Mark Hayes

Mark Hayes serves as a key procurement lead within the U.S. Forest Service’s Region 5 Pacific Southwest Region, overseeing acquisitions critical to sustaining the health and resilience of national forests and grasslands. His responsibilities include managing the full lifecycle of contracts supporting ecological restoration, wildfire mitigation, invasive species control, and infrastructure maintenance across high-use public lands. He specializes in procuring technical services and field-ready equipment aligned with the agency’s mission to enhance habitat preservation, reforestation, and public land accessibility. His work directly enables field operations by ensuring timely delivery of mission-critical resources, from forest management tools to utility and trail maintenance systems. Hayes collaborates with a diverse range of contractors, including environmental consulting firms, forestry equipment suppliers, and specialized ecological restoration vendors. His procurement patterns reflect a preference for experienced, regionally based firms with demonstrated expertise in federal land management practices. He maintains consistent working relationships with vendors who possess proven track records in implementing USDA Forest Service protocols, particularly those with field crews certified in wildfire response, native plant propagation, and GIS-assisted resource mapping. Set-aside preferences for Hayes’ portfolio are uniformly non-set-aside, with 100% of awards issued under full and open competition. This reflects a strategic emphasis on selecting the most technically qualified offerors regardless of socioeconomic status, prioritizing mission readiness and operational efficiency over mandated set-asides. While small business participation is not formally incentivized through set-asides, he evaluates all proposals based on technical merit, past performance, and capacity to deliver complex, time-sensitive field services. His procurement focus centers on NAICS categories related to environmental consulting, forest management services, and infrastructure maintenance, including specialized work in erosion control, trail construction, and fuel reduction systems. He routinely procures services involving ecological monitoring, prescribed burning support, and remote sensing technologies, demonstrating deep technical familiarity with the operational demands of managing public lands in fire-prone, ecologically sensitive regions.