Saltwater Inc.

Saltwater Inc., a woman-owned small business headquartered in Anchorage, Alaska, provides fisheries science, marine conservation, and oceanic research services to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as a prime contractor, holding seats on two multi-billion-dollar NOAA indefinite delivery contracts under the PROTECH framework.

Saltwater operates predominantly as a NOAA prime under small business set-asides — 87% of recent awards carry prime status, with 78 awards across the past five years directed to NOAA alone, representing 97% of award volume and 100% of combined potential value. The company competes under both Total Small Business and Woman-Owned Small Business set-asides, with a consistent WOSB designation across recent delivery orders. Saltwater's concrete service portfolio includes fishery monitoring, stock assessments, electronic monitoring system design and maintenance, data analysis, program management, regulatory analysis, communications support, and cetacean acoustic research. Representative work spans the Northeast Fisheries Science Center's Population and Ecosystems Monitoring and Analysis Division ($9.2 million ceiling, delivery order September 2025, firm fixed price through September 2029), Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center cetacean acoustic analysis support ($2.4 million ceiling, September 2026, through 2031), and NMFS West Coast Region sustainable fisheries support covering policy analysis, electronic monitoring, and permits programs ($2.4 million ceiling, October 2025, through 2030). A time-and-materials delivery order with NOAA Fisheries headquarters for communications program and product management support, including 508 remediation, data visualization, and scientific illustration, carries a $2.0 million ceiling (October 2024, through 2029).

Customer concentration is extreme: NOAA accounts for 78 of 92 awards and the full $19.12 billion in combined potential value. The Department of the Navy and the Economic Development Administration together account for 11 awards with negligible dollar magnitude. Saltwater holds prime positions on two major NOAA vehicles — the ProTech 2.0 Fisheries Domain ($8 billion ceiling, March 2024 award, 27 task orders placed as of reporting) and ProTech 2.0 Oceans Domain ($8 billion ceiling, April 2024 award, 2 task orders placed as of reporting). Older PROTECH generation IDIQs (DOCAB133F08CQ0074 and DOCRA133F12CQ0048) carry 10 additional task orders across a combined $21.3 million. Work performed under these vehicles spans NOAA regional science centers in Woods Hole, Massachusetts; Seattle, Washington; Honolulu, Hawaii; Galveston, Texas; and Juneau, Alaska.

Activity declined sharply post-2025: eight awards in 2024, five in 2025, and two in 2026 year-to-date. Only three awards reach completion within the next twenty-four months, with a combined potential value of $4.3 million — a minimal recompete cliff relative to the vendor's $19.12 billion ceiling portfolio, reflecting the multi-year performance windows (typically through 2029–2031) on recent delivery orders. The company also holds a federal grant as recipient from NOAA for seaweed processing and distribution research in Kachemak Bay, Alaska (grant award September 2022, completion August 2025), and acts as a sub-recipient under the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation on electronic monitoring research for Gulf of Alaska fish processing (sub-grant May 2024) and under The Southeast Conference on a feasibility study (May 2024).

SCI-reported invoiced revenue totaled $13.4 million across FY2022–FY2025, concentrated in FY2022 ($7.2 million) and FY2023 ($6.2 million), with zero invoiced dollars reported for FY2024 and FY2025 — a discontinuity that may reflect the timing gap between award issuance and billing on recently awarded large-ceiling delivery orders. SCI records show 49.9 FTEs on federal services contracts in FY2022; subsequent fiscal years report zero FTE values despite continuing prime contract records, consistent with the shift to delivery orders under PROTECH IDIQs where invoicing patterns differ from the pre-2024 award cohort. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, government-paid hourly rates ranged from $53.71/hr at the 10th percentile to a median of $295.67/hr, with the 90th percentile showing distortion ($195,008/hr) typical of non-labor line items in time-and-materials contracts. Saltwater carries zero named subcontractors on SCI records and no reported sub-hours engagement, delivering work with internal staff. On definitional awards outside the SCI window — two legacy sole-source contracts for electronic monitoring installation and maintenance on commercial fishing vessels in the Southeast and Alaska (2022–2027) — the company subcontracts hydroacoustic monitoring to Manson Construction Co.

30 years we have been an industry leader in the design and implementation of observer program logistics. We are actively involved in developing and field-testing electronic monitoring (EM) technology along with deploying an EM System in the Pelagic Longline Fishery, which we believe will play an increasingly significant role in the collection of fisheries management data.

Each year, 100+ clients select Saltwater as their contractor of choice. Our logistics acumen, quality control, recruiting, program methodologies, policies and processes are the foundation of our outstanding contract performance and customer service. The data we collect is consistently ranked highly by our clients, and we have a strong track record for transparency in accounting and staying within budget.