Erin Garcia

Erin Garcia serves as a Contracting Officer within the USDA Forest Service’s Incident Procurement unit, where she plays a pivotal role in securing rapid-response logistical and operational support for wildland fire and all-hazard incident management. Her acquisitions focus on time-sensitive, mission-critical services—including mobile command units, temporary housing, water systems, and heavy equipment—ensuring incident management teams have immediate access to essential resources across national forests and grasslands. She manages a dynamic portfolio of urgent and emergency procurements under FAR Part 18, leveraging expedited authorities to meet the volatile demands of incident response operations. Erin cultivates partnerships with a diverse base of vendors, primarily small businesses capable of mobilizing specialized services under tight timelines. While no single contractor dominates her portfolio, she consistently engages firms with proven incident response experience, including those certified under 8(a), HUBZone, and SDVOSB programs. Her contracting approach emphasizes agility, reliability, and pre-qualified vendor readiness, fostering long-term relationships with contractors who maintain rapid deployment capabilities and compliance with federal incident command systems. Erin demonstrates a strong commitment to socioeconomic contracting, with 85.7% of her awards designated for total small business set-asides under FAR 19.5. She prioritizes small business participation across multiple categories, actively seeking qualified vendors with incident-specific expertise and geographic reach. Her procurement patterns reflect a deliberate strategy to strengthen the resilience of the small business ecosystem by embedding socioeconomic goals into every emergency acquisition. Her primary procurement focus lies in NAICS 561720 (Janitorial Services) for incident site sanitation, 115310 (Support Activities for Forestry) for fire suppression logistics, and 541990 (Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services) for incident planning and technical support. She routinely procures services related to debris removal, temporary infrastructure, and environmental compliance, demonstrating deep domain knowledge in wildland fire response operations and federal emergency procurement protocols.