Curtis Yocum - Stewardship Procurement Analyst

Curtis Yocum serves as a Stewardship Procurement Analyst within the U.S. Forest Service’s Stewardship Contracting Branch, where he supports the execution of landscape-scale ecological restoration initiatives through strategic procurement. His role centers on designing and managing complex, performance-based contracts that integrate timber harvesting with watershed protection, fuels reduction, and infrastructure maintenance to advance forest resilience and wildfire risk mitigation. He specializes in stewardship contracting mechanisms authorized under Title III of the Healthy Forests Restoration Act, ensuring compliance with multi-objective outcomes that balance ecological, economic, and social goals. Yocum maintains consistent working relationships with a core group of experienced contractors including BRINK BROTHERS INC., PEAK ENGINEERING LLC, AZ HAMMER DOWN, LLC, GABINO D GRANO, and GLADHART LLC. These partners are frequently engaged for their technical expertise in forest thinning, road decommissioning, trail rehabilitation, and non-timber resource management. His procurement approach emphasizes long-term, collaborative partnerships over transactional vendor relationships, prioritizing contractors with proven capacity in multi-year, landscape-level stewardship projects. Yocum’s contracting portfolio reflects a strong preference for full and open competition, with 100% of awards issued under no set-aside provisions. While he does not routinely utilize socioeconomic set-asides such as 8(a), HUBZone, or SDVOSB programs, his focus remains on selecting vendors based on technical capability, past performance, and ability to deliver integrated ecological outcomes across large, complex sites. His primary procurement activity centers on NAICS 115310 (Support Activities for Forestry), encompassing services such as prescribed burning, invasive species control, and forest restoration planning. He also occasionally procures NAICS 488210 (Support Activities for Rail Transportation) for access route maintenance in remote forested areas. Yocum’s domain expertise lies in aligning procurement strategy with ecological restoration objectives, ensuring contracts deliver measurable improvements in forest health and public safety.