Melissa Marchand

Melissa Marchand serves as a key procurement lead within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Information Technology Services division, overseeing acquisitions that enable critical digital infrastructure for wildlife conservation and law enforcement operations. She manages a diverse portfolio of contracts supporting secure data collection systems, real-time habitat monitoring platforms, and field-deployable communication technologies essential to national wildlife protection efforts. Her work directly supports the agency’s mission to modernize its IT and cybersecurity posture, ensuring robust, resilient systems for remote environmental sensing and enforcement operations across federally protected lands. Marchand maintains consistent partnerships with specialized contractors including INALAB CONSULTING, INC., OCLC, INC., UNIVERCELLS TECHNOLOGIES, REAL TIME RESEARCH, INC., and RIEGL USA, INC., who deliver advanced remote sensing, satellite communications, cybersecurity services, and custom software solutions. Her procurement approach emphasizes technical precision and operational reliability, often engaging vendors with proven expertise in environmental data systems, LiDAR instrumentation, and secure field communications. These relationships reflect a preference for established niche providers with domain-specific capabilities rather than broad-based IT contractors. Her contracting patterns show a strong orientation toward open competition, with 88.9% of awards issued without set-asides, indicating a focus on technical merit and capability over socioeconomic preferences. However, she consistently allocates 11.1% of opportunities to total small business set-asides under FAR 19.5, demonstrating a measured but deliberate commitment to small business participation within high-technical-risk procurements. Marchand’s primary procurement focus lies in NAICS categories related to custom computer programming, computer-related services, security systems, and satellite telecommunications. She routinely acquires specialized solutions such as wildlife tracking software, encrypted field communication devices, geospatial data platforms, and secure satellite uplink systems, reflecting deep expertise in environmental IT, cybersecurity, and remote sensing technologies critical to federal conservation missions.