Alexandria Lighten

Alexandria Lighten serves as a Contract Specialist at the Federal Correctional Institution at Milan (FCI Milan), operating under the Bureau of Prisons within the Department of Justice. In this role, she is responsible for planning, soliciting, awarding, and administering contracts that ensure the safe, humane, and nutritionally compliant provision of food services to incarcerated populations. Her acquisitions are strictly aligned with federal dietary standards and institutional security protocols, focusing primarily on perishable prepared food manufacturing under NAICS 311991. She manages end-to-end procurement cycles for meals, meat, dairy, bakery items, and related sanitary supplies, ensuring compliance with USDA, FDA, and BOP operational requirements. Lighten maintains a consistent procurement pattern centered on small business participation, with 100% of her acquisitions structured as total small business set-asides under FAR 19.5. She actively cultivates partnerships with certified small businesses, including those owned by socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, women, and veterans, ensuring equitable access to federal food service opportunities. Her contracting approach emphasizes transparency, competitive bidding, and vendor capacity building, fostering long-term relationships with vendors capable of meeting the unique logistical and security demands of correctional food delivery. Her primary industry focus is NAICS 311991—Perishable Prepared Food Manufacturing—reflecting her deep expertise in procuring ready-to-serve, shelf-stable, and refrigerated meals that comply with federal nutritional guidelines and institutional constraints. She specializes in sourcing high-volume, temperature-controlled food products from suppliers with proven capabilities in secure distribution, batch consistency, and allergen management within correctional environments. Lighten’s technical domain knowledge includes HACCP compliance, USDA inspection protocols, and the operational realities of feeding large, secure populations under federal mandate.