Forest Access

Forest Access, a for-profit sole proprietorship based in Bonner, Montana, provides vegetation data collection and forest assessment services to the USDA Forest Service as a prime contractor on small-business set-aside and full-and-open delivery orders, task orders, and purchase orders. The company operates across 95% of its footprint with Forest Service Region 1 (Northern Region) and competes in both set-aside and unrestricted categories, though the majority of awards carry no set-aside designation.

Forest Access specializes in concrete forestry field services: common stand exams, old growth forest determinations, timber stand improvement surveys, pre-commercial thinning surveys, stocking survey plots for post-wildfire regeneration assessment, and vegetation data collection across national forests. Representative prime work includes a $163,096 delivery order from Forest Service Region 1 for common stand exams and old growth protocols on 2,204 plots in the Kootenai National Forest (June 2024, IIJA-funded), a $117,736 task order for vegetation data collection in the Eureka, Montana area (April 2024, IIJA-funded), a $67,380 delivery order for pre-commercial thinning surveys in the Nez Perce Clearwater National Forest (August 2024), and a $46,245 purchase order from Forest Service Region 4 (Intermountain Region) for stocking survey plots in the Boise National Forest to assess post-wildfire natural regeneration (September 2024, IIJA-funded). The company has held a $2 million IDIQ with Region 1 since 2020 and recently secured a $50 million Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) with Forest Service Washington Office Acquisitions on May 4, 2026, covering professional services, natural resources restoration, engineering, project management, and restoration work across the United States through March 6, 2033.

Customer concentration is extreme and concentrated within a single federal agency. The Department of Agriculture Forest Service accounts for all 40 prime awards (100% of the footprint). Within that agency, Forest Service Region 1 (Northern Region) dominates by award count with 32 awards valued at $3 million combined potential value, while Forest Service Washington Office Acquisitions anchors the portfolio with a single $50 million BPA, representing 94% of the vendor's combined potential value across all awards. Forest Service Region 4 (Intermountain Region), the Rocky Mountain Research Station, and Region 6 (Pacific Northwest) account for the remaining awards.

Activity has been sporadic—one award in 2022, three in 2023, five in 2024, one in 2025, and three through July 2026—with combined potential value across all awards of $53.2 million but only $1.2 million (2% of potential value) obligated to date. Three awards with combined potential value of $76 thousand are scheduled for completion within the next twenty-four months. Forest Access works exclusively as a prime contractor with no subcontract footprint. The vendor's work is classified primarily under NAICS 541620 (Environmental Consulting Services) and PSC code R408 (Support-Professional: Natural Resources), with 35 awards categorized under Support Activities for Forestry. The company operates across work locations throughout the northern and western United States, with place-of-performance sites in Montana (Bonner, Bozeman, Kalispell, Thompson Falls, Eureka), northern Idaho, northwest South Dakota, and southern Idaho.