Laura C. Updegraff

Laura C. Updegraff serves as a key procurement professional within the U.S. Forest Service’s CSA East 3 office, supporting the operational sustainability of ranger districts across the southeastern United States. She manages acquisition activities centered on essential support services critical to maintaining public lands, with a primary focus on janitorial and facility maintenance contracts that ensure compliance, safety, and environmental stewardship in remote and high-traffic forest areas. Her work directly enables field operations by securing reliable, mission-critical services that uphold the Forest Service’s mandate to preserve natural resources while delivering public access and recreational infrastructure. Updegraff handles full lifecycle procurements under FAR Part 12 and Part 13, emphasizing simplified acquisition procedures for low-dollar, high-frequency service contracts. Her contractor relationships are exclusively with small businesses, reflecting a tightly curated vendor ecosystem aligned with the agency’s operational needs. She collaborates with a network of local and regional service providers specializing in custodial, waste management, and facility upkeep services, fostering long-term partnerships built on performance reliability and geographic responsiveness. While no single contractor dominates her portfolio, her consistent engagement with a stable pool of qualified small vendors ensures continuity and community-based economic impact across forested regions. Updegraff maintains a 100% commitment to Small Business Set-Aside contracting under FAR 19.5, ensuring all eligible acquisitions are reserved exclusively for small businesses. This reflects a deliberate and institutionalized preference for socioeconomic inclusion, prioritizing locally owned enterprises that contribute to regional resilience and workforce development. Her contracting patterns consistently exclude large business participation, reinforcing the agency’s dedication to empowering small business owners in rural and underserved communities. Her procurement expertise is narrowly focused on NAICS 561720—Janitorial Services—covering routine cleaning, waste removal, restroom maintenance, and sanitation support for visitor centers, ranger stations, and trailheads. She specializes in service contracts requiring strict environmental compliance, low-impact operations, and adherence to federal sustainability guidelines, demonstrating deep technical knowledge in facility support within ecologically sensitive landscapes.