Passing config properties to controllers - asp.net-web-api

Question

I'm self-hosting Owin in a Windows service that provides some functionality and access to other Windows for other functionalities. I have a provider that's starting the Owin app and is also the entry point to all of the system's functionalities.
How can I pass a reference to my provider to each of the controllers? The ApiController class provides Configuration.Properies, but I can't find a way to add the provider reference to the configuration properties. The StartOptions class has Settings, but it only takes string values. I also don't see a way to pass an extra parameter to the Startup class' Configuration method.
public class Provider : BaseProvider
{
public override void StartUp()
{
var options = new StartOptions();
//StartOptions.Settings only allows string values
//I need to pass this provider to the controllers
WebApp.Start<StartUp>("http://SVS:1234");
}
}
internal class StartUp
{
private Provider _provider = null;
internal void Configuration(IAppBuilder app)
{
var config = new HttpConfiguration();
config.Routes.MapHttpRoute(
name: "POSEngineAPI",
routeTemplate: "api/{controller}/{id}",
defaults: new { id = RouteParameter.Optional }
);
//??? How can I set _provider when calling Startup.Config?
config.Properties.AddOrUpdate("Provider", _provider, (key, value) => _provider);
app.UseWebApi(config);
}
}
internal class SessionController : ApiController
{
[HttpPost]
public IHttpActionResult PostSession(Session session)
{
var provider = GetProvider();
//TODO
return Ok(session);
}
[HttpPut]
public IHttpActionResult PutSession(Session session)
{
var provider = GetProvider();
//TODO
return Ok(session);
}
private WebApiSignalRProvider GetProvider()
{
return Configuration.Properties["Provider"] as Provider;
}
}
I'm new to Web Api and Owin so I'm probably missing something obvious.