Marge Schafer

Marge Schafer serves as a Contracting Specialist for the USDA Forest Service, where she manages the acquisition of critical services and infrastructure support essential to the agency’s mission of sustaining national forests and grasslands. Her portfolio encompasses complex procurements in heavy civil engineering, air transportation, and specialized construction, enabling operational readiness in remote and rugged environments. She plays a pivotal role in ensuring compliance with federal acquisition regulations while aligning contract outcomes with the Forest Service’s strategic priorities in wildfire mitigation, ecological restoration, and emergency response. Schafer routinely handles both sealed bidding and negotiated contracts under FAR Part 15, with a focus on performance-based acquisition strategies. She maintains consistent working relationships with key contractors including ACI FEDERAL INC, ONE STOP RECRUITING LLC, GONDO ROY E MD, THE LOCUMS CO, LLC, and AMD INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES LLC. These partnerships reflect a blend of specialized engineering, workforce staffing, medical support, and aviation logistics capabilities tailored to the agency’s unique operational demands. Schafer fosters collaborative vendor engagement, emphasizing technical compliance, schedule reliability, and mission-critical performance standards across diverse contract types. Schafer demonstrates a strong commitment to socioeconomic contracting, with over two-thirds of her awards designated as Total Small Business Set-Asides under FAR 19.5. She actively prioritizes small business participation, with a notable emphasis on HUBZone firms, reflecting a deliberate strategy to stimulate economic development in underserved rural communities where Forest Service operations are concentrated. Her contracting patterns consistently align with federal goals to broaden vendor diversity and enhance local economic resilience. Her primary procurement focus lies in NAICS 237990 (Other Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction), supporting trail, bridge, and firebreak infrastructure, followed by nonscheduled air transportation services (NAICS 481211 and 481212) for wildfire suppression and personnel mobility. She also procures commercial building construction and specialized HVAC systems for remote field stations, demonstrating deep expertise in mission-critical infrastructure and logistical support for federal land management operations.