vehicles; the decline in 2025–2026 reflects partial-year capture. Nineteen awards with ultimate completion in the next twenty-four months carry combined potential value of $41 million, representing modest recompete exposure on a $19.34 billion portfolio—most ceiling value is anchored to long-runway IDIQs extending through 2028–2029.

SCI-reported invoicing across federal service contracts above the $150,000 threshold totaled $33.6 million over FY2022–FY2025: $5.3 million (FY2022, 35.2 FTEs), $7.1 million (FY2023, 40.7 FTEs), $10.8 million (FY2024, 55.9 FTEs), and $10.5 million (FY2025, 49.9 FTEs). The SCI-reported workforce delivered to federal services contracts grew from 45.2 FTEs in FY2022 to a peak of 63.8 FTEs in FY2024, receding to 61.8 FTEs in FY2025. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI-reportable prime contracts run a median of $80.52/hr, with the spectrum spanning $57.42/hr at the 10th percentile to $138.58/hr at the 90th percentile, reflecting a mix of operational and technical labor. Cardinal Point Captains self-performs substantially all work: across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors account for roughly 1% of total contractor hours, with only one named subcontractor appearing in the SCI dataset. The vendor operates as a pure prime builder with integrated delivery teams rather than as a sub-feeder or matrix orchestrator.

Cardinal Point Captains appears as a named subcontractor on two federal contract awards: a subject-matter-expert tasking for shipboard unmanned operations under HII Mission Technologies Corp (prime) on a Naval Surface Warfare Center RDTE effort (awarded April 28, 2025), and a hand-held sonar procurement under Atlantic Diving Supply, Inc. (prime) (awarded November 25, 2024). This sub footprint is minimal and non-strategic to the company's business model; the vendor's 99% prime-award share reflects its positioning as a direct customer operator rather than a specialist in sub-supply chains.