NASA has picked an Alabama media company owned by the state’s Poarch Band of Creek Indians to manage communications for the entire space agency including NASA headquarters and all NASA centers.

The contract with PCI Productions LLC, a Huntsville company, and its partners in “Team Creek” is worth $217 million if all options are exercised. It is a support contract meaning the company supports or helps write and produce NASA centers’ communications releases. But it could expand to sharing NASA stories, videos, and other information directly to the public, NASA said.

“This type of a contract is not new for the tribe,” Poarch Band spokeswoman Kristin Hellmich said. “They have a division that is called PCI Federal Services.”

That tribal division includes work in aviation maintenance and engineering, construction, facilities support, professional business services, technology solutions and general facilities services and maintenance, Hellmich said.

NASA wants the widest possible spread of information about its space missions, said Johnny Stephenson, NASA deputy associate administrator for communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

That means the contract includes communications, planning, stakeholder relations, public engagement, media relations services, history and archives services, library services and Freedom of Information Act requests, NASA said.

The contract is for 16 months with one 20-month optional extension period and two one-year options. The potential value is approximately $217.6 million, NASA said.

The NASA contract is an example of how the 2,700-member tribe is active in businesses beyond its best-known gaming operations, Hellmich agreed.

The tribe has different divisions handling its holdings, Hellmich said. One division handles hospitality industry operations like the Wind Creek casino and hotel at Atmore, dog racing tracks in Mobile and Pensacola and near Gulf Shores, Ala.

It also oversees a casino in Pennsylvania with new casinos planned in Curacao and Aruba, Hellmich said.

Another tribal division called the Creek Indian Enterprises Development Authority (CIEDA) owns all non-gaming business such as the tribe’s manufacturing company in Atmore. That company called Muskogee Technology that makes composite materials for airplanes among other products.

Part of the development division’s job is to seek opportunities for the tribe, Hellmich said. “They saw an opportunity with ‘8a contracting,’” she said. “They’re actually a ‘Super 8(a)’ company and saw an opportunity to go more into the government space. That has been several years ago.”

The federal 8(a) Business Development program sets aside contracts only certain contractors can compete for because they are “owned and controlled by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.”

Another federal program is for Super 8(a) companies, which are businesses owned by Indian tribes, Alaska Native Corporations and Native Hawaiian Organizations.

Super 8(a) companies are eligible for direct “sole source” contract awards. That means contracts awarded directly without bidding.

PCI Productions has formed a core team of companies to deliver on the NASA contract including Mori Associates in Maryland and Abacus Technology Corp., both of Maryland, and Alutiiq, LLC, a company involved in training, engineering, electronics and research and development.

The new company has a website (nasacommunicationsservices.com) where information about the team can be found. Job resumes can also be submitted there.

The goal is the widest possible spread of information about NASA missions, said Johnny Stephenson, NASA deputy associate administrator for communications at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

NASA says the contract includes communications, planning, public engagement, media relations, history and archives services, library services and Freedom of Information Act requests.

PCI Productions CEO Tim McElyea of Huntsville said he thinks, “One of the things that’s most important to NASA in this and the reason I think they brought this contract together was they’re trying to get all of the centers singing in harmony with one voice.”

The work won’t all be online. McElyea said the new team will visit all of NASA’s locations. “We’ll have a primary point of contract at each location that serves as sort of that belly button that people push when they have questions or issues and they’ll kind of wrap it up.

“NASA always has something going on,” McElyea said. “Our job is to inform the public with a good message of how all of this is a good use of taxpayer dollars and is worthy of our national effort.”

“NASA is a great organization,” McElyea said. “It’s sort of a point of national pride and that’s what led us to be part of this, to be an extension of what NASA is trying to accomplish.”

The deal also includes communications support for major NASA centers like the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Johnson Space Center in Houston, and NASA Headquarters in Washington plus NASA’s four science mission directorates.

That doesn’t mean NASA is getting rid of or sidelining its news and features writers and artists, web curators and on-camera experts, NASA said. Those civil servants will remain on the job. Current private contracts will also continue until their natural completion dates when the work will migrate to PCI productions, McElyea said.