MRC Academy is the on-demand training arm of Manta Ray Consulting, a specialized Earned Value Management firm serving DOE national laboratories, defense, energy, and large construction clients since 2007. The Academy scales decades of practitioner expertise into a curriculum your workforce can access anytime.
⸻ OUR TEAM
Two principals. One premise.
Manny Abela and Jeff Chan built MRC on a simple idea: when you partner with us, you get the expertise of the entire firm. Their pedigrees anchor everything MRC Academy delivers.
Manny Abela
Co-Founder and President, Manta Ray Consulting · Creator of The Hammer Solutions
Manny began his career at aerospace and defense contractor Hughes Aircraft Company, where he built his foundation in project controls and EVMS. His path later brought him to SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where he met Jeff Chan — the start of the partnership that would become Manta Ray Consulting. His technical background in custom tool development and database management — uncommon in EVMS consulting — shaped both MRC's analytical rigor and The Hammer Solutions product approach.
Manny is a natural leader who inspires collaborative teams and motivates people to perform at their highest level. He holds a bachelor's degree in electronics engineering technology from DeVry University and is fluent in multiple programming languages, including VB, VBA, VB.net, SQL, and C/C++. He makes his home base in Portland, Oregon, with his wife of more than 40 years. An accomplished and passionate scuba diver, Manny's experiences with manta rays inspired the firm's name.
Jeff Chan
Co-Founder, Manta Ray Consulting
Jeff began his career at Stanford University's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, where he developed project resource models, funding profiles, and contingency analyses for the cutting-edge research facility — and where he met Manny Abela, beginning the partnership that became Manta Ray Consulting. He has more than 25 years of experience helping organizations across the country plan and manage projects using earned value management — specializing in the infrastructure setup of EVMS for large DOE and DOD projects, including Work Breakdown Structure development, Project Execution Plan development, and the disciplined integration of scope, schedule, and cost.
That early grounding in laboratory project work is one reason MRC Academy's curriculum reflects DOE national laboratory environments so authentically — Jeff has lived inside that world from the start of his career. Jeff holds a bachelor's degree in business administration and production management from San Francisco State University. He is known for remaining calm and focused under pressure, and for his ability to lead teams and projects efficiently and effectively. He lives in San Francisco and enjoys running, motorcycling, culinary pursuits, time with friends and family, and a good hockey game.
"Most consultants have the mindset that they are going in on a job alone. We don’t. Every time we work with a client, we bring the knowledge and experience of the entire team to the table.” — Manny Abela
"It’s not a one-way relationship — it’s a partnership, and communication is key. There’s a synergy that I like to develop to add value to the client experience.” — Jeff Chan
Kristin Mast Business Development · Manta Ray Consulting, Inc. Kristin.Mast@mrcpmcs.com 201-213-0987
Academy Point of Contact
For MRC Academy inquiries, briefings, and pilot conversations, reach Kristin Mast — MRC's Business Development lead and the Academy's primary point of contact for institutional partners.
⸻ DECADES OF PROJECT EXPERIENCE ACROSS THE FEDERAL LANDSCAPE ⸻
Collectively, the MRC team has supported EVMS, project management, and project controls work across the following industries, companies, and laboratories:
Argonne National Laboratory • Brookhaven National Laboratory• CERN• Department of Energy • Fermilab • Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory • Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC)
The MRC team's experience spans these organizations through current and prior engagements. MRC is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of the named clients.
⸻ WHY WE BUILT IT
Why we built MRC Academy
For almost two decades, Manta Ray Consulting has supported EVMS implementation, Integrated Baseline Reviews, surveillance preparation, and capability development at the largest DOE national laboratories. Across that work, one pattern kept surfacing: laboratories needed sustainable in-house capability, but commercial EVMS training wasn't built for how their teams actually operate. Multi-day workshops pulled CAMs off-program. Generic case studies didn't reflect DOE Order 413.3B realities. Credentials accumulated faster than capability.
MRC Academy was built to close that gap. It scales the methodology MRC consultants apply on the ground — practitioner-led, DOE-native, designed to reinforce rather than replace each site's System Description — into a modular, on-demand learning environment your laboratory can deploy at its own pace.
The Academy is not a separate venture. It's an extension of the consulting practice, written by the same people who do the work, available on a platform that fits the realities of laboratory project schedules.
⸻ THE FIRM BEHIND THE ACADEMY
About Manta Ray Consulting
Established in 2007, Manta Ray Consulting (MRC) is a specialized EVMS firm providing customized project management consulting to defense, energy, and large construction clients. From the start, MRC has built a reputation as a small firm that delivers big results — known for asking the questions other firms don't, for refusing the status quo, and for treating client engagements as genuine partnerships.
Beyond consulting, MRC develops and supports The Hammer Solutions, a software platform that automates and streamlines EVMS reporting for complex projects. Together, MRC's consulting practice, The Hammer Solutions, and MRC Academy form a three-pronged approach to building sustainable EVMS capability across the federal project landscape.
