Air Force leans on ESOP legislation to sole-source $992M contract
Gettyimages.com / Mat design 24
By
Ross Wilkers
This contract is part of a Defense Department pilot program that allows for certain follow-on awards to stay with the incumbent, if they are fully-employee owned.
The Air Force has leaned on legislation that promotes employee-owned contractors in its award of a potential five-year, $992 million technical and management advisory services million contract.
As prescribed by the fiscal year 2022 and 2024 National Defense Authorization Acts, the Defense Department runs a pilot program that authorizes certain follow-on contract awards to fully-employee owned contractors on a sole-source basis.
Under that setup, the Air Force Test Center’s test range and specialized contracting division joined the pilot program and was authorized to move ahead on the new contract with Torch Technologies. The new award continues work Torch performed at Eglin Air Force Base under an incumbent task order, according to a Sam.gov notice posted Monday.
That order was part of the Technical and Management Advisory Services 2 vehicle, which Torch won a seat on in 2022. The Air Force awarded the $1.9 billion TMAS 3 recompete in July and Torch was not on that list of winners, but the new sole-source notice indicates the Eglin work will be folded into TMAS 3.
Torch will continue its broad support of the Air Force’s research, development, test and evaluation activities with engineering and technical services, studies, analyses, evaluations, management and professional services, and ancillary equipment.
Bill Roark and Don Holder founded Torch in 2002 and the company converted to its 100% S-Corp ESOP structure nine years later.
In an August 2025 episode of our WT 360 podcast, ESOP specialist David Blauzvern explained the legislative preference for employee-owned companies in certain instances.
Blauzvern, a managing director at CSG Partners, also explains the inner workings of making employee ownership a reality.