Wendy K. Stephenson

Wendy K. Stephenson serves as a Purchasing Agent for the USDA Forest Service, where she plays a critical role in executing procurements that support the agency’s mission of sustaining national forest and grassland ecosystems. She manages a diverse portfolio of acquisitions focused on operational readiness, ecological restoration, and infrastructure resilience in remote and rugged environments. Her responsibilities include soliciting, evaluating, and awarding contracts for services and construction activities essential to wildfire mitigation, invasive species control, and forest health initiatives, ensuring compliance with federal acquisition regulations and agency-specific priorities. Stephenson maintains consistent relationships with a core group of contractors, including ACI FEDERAL INC, ONE STOP RECRUITING LLC, GONDO ROY E MD, THE LOCUMS CO, LLC, and AMD INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES LLC. These partnerships reflect a blend of specialized forestry support, staffing solutions, medical services for field personnel, and technology integration. Her procurement approach emphasizes reliability, technical expertise, and rapid response capabilities, particularly for mission-critical and time-sensitive operations in isolated locations. A strong advocate for small business participation, Stephenson prioritizes socioeconomic set-asides, with over 66% of her awards designated for Total Small Business Set-Asides under FAR 19.5 and nearly 25% allocated to HUBZone firms. Her contracting patterns demonstrate a deliberate strategy to expand economic opportunity in rural and underserved communities, aligning with federal goals to increase small business access to government contracts while ensuring mission effectiveness. Her procurement focus centers on NAICS 115310 (Support Activities for Forestry), which accounts for over 40% of her activity, followed by heavy civil construction under NAICS 237310 and 237990. She routinely procures site preparation, road and trail construction, janitorial services, and specialized forestry support such as brush clearing, fuel reduction, and ecological monitoring. This technical domain expertise ensures that acquisitions directly enable field operations and long-term forest stewardship objectives.