FAQs

Part one: Who’s eligible to be a protege? If you’re a certified DBE with the Pennsylvania Unified Certification Program or PAUCP who’s interested in doing business with PennDOT, then you’re eligible to participate as a protege in the PennDOT Mentor Protege program or the MPP as we call it.

We do, however, warn that mentors for the PennDOT Mentor Protege program or MPP will have and will be seeking skill sets directly applicable to heavy Highway construction, transportation engineering, planning, and or environmental projects. If your firm is looking to perform ancillary or non-traditional service to PennDOT construction or engineering contracts, then Prime mentoring may not be available for your firm. You may, however, just have a goal of becoming ready to do business with PennDOT through the Engineering and Construction Management System (ECMS) and gain a better understanding of how your firm can participate on PennDOT projects in general. These are MPP objectives that this program can help proteges achieve without being partnered with a mentor.

Where do Protege sign up? All Protege contractors and Consultants will start off by visiting mppsurvey.com and completing the online survey. A few tips: if you encounter a required field that you do not feel is applicable, simply enter n a or zero in the field to continue. Scroll to the bottom of the page and select continue and save if you cannot complete the survey all at once. Save the survey link provided on that save and continue page to get back to your survey quickly. That link will also be sent to you via email once you hit send link on the save and continue page.

Now, once you’re actually done all of the questions in your questionnaire, upon completing the final question when you hit next, a review page will appear. You can either go back and update your answers after you’ve reviewed them on the review page, or you can hit submit. At this point, the act of completing the survey will either create a new Pro rank Academy profile for an email address that’s not already associated with a user on Pro rank Academy, or it will convert that existing user to an MPP Protege profile and add you to your respective Mentor Protege program rooms or MPP rooms as we like to call them.

In either scenario, you will receive emails from the system that will provide Key Program information like your initial login credentials that access the mentor Protege rooms on prorank Academy or pra and information about your cohort contractor or consultant and your initial tier one two or three and what your next step should be based on your cohort or initial tier.

Protege Eligibility

Getting Started As A Protege

Primary Protege Signup

Let’s start with who’s eligible to be a mentor. All firms eligible to submit bids or statements of Interest through PennDOT’s ECMS procurement process and that have a history of successful project delivery with PennDOT can serve as mentors for the PennDOT Mentor Protege program. As it relates to the consultant cohort, mentors may be experienced prime or subconsultant firms registered as Penn DOT business partners with an active qualifications package in PennDOT’s Engineering and Construction Management System or ECMS.

For the construction cohort, PennDOT business partners with active Prime qualifications will be utilized to train DBEs with the intent to obtain additional pre-qualification work codes and PennDOT’s Engineering Construction Management System or ECMS. DBE mentors for both cohorts are welcomed and encouraged.

Where do mentors sign up? Mentors will visit mppsurvey.com to complete the MPP questionnaire to get started. Once a mentor arrives at mppsurvey.com, they will see a link in the header that says please click to complete the mentor questionnaire. Mentors need to click this link to be redirected to the mentor version of the MPP questionnaire. Once redirected, the page header will now say penn.mpp Prime Mentor survey.

The answers that you provide to the MPP questionnaire will automatically enroll you or your assigned point of contact into the Penn DOT Mentor Protege program and will generate a welcome email that will provide access to MPP informational resources and further instructions on how to proceed with the program. Simply complete the questionnaire and click submit once you’re done to get started. Either you or your selected point of contact for the Mentor Protege program will receive a follow-up email with additional information about the program.

Receipt of the MPP Mentor email is verification that you have successfully added yourself as a potential mentor to the program on behalf of your firm. Please note, each Prime Mentor Protege agreement or MOU will be contract-specific and will only be applicable upon the award of a PennDOT project that has MPP training provisions associated with it. This means that until you and your selected Protege have been awarded a project, you will be considered a potential Mentor because mentoring cannot formally begin without an associated PennDOT project with MPP provisions on it.

Mentor Eligibility

Getting Started As A Mentor

Primary Mentor Signup

The PennDOT Mentor Protege program is divided into two industry-specific cohorts. Those industry cohorts are defined as follows:

• The Consultant Cohort: Applicable to transportation engineering, planning, environmental firms, etc., seeking to provide professional services to PennDOT on teams responding to PennDOT advertisements on PennDOT’s Engineering and Construction Management System or ECMS.
• The Construction Contractor or otherwise known as the Contractor Cohort: Applicable to construction firms seeking to perform heavy civil construction work on PennDOT construction projects bid on PennDOT’s Engineering and Construction Management System or ECMS.

MPP participation is currently designated to one cohort at a time. Mentors seeking to participate in both cohorts can contact us for further information. Based on the MPP questionnaire, both mentors and proteges will be automatically assigned to the applicable MPP cohort.

Note: You can always determine which of the two cohorts that you have been placed in by the names of your MPP rooms on Pro-rank Academy. If you are in the Consultant Cohort, you will see the Consultants MPP room and the word consultant in the tear room title. If you’re on the Contractor Cohort, you will see the Contractors MPP room and the word contractor in the chair room title.

Each of the two Mentor Protege program cohorts are separated into four tiers which are determined by a protege status on PennDOT’s Engineering and Construction Management System or ECMS. Each Protege will begin the program in one of the first three tiers: one, two, or three. The tiers of the PennDOT Mentor Protege program are defined the same for both cohorts and are as follows:

Tier One: This tier is for all Protege not yet business partner registered on PennDOT’s Engineering and Construction Management System ECMS. The primary objective of Tier One is Penn DOT business partner registration. Upon achieving Penn DOT business partner registration on ECMS, the Protege is moved to Tier Two.

