Jim Yarbrough

Jim Yarbrough serves as a Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) for the Custer Gallatin National Forest, a unit of the U.S. Forest Service within the Department of Agriculture. In this role, he provides technical oversight and performance monitoring for infrastructure construction and maintenance contracts critical to public safety and ecological stewardship. His responsibilities include ensuring contractor compliance with federal regulations, verifying work quality against specifications, and facilitating communication between field personnel and contractors. He primarily manages acquisitions under the Highway, Street, and Bridge Construction NAICS code, focusing on trail systems, forest roads, culverts, bridges, and wildfire mitigation infrastructure across federally protected lands. Yarbrough maintains consistent working relationships with a small group of specialized contractors, including Young Gun Construction LLC, TK3, LLC, and KOMMODITIES CORP. These firms are regularly engaged for their proven expertise in remote-site construction, erosion control, and sustainable timber-framed infrastructure. His procurement approach emphasizes reliability, safety compliance, and adaptability to challenging terrain, fostering long-term partnerships with vendors who demonstrate technical proficiency and operational consistency in high-risk, low-access environments. He exhibits a strict commitment to small business participation, directing 100% of his acquisitions toward total small business set-asides under FAR 19.5. This reflects a deliberate strategy to empower locally based and regionally rooted contractors who understand the unique environmental and logistical demands of the Northern Rockies. His contracting patterns prioritize socioeconomic goals without compromising technical standards, ensuring equitable access to federal opportunities for qualified small firms. Yarbrough’s technical domain is exclusively focused on NAICS 237310, with all procurements centered on civil infrastructure construction within forested and mountainous landscapes. He specializes in procuring services related to road grading, drainage systems, bridge rehabilitation, and trail surfacing—projects requiring precise adherence to USDA Forest Service engineering standards and environmental mitigation protocols. His expertise lies in managing complex, mission-critical infrastructure that balances public access with ecological preservation.