Noble Excavating Inc.

Noble Excavating Inc., a HUBZone-certified small business headquartered in Libby, Montana, operates as a heavy civil construction and equipment-services prime contractor delivering road and bridge construction, road maintenance, aggregate materials, excavation, and fire-suppression equipment support to federal agencies, with no subcontractor footprint and no recent sub awards in the source data.

The firm is a for-profit Subchapter S corporation competing predominantly under small-business set-asides, particularly Total Small Business designations and HUBZone set-asides on Forest Service work. Noble Excavating's recent award portfolio spans 187 prime contracts and IDVs with combined potential value of $180.7 million, though the vendor obligated only $29.1 million (16% of potential value) across that period, indicating a mix of active and unexercised contract ceilings. The contractor specializes in concrete civil work — grading, bridge replacement, culvert installation, road stabilization and repair, aggregate crushing and stockpiling, and equipment rental for wildland fire response — rather than service-contract labor or professional services.

Customer concentration is extreme and geographic: the Department of Agriculture Forest Service Region 1 (Northern Region) dominates at 47 awards and $153.1 million combined potential value, representing 85% of the contractor's total-value footprint. The top-five customers (by potential value) account for 99% of the portfolio, anchored by USFS Region 1 work. On award count, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission ranks second with 41 awards but carries minimal dollar value, suggesting micro-purchases or nominal-value listings. The Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration contributes $11.9 million across three awards, and the Army Corps of Engineers (Seattle District) places $7 million across twelve awards. Activity has declined year over year — three awards in 2022 rising to seven in 2023, then falling to five in 2024, four in 2025, and two in 2026 through mid-February. Only one award (potential value $519 thousand) faces completion within the next twenty-four months, indicating minimal near-term recompete exposure.

Noble Excavating holds four primary vehicle positions with the Forest Service: a $50 million Region 1 Road and Bridge Construction Multiple Award Task Order Contract (MATOC) awarded December 16, 2024, expiring December 15, 2029; a $50 million Region 1–Region 4 Forest Engineering and Road Maintenance (FERM) Blanket Purchase Agreement awarded October 2, 2023, expiring August 31, 2033; and two $250 thousand Indefinite Delivery Contracts with the National Interagency Fire Center for heavy equipment services across East Zone regions (Regions 1, 2, 4, and 9), awarded June 1, 2023 (expiring June 1, 2028) and February 6, 2026 (expiring June 1, 2028). The contractor also sits on Department of Transportation IDIQs that have generated fifteen to thirteen task orders each but carry modest per-order ceilings ($588 thousand and $2.2 million combined across their respective fleets). Capability examples include a $519 thousand delivery order from USFS for Upper Lightning Creek Road Improvements (awarded June 16, 2025, expiring November 16, 2026), a $405 thousand delivery order for the Good Creek Bridge Replacement Project in Kalispell, Montana (awarded July 15, 2025, expiring October 31, 2025), and a $5.96 million firm fixed-price contract from the Federal Highway Administration for roadway grading, asphalt paving, drainage, and safety improvements in Missoula (awarded April 19, 2022, expiring March 30, 2023), which enlisted Allwest Testing & Engineering Inc. for quality control, Poteet Construction Inc. for traffic control and guardrail work, and Knife River-Missoula for asphalt paving.

SCI-reported invoiced revenue shows $6.2 million across FY2022 and $1.2 million in FY2024, with no SCI-reportable service contracts in FY2023. The FY2022 work deployed 7.9 FTEs; FY2024 activity dropped to 1.5 FTEs. On federal service contracts captured in SCI, government-paid rates ran from a 10th percentile of $99.39 per hour through a median of $350.17 per hour to a 90th percentile of $508.91 per hour, reflecting a mix of equipment operators and supervisory labor. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractors performed 24% of contractor hours on average; the vendor reported six named subcontractors in the SCI dataset. However, the portfolio's heavy emphasis on equipment procurement, materials supply, and definitive-contract civil construction — rather than ongoing service delivery — means SCI captures only a narrow slice of the firm's federal revenue footprint. The contractor primarily delivers goods (aggregates, equipment rental, materials) and one-time construction projects rather than recurring professional services.