diff --git a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/openmpi/package.py b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/openmpi/package.py
index 43936b6ff2b..2debc8af0a5 100644
--- a/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/openmpi/package.py
+++ b/var/spack/repos/builtin/packages/openmpi/package.py
@@ -484,6 +484,7 @@ class Openmpi(AutotoolsPackage, CudaPackage):
         "memchecker",
         default=False,
         description="Memchecker support for debugging [degrades performance]",
+        sticky=True,
     )
 
     variant(