Richard (Brad) Lidell

Richard (Brad) Lidell serves as a key procurement lead within the CSA East 13 USDA-FS, overseeing the acquisition of heavy civil engineering services critical to the maintenance and modernization of infrastructure across national forest lands. His responsibilities include managing the full lifecycle of contracts for transportation networks, public facilities, and utility systems, ensuring compliance with federal construction standards and environmental regulations. Lidell’s portfolio is centered on mission-critical projects that enhance public safety, resource management, and operational resilience in federally managed forest environments, aligning closely with the Forest Service’s strategic infrastructure goals. He maintains consistent working relationships with a core group of contractors specializing in heavy civil construction, including Razor Consulting Solutions, Inc., Laboda Grading Inc., CPM Constructors, Joe Daniels Construction Co., Inc., and Atoah Contracting LLC. These partnerships reflect a preference for firms with proven expertise in earthwork, road construction, bridge rehabilitation, and drainage systems within sensitive ecological zones. Lidell’s procurement approach emphasizes performance-based outcomes, rigorous site-specific compliance, and collaborative contract administration to ensure project success in remote and challenging terrain. Lidell demonstrates an unwavering commitment to small business participation, with 100% of his acquisitions structured as total small business set-asides under FAR 19.5. This reflects a deliberate strategy to maximize economic opportunity for small, locally based contractors with the technical capacity to operate in forested, off-grid environments. His contracting patterns consistently prioritize small businesses without subclass preferences, fostering broad-based participation and capacity building within the rural construction sector. His procurement focus is exclusively on NAICS 237990 — Other Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction — encompassing earthmoving, grading, road and trail construction, erosion control, and utility trenching within forested landscapes. This specialization requires deep technical understanding of terrain-specific construction methods, environmental mitigation protocols, and federal land-use constraints, positioning Lidell as a subject matter expert in delivering resilient infrastructure in ecologically sensitive federal wilderness areas.