Praetor delivers fractional systems engineering and program management support to defense primes and contract vehicles — scoped, cleared, and fast to onboard.
Traditional staffing fills a seat. It doesn't examine whether that seat's outputs actually reconcile with the systems around it — schedule tools, reporting chains, requirements baselines, the handoffs between teams and between primes and their subs.
Praetor looks at the interfaces. The assumptions baked into a program's processes that no one has tested. The structural misalignments that produce schedule slip, rework, and hidden risk at every boundary.
This is the systems engineering discipline applied to program execution — a methodology built in environments where interface failures carry mission-critical consequences.
Fixed-scope delivery support for specific operational and execution challenges on active contract vehicles. Available as subcontract task orders with defined deliverables, fixed price on defined scope, or hourly NTE on ambiguous scope. Flexible execution schedule.
Ongoing SE/PM support for primes and contract holders who need a trusted execution partner without the overhead of a full-time hire. Monthly async deliverable, defined touchpoint, hard scope boundary.
A structured assessment of a contractor's operational system — delivered as a clear, actionable picture of where the program is exposed. Flat-fee engagement. Two to six weeks, depending on scope.
The problems that damage program execution most rarely begin as obvious failures. They emerge quietly through misalignment, workarounds, and structural friction that compounds over time.
Praetor evaluates the operational signals underneath that friction:
Not a list of recommendations. A clear picture of where the constraint lives, why it exists, and what resolving it is actually worth.
Mark McCants founded Praetor Firm to bring a discipline that is standard practice in defense and complex systems — systems engineering — directly to primes and contract holders who need experienced execution capacity without the overhead of a full-time hire.
The discipline was developed in environments where misalignment between components carries mission-critical consequences. That rigor translates directly to program execution, where schedule drag, misaligned reporting, and untested interface assumptions compound quietly until they become contract risk.
Praetor works with primes and contract holders who need cleared, execution-ready SE/PM support — and a partner who can onboard fast and scale with contract demand.
No pitch. A direct conversation about what you're dealing with and whether a systems lens is the right tool for it.