Josephine E. Baran

Josephine E. Baran serves as a key procurement professional within the W2SD Endist Baltimore office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, supporting the Department of the Army’s mission to sustain and modernize military infrastructure. She manages a diverse portfolio of construction, facility maintenance, and environmental services contracts, ensuring operational readiness across federal installations. Her acquisitions focus on mission-critical civil works, including janitorial, landscaping, plumbing, HVAC, and civil engineering services, all aligned with the Army’s long-term infrastructure resilience goals. Baran’s work directly enables the delivery of safe, functional, and compliant facilities for both military and civilian users. She maintains established working relationships with a core group of contractors, including Grunley Construction Co., Inc., Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., LLC, Matthews Group Inc., Curtin Maritime Corp., and Cheroenhaka Nottoway Enterprises, LLC. These partnerships reflect a balance between large, experienced firms capable of complex infrastructure projects and small, historically underutilized businesses with specialized capabilities. Her contracting approach emphasizes reliability, performance history, and compliance with federal construction and environmental standards, fostering long-term vendor collaboration. Baran demonstrates a strong commitment to socioeconomic contracting, with 72.4% of her acquisitions set aside for small businesses under FAR 19.5. This reflects a deliberate strategy to prioritize small business participation across multiple categories, including HUBZone, SDVOSB, and other certified entities, aligning with Army and DoD directives to expand equitable access to federal opportunities. Her procurement patterns consistently favor small business set-asides over open competitions, reinforcing the agency’s broader goals for inclusive economic growth. Her primary procurement focus lies in NAICS 561720 (Janitorial Services), which accounts for over 22% of her portfolio, followed by 238220 (Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors) and 561730 (Landscaping Services). She specializes in facility sustainment, preventive maintenance, and environmental stewardship, with expertise in managing contracts that require strict adherence to OSHA, EPA, and Army environmental compliance standards. Her technical domain centers on operational facility support services critical to mission continuity.