Stephen Romero

Stephen Romero serves as a key procurement professional within the U.S. Forest Service’s Region 5 Pacific Southwest Region, overseeing contracting activities critical to sustaining national forest health and resilience. He manages the acquisition of engineering services essential to ecological restoration, wildfire mitigation, and infrastructure maintenance across high-use public lands. His responsibilities include developing solicitation documents, evaluating technical proposals, and ensuring compliance with federal acquisition regulations for projects ranging from habitat rehabilitation to trail and utility system upgrades. Romero plays a central role in aligning contracting decisions with the agency’s strategic priorities in forest stewardship and climate adaptation. Romero works closely with a network of qualified engineering firms specializing in environmental planning, civil infrastructure design, and ecological consulting. While no single contractor dominates his portfolio, he consistently engages firms with demonstrated expertise in forest hydrology, soil stabilization, and wildfire-resistant construction. His procurement approach emphasizes technical competence, environmental compliance, and past performance on similar federal projects, fostering long-term partnerships with vendors who understand the unique challenges of public land management. Romero’s contracting activity is entirely classified as “No Set-Aside,” indicating a focus on open competition based on technical merit rather than socioeconomic preferences. This reflects the specialized nature of the engineering services required, where qualifications and proven experience in federal forest projects take precedence over certification-based set-asides. While small business participation is not formally prioritized through set-asides, qualified small firms are encouraged to compete on an equal footing based on capability. His procurement focus is exclusively centered on NAICS 541330 (Engineering Services), encompassing environmental engineering, land surveying, geotechnical analysis, and forest infrastructure design. He routinely procures services related to reforestation planning, invasive species control infrastructure, trail construction, and utility system upgrades within sensitive ecological zones, demonstrating deep expertise in federal land management engineering requirements.