Lori Austad

Lori Austad serves as a Contracting Officer for the Custer Gallatin National Forest under the U.S. Forest Service, where she manages the full lifecycle of procurement actions critical to maintaining federal public lands. Her responsibilities include soliciting, awarding, and administering contracts for infrastructure development, ecological restoration, and public access improvements across a vast and diverse terrain. She specializes in complex acquisitions for heavy civil engineering, forestry support services, and recreational facility maintenance, ensuring compliance with federal regulations while advancing the agency’s mission of sustainable land stewardship and public safety. Austad maintains consistent working relationships with key contractors including TK3, LLC and KOMMODITIES CORP, both of which provide specialized services in forestry operations and civil construction. Her procurement approach emphasizes performance-based contracting and long-term vendor partnerships, fostering reliability and technical expertise in delivering mission-critical infrastructure. She prioritizes contractors with demonstrated experience in remote-site operations, environmental compliance, and wildfire mitigation, ensuring that awarded firms can operate effectively within sensitive ecological zones. Austad exhibits a strong and deliberate commitment to small business participation, with 85% of her acquisitions set aside exclusively for small businesses under FAR 19.5. She actively promotes socioeconomic contracting goals, with targeted set-asides for Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses and HUBZone firms, reflecting a strategic alignment with federal priorities to expand economic opportunity in rural and underserved communities. Her contracting patterns consistently prioritize small business resilience and capacity-building within the forest services sector. Her primary procurement focus lies in NAICS 115310 (Support Activities for Forestry), encompassing vegetation management, fire prevention, and trail maintenance, followed by NAICS 237310 (Highway, Street, and Bridge Construction) for critical transportation infrastructure. She also procures surveying and mapping services (NAICS 541370) and recreational site operations (NAICS 721211), demonstrating deep technical familiarity with land management systems and public recreation standards. Austad’s expertise ensures that acquisitions align with ecological, safety, and access objectives across the National Forest System.