The team was honored for partnering with defense aerospace contractor Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company to implement a successful total system performance responsibility, known as TSPR, a concept that dramatically reduces logistics costs while improving F-117 system support fleet-wide.

"Since 1 October 1998, we’ve worked with Lockheed Martin on several TSPR goals," said Col. Charles Pinney, the F-117 SPO director, "to reduce the size of the system program office radically; reduce logistics support costs over traditional methods; and maintain stellar support to the F-117 fleet in the field. This concept represents a new era in government and contractor teaming in which all non-core government responsibilities are transitioning to the prime contractor. As one of six initial pilot programs of the Defense Systems Affordability Council Total Ownership Cost Reduction, the F-117 TSPR effort has produced dramatic successes through incentive-based contracting, with work performance scores of one hundred percent in all seven key rating areas."

By reinventing the F-117’s entire logistics architecture, the TSPR process has enabled the Air Force to reduce the SPO size from 226 to fifty-five members, saving more than $7 million in reduced personnel costs in the first year of the eight-year contract.

The Hammer Award is sponsored by the National Partnership for Reinventing Government and is chaired by Vice President Al Gore. More than 1,200 Hammer Awards — consisting of a $6 hammer, a ribbon, and note from the vice president — have been given to teams of federal employees, state and local employees, and private citizens, all of whom are working to build a better government.