University Of ST Thomas

University Of ST Thomas, doing business as Daniel C Gainey Conference Centre, is a private Catholic liberal arts university in St. Paul, Minnesota that receives federal education and training contracts for NROTC tuition and fees, and federal research grants from civilian agencies as a prime recipient — with 99% of its federal awards as prime contracts or grants rather than subcontracts.

The university operates almost entirely in the education and training space. Its contract portfolio is dominated by Naval education delivery: the Bureau of Naval Personnel has issued sixteen tuition and fee delivery orders to cover NROTC midshipmen education, ranging from $53,699 to $220,291 per award, with the most recent order issued March 13, 2026 for $152,929 covering Spring 2026 NROTC tuition and fees at the St. Paul campus. The Naval Education and Training Command represents a second education stream with thirty-one awards totaling $5.5 million in combined potential value. A single Air Force contract vehicle (Indefinite Delivery Contract F0160079D0483) carries forty-two task orders, suggesting institutional provision of education or training services under an Air Force IDIQ; Navy basic ordering agreements (BOAs) N0018919GZ047 and N0061291G0074 carry fifteen and four task orders respectively, totaling $2 million.

Federal research grant work centers on NSF funding. The university is recipient on recent NSF projects including a $1.685 million Integrative Activities grant (CFDA 47.083, awarded September 1, 2024, completion August 31, 2028) to develop research administration infrastructure for predominantly undergraduate institutions; a $1.5 million Division of Undergraduate Education grant (CFDA 47.076, awarded January 1, 2022, completion December 31, 2027) supporting engineering transfer pathways from community colleges; a $400 thousand Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships grant (CFDA 47.084, awarded September 1, 2024, completion August 31, 2027) establishing the EXPAND Consortium across five private universities; and multiple smaller NSF awards in physics education, STEM teacher preparation, and chemistry research. The university also holds a $630 thousand SBA Congressional Community Project Funding grant (CFDA 59.059, awarded September 1, 2023, completion August 31, 2025) for small business development and entrepreneurship.

Customer concentration is heavily skewed toward Navy education. The top five customer agencies by award count account for 72% of awards: the Department of the Air Force (39 awards), NSF (32 awards), Navy Naval Education and Training Command (31 awards, $5.5 million), Navy Bureau of Naval Personnel (16 awards, $1.9 million), and the Navy broadly (7 awards). By potential value, Navy education dominates — the Naval Education and Training Command and Bureau of Naval Personnel together represent $7.4 million of the $7.9 million combined potential value across all awards. The discrepancy reflects the high dollar concentration in Navy education contracts relative to numerous NSF research awards.

Activity has been trending downward in recent years. Awards numbered four in 2022, seven in 2023, and nine in 2024, declining to three in 2025 and two in 2026. However, the combined dollars obligated across all awards ($42.7 million) substantially exceeds combined potential value ($7.9 million at 540% ratio), indicating that invoiced revenue from completed or in-progress awards exceeds the face values of currently open vehicles. Only one award carries an ultimate completion date within the next twenty-four months, presenting minimal recompete exposure in the near term.

The university maintains one documented federal contract subrelationship: a sub-award from Purdue University on a Department of Defense microelectronics workforce development project (SCALE Follow On, Milestone 2.3 and 2.4, awarded July 26, 2024).

University Of ST Thomas competes full-and-open on all major contracts and grants; no set-aside designations appear across the award footprint. As a nonprofit educational institution, the vendor qualifies as neither a small business nor a women-owned or minority-owned enterprise by SBA standards.