Tom Walter

Tom Walter serves as a Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) for the USDA Forest Service’s Incident Procurement unit, supporting rapid-response logistics for wildland fire and all-hazard incident management. In this role, he provides critical oversight of contract performance for time-sensitive acquisitions of specialized operational resources, including mobile command units, heavy equipment, temporary housing, and water systems. His work ensures that incident management teams receive mission-critical services within strict operational timelines, directly enabling suppression, containment, and recovery efforts across national forests and grasslands. Tom’s responsibilities include monitoring contractor compliance, evaluating deliverables against performance metrics, and coordinating with field personnel to align procurement outcomes with incident objectives. Tom collaborates closely with a network of small business contractors specializing in forestry support services, maintaining consistent engagement with vendors who demonstrate agility, technical proficiency, and geographic responsiveness. While no single contractor dominates his portfolio, his working relationships are built on proven capability in rapid mobilization, equipment maintenance, and incident-specific logistics. He prioritizes vendors with experience in remote-area operations and understands the unique demands of deploying resources into austere, high-risk environments. Tom maintains a strict 100% small business set-aside preference across all acquisitions, fully aligned with FAR 19.5, and consistently directs opportunities to small disadvantaged businesses, HUBZone firms, and service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses. His procurement patterns reflect a deep institutional commitment to socioeconomic equity, ensuring that federal emergency response funding directly supports underserved entrepreneurial communities with the technical capacity to deliver under pressure. His primary focus is NAICS 115310—Support Activities for Forestry—encompassing services such as fireline construction support, incident logistics coordination, equipment rental and maintenance, and temporary infrastructure deployment. Tom possesses specialized expertise in procuring field-deployable systems that meet NFPA and ICS standards, ensuring contractual deliverables are operationally viable in dynamic, high-stakes wildland environments.