Steve Radford

Steve Radford serves as a key procurement lead within the Stewardship Contracting Branch of the U.S. Forest Service, overseeing the execution of landscape-scale stewardship contracts designed to advance ecological restoration and wildfire risk reduction. His work directly supports the agency’s mission to integrate timber harvesting with watershed protection, habitat improvement, and infrastructure maintenance through performance-based contracting. Radford specializes in complex, multi-objective acquisitions under the Stewardship Contracting authority, ensuring that contracts deliver both ecological outcomes and sustainable forest products. He manages procurements that require technical coordination across silviculture, hydrology, and forest engineering disciplines, often involving long-term, results-driven agreements with private contractors. Radford maintains consistent working relationships with a core group of experienced forestry service providers, including Brink Brothers Inc., Peak Engineering LLC, Miller Timber Services, Inc., Az Hammer Down, LLC, and Dennis Kirby. These contractors are selected for their demonstrated expertise in ecological restoration, timber harvest operations, and forest road maintenance. His procurement approach emphasizes proven technical capability, operational reliability, and alignment with Forest Service stewardship objectives, fostering long-term, trust-based vendor partnerships grounded in performance accountability rather than transactional bidding. Radford’s contracting portfolio reflects a strong preference for open competition, with 100% of awards issued under no set-aside provisions. This reflects the specialized nature of stewardship contracting, where technical capacity and field experience outweigh socioeconomic categorizations. While small business participation is not formally prioritized through set-asides, contractors of all sizes are evaluated equally on technical merit, past performance, and ability to deliver integrated restoration outcomes. The branch’s procurements are exclusively focused on NAICS 115310—Support Activities for Forestry—encompassing forest thinning, fuel reduction, trail and road maintenance, invasive species control, and post-harvest site rehabilitation. Radford’s expertise lies in structuring contracts that bind ecological outcomes to operational deliverables, ensuring that procurement drives measurable improvements in forest health and resilience.