The US Army SBIR program office is proud to nominate Mr. John Pucci for the 2012 SBA Tibbetts Award. Mr Pucci has made important contributions and is a strong advocate and supporter of the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program.

Since 2007, Mr. Pucci has served as Operations Manager for the United States Army SBIR program. He manages topic generation and source selection processes representing 25 Army organizations for inclusion in three OSD solicitations and executing over two hundred million dollars per year. He ensures source selection protocols on 900 contract award actions adjudicated from 3000+ proposals annually for accurate selection data and expeditious contract awards to selected contractors. In addition, he works closely with warfighter requirements authors to identify and prioritize technology shortfalls to be addressed in SBIR projects.

He has fostered innovative solutions to Army R&D objectives and assisted small businesses to develop and transition technologies, either back to the private sector or to the government. In addition, he manages budget execution processes and the Commercialization Pilot Program (CPP).

As a result of his continued efforts, the Army SBIR program has enjoyed its’ most significant successes during his tenure. Phase III commercialization successes have tripled from $400M in FY06 to the current $1.2B documented Phase III Army SBIR commercialization successes. In addition, the program has enjoyed stellar ratings received during Inspector General and GAO reviews coupled with no prosecuted contractor protests during his tenure. Please accept this nomination of John Pucci with the US Army's strongest endorsement.