Exponent Inc.

Exponent Inc., headquartered in Menlo Park, California, is a multidisciplinary engineering and scientific consulting firm that provides expert witness testimony, technical consulting, research and development services, and specialized engineering analysis to federal agencies as a prime contractor on 99% of its recent awards, competing without set-aside restrictions.

Exponent's federal capability portfolio centers on expert witness and litigation support (64 awards across Department of Justice divisions and U.S. Attorney's Offices), engineering services spanning over 90 technical disciplines (210 awards primarily NAICS 541330), vehicle safety systems research and human factors analysis (substantial work with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration), program management and technical consulting for Department of the Army initiatives, manufacturing and production engineering support, and specialized research in areas including accident reconstruction, environmental assessment, geotechnical engineering, and beryllium exposure health impact analysis. Representative prime work includes a $3.3 million Federal Energy Regulatory Commission contract for liquefied natural gas technical expertise and incident review services (awarded September 2025, running through September 2030), a $17.1 million Defense Human Resources Activity delivery order for card analysis, quality assurance, and failure analysis under the GSA Multiple Award Schedule (awarded February 2024, completing August 2028), a $1.9 million Food and Drug Administration definitive contract for the FARE-NET program (awarded August 2021, completing September 2027), and a $641 thousand Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division expert witness services contract on a time-and-materials basis (awarded September 2023, running through April 2028).

Customer concentration is heavily skewed toward transportation and defense-related agencies. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration anchors the federal portfolio by potential value, accounting for $235.1 million (34% of combined potential value) across ten awards. The Department of the Army and its Training and Doctrine Command combined represent 82 awards valued at $156.7 million (23% of combined potential value). The Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs places 43 awards valued at $42.8 million. The Department of Justice (civil divisions, environment and natural resources, and U.S. Attorney's Offices combined) accounts for 64 awards with modest individual values totaling $6.5 million. This concentration reflects Exponent's dual focus: high-value R&D and technical services for transportation and defense, and repeated small-dollar expert witness work for DOJ. The top five customers by potential value account for 72% of the combined potential value.

Exponent holds three significant indefinite delivery vehicles. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration awarded a $120 million multiple-award Human Factors IDIQ (awarded September 2024, completing March 2030), with three task orders issued to date totaling $1.9 million for human factors research, driver monitoring systems evaluation, and advanced driver assistance systems analysis. The Department of the Army awarded a $50.2 million single-award indefinite delivery contract (awarded September 2021, completing September 2026) under which Exponent has issued delivery orders for task types 1 through 5 (ranging from $103 thousand to $2.7 million) for technical consulting and program management. The Army also holds an indefinite delivery contract for $26.2 million (W50RAJ21D0002) with 24 task orders issued. Exponent also sits on the GSA Professional Services Schedule with 102 task orders valued at $31.8 million and the GSA Multiple Award Schedule with eight delivery orders valued at $35.3 million.

Award activity trended downward from 2022 onward—22 awards in 2022 declining to 6 in 2026 year-to-date—suggesting either a natural cycle in delivery order issuance or a recompete cliff. Nineteen awards with ultimate completion dates in the next twenty-four months carry a combined potential value of $14.7 million, representing moderate near-term recompete exposure, though the source does not indicate whether these represent IDV renewals or contract terminations.

On Service Contract Inventory reporting (a subset of federal service work above $150 thousand), Exponent reported $13.7 million in invoiced revenue across prime contracts from FY2022 through FY2024—$5 million in FY2022 across 10.5 FTEs, $8.3 million in FY2023 across 10.8 FTEs, and $415 thousand in FY2024 across 0.6 FTEs. SCI-reportable invoicing reflects a sharp drop in FY2024; this likely reflects the timing of award receipts and task order issuance rather than a permanent decline in Exponent's federal services footprint, as the large IDIQs and delivery orders in the contract awards indicate substantial ongoing work. Government-paid hourly rates on SCI-reportable prime contracts ran around $326 per hour at the median, with junior labor at roughly $204 per hour and senior labor through $386 per hour. Exponent self-performed all contractor hours on SCI-reported prime contracts; no subcontractor labor share is recorded.

Exponent operates as a prime contractor on nearly all federal work. As a subcontractor, Exponent has one named prime relationship: Research Triangle Institute on a STREAMS IV contract (subcontract 14-312-0217829, awarded May 2024). Exponent also serves as a sub-recipient to the National Academy of Sciences on a federal grant for tools for managing speed based on factors influencing driver speed selection (awarded June 2026).

Exponent received two federal grant awards as prime recipient: a $841 thousand Defense Health Agency project grant (CFDA 12.420, Military Medical Research and Development program) for mortality risk research from beryllium exposure and associated co-morbidities (awarded September 2023, completing September 2026), and a project grant for ground motion selection analysis for near-fault civil structures using broadband physics-based earthquake simulations (awarded August 2022, completing July 2023).

Exponent has maintained federal SAM.gov registration since October 2001 and operates as a for-profit corporate entity with no identified SBA certifications or set-aside eligibility—all awards are full-and-open competitive. The company's federal footprint spans 70 distinct customer agencies, with the award data ranging from 1993 through July 2026 and a combined potential value of $679.8 million across 394 prime and sub awards.