Margaret Thompson

Margaret Thompson serves as the primary contracting lead within the USDA Rural Housing Service’s Strategic Acquisition Division, where she oversees the procurement of critical technology and systems modernization initiatives that underpin rural housing guarantee and loan servicing platforms. Her role is central to advancing the agency’s mission of enhancing digital infrastructure for equitable access to federal housing programs, with a focus on securing secure, scalable, and interoperable IT solutions. She manages end-to-end acquisition cycles for complex systems integration, software development, and cloud-enabled platforms that support applicant management, underwriting automation, and data analytics for rural communities. Thompson cultivates strategic partnerships with a diverse pool of vendors specializing in federal IT modernization, including firms with deep expertise in legacy system migration and secure cloud migration for regulated environments. While no single contractor dominates her portfolio, she consistently engages both large systems integrators and niche technology providers capable of delivering compliant, audit-ready solutions tailored to USDA’s operational requirements. Her contracting approach emphasizes performance-based outcomes, lifecycle support, and vendor accountability aligned with FedRAMP and NIST standards. Her procurement strategy reflects a balanced commitment to socioeconomic inclusion, with equal weighting between open competitions and total small business set-asides under FAR 19.5. She actively prioritizes small business participation, ensuring that qualified SBs and SDBs have meaningful access to high-impact IT modernization contracts, reinforcing the agency’s equity goals in rural development. Thompson’s primary technical focus lies in NAICS 541512 (Computer Systems Design Services) and 541519 (Other Computer Related Services), where she procures custom software development, systems integration, data migration, and user-centered digital platform design. Her domain expertise centers on modernizing underwriting engines, applicant portals, and secure data exchange systems that serve low-income and underserved rural populations, ensuring compliance with federal housing regulations and cybersecurity mandates.