Tier Two: This tier is for all Protege that are business partner registered but are not actively qualified on PennDOT’s Engineering and Construction Management System ECMS. The primary objective of Tier Two is to help Tier Two Consultants submit and/or renew their annual consultant qualification packages and to help Tier Two contractors submit their pre-qualification applications and/or renew their expired work classifications. Upon achieving PennDOT qualification, the Protege is moved to Tier Three.

Tier Three: This tier is for all Protege who are business partner registered and actively qualified to work on PennDOT’s Engineering and Construction Management System projects. The primary objective of Tier Three is to help proteges find prime mentors and to help them participate on Penn DOT projects. Upon being notified of selection as a protege for an awarded Prime Mentor, the Protege will be moved to Tier Four.

Note: Underutilized Protege will remain in the Tier 3 room upon notice of project award by MPP mentors as they will be eligible to participate on multiple MPP projects as the MPP Protege simultaneously. Non-underutilized Protege will only be able to participate on one MPP project at a time as the MPP Protege and thus will be removed from their respective cohorts Tier 3 room until completion of their Protege participation on their current MPP project.

Tier Four: This tier is for all Protege that have been selected to participate as a protege by an awarded Prime on a Mentor Protege project for PennDOT. The primary objective of Tier Four is to track and assist awarded MPP Protege as well as to ensure equitable distribution of MPP program opportunity. Upon successful completion of the MPP project, the Protege will have successfully completed Tier Four. Completion of Tier 4 will be considered a successful completion of the PennDOT Mentor Protege program and firms will be eligible to re-enter the program upon completion.

Note: Each successful completion of the PennDOT Mentor Protege program will be documented and applied to a corresponding selection prioritization factor that will be used to ensure equitable distribution of future MPP opportunities.

The MPP rooms on Pro-rank Academy or PRA are how we organize all of the different stakeholders and resources for the Mentor Protege program by their respective cohorts and tiers. Prorikeacademy.com has various rooms that we use to organize content and connect relevant users. These virtual rooms, in addition to having members, documents, courses, and discussions, may also have their own sub rooms. Sub rooms can also have sub rooms and so on.

Using this logic, there are 13 rooms on Pro-rank Academy for the Mentor Protege program. Let’s review how these rooms organize users and information by MPP cohort and tier, as well as the room nesting logic for subordinate rooms or sub rooms.

The top-level Mentor Protege program room, the Penn DOT MPP room, is the parent or top-level room for all other Penn DOT MPP program rooms. The other 12 MPP rooms are all subordinate rooms inside of the Penn DOT MPP room. This room is not filtered by MPP cohort or by tier. All MPP stakeholders from all tiers may come here to network with one another. This room contains high-level MPP information that may be of value to all program participants or those that are seeking to learn more about the PennDOT Mentor Protege program.

The remaining 12 MPP rooms are all cohort-specific. They consist of six identical rooms that are mirrored for each of the two cohorts. All 12 rooms are hidden on Pro rank Academy, which means that you need to be a member prior to seeing the room. Membership in these rooms is automatically granted upon completion of the MPP questionnaire.

The six rooms for each cohort are as follows:

• The Consultants MPP Room or the Contractors MPP Room: These are the top-level rooms for each cohort. All members of the respective cohort, regardless of their tier, are members of these rooms. These rooms contain high-level MPP information that may be of value to all program participants within the respective cohort.
• The Tier 1 Room: This room is for all proteges in Tier 1 of the respective cohort. The room contains resources and discussions that are specific to the needs of Tier 1 proteges.
• The Tier 2 Room: This room is for all proteges in Tier 2 of the respective cohort. The room contains resources and discussions that are specific to the needs of Tier 2 proteges.
• The Tier 3 Room: This room is for all proteges in Tier 3 of the respective cohort. The room contains resources and discussions that are specific to the needs of Tier 3 proteges.
• The Tier 4 Room: This room is for all proteges in Tier 4 of the respective cohort. The room contains resources and discussions that are specific to the needs of Tier 4 proteges.

The MPP Mentors Room: This room is for all mentors of the respective cohort. The room contains resources and discussions that are specific to the needs of mentors.

MPP Rooms Overview

The MPP survey is the questionnaire that all potential mentors and proteges must complete to participate in the PennDOT Mentor Protege program. The survey is designed to collect information about your firm and your interest in the program. The information you provide will be used to determine your eligibility for the program, assign you to the appropriate cohort and tier, and match you with potential mentors or proteges.

To complete the MPP survey, visit mppsurvey.com and follow the instructions provided. If you encounter a required field that you do not feel is applicable, simply enter “N/A” or “0” in the field to continue. If you cannot complete the survey all at once, scroll to the bottom of the page and select “Continue and Save”. Save the survey link provided on that page to get back to your survey quickly. That link will also be sent to you via email once you hit “Send Link” on the “Save and Continue” page.

Once you have answered all the questions in the questionnaire, a review page will appear. You can either go back and update your answers after you’ve reviewed them on the review page, or you can hit “Submit”. At this point, the act of completing the survey will either create a new Pro-rank Academy profile for an email address that’s not already associated with a user on Pro-rank Academy, or it will convert that existing user to an MPP Protege profile and add you to your respective Mentor Protege program rooms or MPP rooms as we like to call them.

In either scenario, you will receive emails from the system that will provide key program information like your initial login credentials to access the mentor Protege rooms on Pro-rank Academy or PRA, and information about your cohort, contractor or consultant, and your initial tier one, two, or three, and what your next step should be based on your cohort or initial tier.

That concludes our review of the six most frequently asked questions regarding the PennDOT Mentor Protege program. If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We’re here to help you succeed in the program. Thank you for your time and interest in the PennDOT Mentor Protege program. We look forward to working with you.

MPP Survey