The US Navy Talent Pipeline Program TEAM will energize and engage the American manufacturing economy by creating and sustaining a defense and maritime industrial base focused talent pipelines, enabling EMPLOYERS to re-capitalize their workforce through recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and retaining workforce for 1 year as productive and engaged new employees.
View highlights from the most recent TPP Signing Day.
“American industrial workers are as important to our national defense as the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines at the pointy end.”
As the U.S. Navy modernizes and expands its fleet over the next 30 years, the strength of America’s industrial workforce is once again mission-critical. Meeting unprecedented submarine and defense production demands requires more than traditional hiring—it requires a new, employer-driven approach to workforce development.
Launched in March 2021, the Talent Pipeline Program (TPP) is a nationwide public-private partnership between the U.S. Navy, the Department of Defense, and TMG, Inc. The program equips small and medium-sized manufacturers with the tools, coaching, and data needed to build demand-driven talent acquisition and retention systems that improve business performance while increasing industrial capacity for the Navy.
Philadelphia was selected as the pilot region due to its dense concentration of submarine industrial base suppliers. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Navy leadership—including Matt Sermon, Executive Director, PEO Strategic Submarines, and Whitney Jones, Director, Submarine Industrial Base—joined employers, training providers, and Joe Barto, Founder of TMG, Inc., at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Philadelphia Division, to test a bold idea:
What if employers were empowered to fix their own workforce challenges—together—with the Navy as a true partner?
They believed—and the model worked.
Today, more than 600 employers nationwide participate in the Talent Pipeline Program, strengthening businesses, communities, and America’s defense industrial base—one relationship, one employer, and one job at a time.
2021 — Philadelphia (Pilot Launch)
Employer-driven model introduced by Navy leadership and TMG, Inc.
2022 — Regional Expansion
Pittsburgh | Hampton Roads
2023 — Northeast Growth
New England | Long Island
2024 — National Acceleration
Southern California | Enterprise
2025 — Frontier
National Rollout