Creare LLC

Creare LLC, doing business as Creare, is a small business engineering research and development firm headquartered in Hanover, New Hampshire, that operates as a prime contractor across the federal government, delivering specialized aerospace, defense, medical device, and energy technologies through SBIR, STTR, and direct research awards. The company competes predominantly in full-and-open procurements and total small business set-asides, with no characteristic 8(a), HUBZone, or SDVOSB posture, though it maintains two operating subsidiaries: Edare LLC, a manufacturer of goods and electronics developer, and Brayton Energy LLC.

Creare's concrete capability portfolio spans cryogenic systems and thermal control technologies, propellant management hardware, advanced sensors and instrumentation, medical devices and biomedical systems, computational modeling and geospatial software, materials science including electromagnetic shielding and composite development, and specialized manufacturing of flight-critical aerospace components. The company self-performs the majority of work across both prime and subcontract engagements. Representative work includes a $20.6 million Naval Air Warfare Center contract for HGU-99/P helmets system (awarded February 2026, firm fixed price, place of performance Patuxent River, Maryland); a $9.1 million NASA Goddard contract for a wide-range pump for the Dragonfly mission to Saturn's moon Titan (December 2021, cost-plus-fixed-fee, ultimate completion January 2027); a $14.1 million Naval Air Warfare Center contract for helmets, accessories, and spare parts (April 2025, firm fixed price); and a $13.4 million SBIR Phase III award from the Shared Services Center for 90 K, 30 W cryocooler design and demonstration (September 2025, firm fixed price, ultimate completion October 2028).

Customer concentration is heavily weighted toward Navy and NASA. The Naval Air Warfare Center leads by combined potential value at $212.7 million across 133 awards, followed by NASA's Shared Services Center at $73.1 million across 126 awards. The Office of Naval Research accounts for $67.1 million across 109 awards, and the Air Force Research Laboratory for $64.2 million across 135 awards. These four customers represent approximately 58% of combined potential value. Awards per year have grown from 38 (2022) to 68 (2024), though 2025 activity settled at 41 awards and 2026 shows only 14 awards in the available source data through late September. Forty-nine awards with ultimate completion dates in the next twenty-four months carry combined potential value of $99.3 million and represent recompete exposure.

Creare holds a single-award Indefinite Delivery Contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research and Development Center valued at $10.7 million for GEOSPATIAL WEATHER-AFFECTED TERRAIN CONDITIONS AND HAZARDS (GEOWATCH) enhancements, product expansion, and transition, running through September 2025. The company also operates a Basic Ordering Agreement with the Naval Air Warfare Center under SBIR Program Phase III (ceiling $0, ultimate completion June 2027) and a $2.5 million single-award STTR Phase III IDC with the Army Corps of Engineers' Engineer Research and Development Center. These vehicles establish Creare's primary frame for government ordering and characterize its positioning on Navy and Army research and development efforts, particularly in advanced modeling, simulation, and geospatial technology application.

Creare operates primarily as a prime contractor—98% of awards are primes, 2% subcontract awards—and maintains minimal subcontractor engagement. SCI-reported service-contract invoicing totaled $7.6 million across FY2022–FY2025, with peak invoicing in FY2023 at $5.6 million across 13.9 FTEs. FY2024 showed zero SCI-reportable invoicing, while FY2025 recorded $999 thousand across 1.6 FTEs. This SCI activity is a partial view and excludes the company's substantial goods manufacturing and specialized component production. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI-reportable contracts ranged from a 10th percentile of $34.42/hr to a median of $60.56/hr to a 90th percentile of $491.04/hr, reflecting a broad spectrum of skill levels from technical support to senior engineering and research leadership. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors accounted for approximately 1% of total contractor hours, with only two named subcontractors appearing in the SCI dataset—reinforcing Creare's in-house delivery model.

Creare subcontracts primarily to large primes on specialized technical projects. Recent notable subcontract work includes providing LANDIS flight instrument units and related cryogenic cooler engineering to Raytheon Company (awarded July and November 2024), aerospace research development and engineering support to Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory on the Dragonfly Extended Phase B mission (September and December 2024), technical engineering services to DCS Corporation for combat vehicle systems development (October 2024 and December 2025), and munition science and technology research to HII Mission Technologies Corp supporting Air Force Research Laboratory (August 2024). Creare engages universities—including Dartmouth College, University of Central Florida, Texas A&M University System, and Pennsylvania State University—as subcontractors on SBIR/STTR work to provide specialized expertise in materials characterization, machine learning, air bearing design, and computational modeling.

Edare LLC, a Creare subsidiary, appears as a named subcontractor on multiple prime awards, providing personnel, services, equipment, and facilities for helmet and protective equipment manufacturing (Naval Air Warfare Center contracts) and electronics design and development for medical devices and power systems (Defense Health Agency awards). This subsidiary structure enables Creare to maintain manufacturing and electronics capabilities while keeping the parent firm focused on research and advanced engineering.

Federal grant activity includes SBIR Phase I and Phase II awards from NASA, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). Recent grants include a $314,357 NIAAA award (September 2026) for a wearable sensor system to monitor alcohol withdrawal syndrome, a $311,029 NIDCD award (September 2025) for a multi-function earplug measuring noise dosimetry and hearing function, and NASA research grants for cryogenic thermal control systems and planetary atmosphere instrumentation. Creare serves as both prime recipient and sub-recipient under these grants, frequently partnering with Dartmouth College and research institutions for human studies, clinical validation, and data analysis components.

The vendor's category concentration shows dominant strength in research and development across physical and engineering sciences, with 464 awards under NAICS 541711 (R&D in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences except Biotechnology) and 340 awards under NAICS 541712 (R&D in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences except Nanotechnology and Biotechnology). PSC coding reflects primary focus on space R&D services and defense applied research, with 130 awards in space activities, 96 in other applied research, and 62–64 awards each in defense applied and basic research categories.

CRYOGENIC SYSTEMS; COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS; DATA ACQUISITION; FLUID MECHANICS; HEAT TRANSFER; MULTIPHASE FLOW; MACHINE DESIGN; INSTRUMENTATION; SIGNAL PROCESSING, BIOMED.