Paleowest LLC

Paleowest LLC, doing business as Chronicle Heritage, is a small business cultural heritage consulting firm delivering Class III archaeological surveys, cultural resource inventories, submerged archaeological assessments, and National Historic Preservation Act compliance documentation to federal land-management and defense agencies as a prime contractor (96% of recent awards) and occasional subcontractor. Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, Paleowest operates as a for-profit limited liability company with two named subsidiaries—Codifi LLC and Commonwealth Heritage Group LLC—and competes predominantly on full-and-open federal procurements rather than set-aside vehicles, though it receives recurring Total Small Business set-aside awards across its contract portfolio.

Paleowest's customer base concentrates heavily on land-management and environmental agencies. The top five funding agencies by potential value (59% of combined dollars) include the Department of the Army Corps of Engineers Engineering District Jacksonville ($57.1 million across 15 awards), the Department of the Navy Naval Facilities Engineering Command ($35 million across 10 awards), the Department of Agriculture Forest Service R3-Southwestern Region ($32.7 million across 69 awards), the Department of Agriculture Forest Service R8-Southern Region ($26 million across 20 awards), and the Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation ($21.4 million across 54 awards). By award count, the Forest Service R3-Southwestern Region leads with 69 awards, followed by Bureau of Reclamation with 54 awards and Bureau of Land Management Colorado Region with 51 awards. The divergence between the two rankings reflects Paleowest's portfolio of large-dollar work with the Corps of Engineers and Navy alongside high-volume smaller orders from Forest Service and BLM regional offices.

Paleowest holds several major parent contract vehicles. The GSA Multiple Award Schedule anchors the portfolio with 321 task orders worth $99.9 million combined potential value, followed by an NRCS Indefinite Delivery Contract (INR11PC40008) with 44 task orders valued at $9.8 million, an Army Corps IDIQ (AG8371C090026) with 26 task orders at $1.3 million, and a Navy IDIQ (N6247320D0010) with 22 task orders totaling $4.4 million. Paleowest also holds a $50 million USDA Forest Service single-award blanket purchase agreement for land-management integrated resources (awarded June 12, 2023, through March 6, 2033), a $25 million Army Corps BPA established May 1, 2026, and a $6 million Army Corps Los Angeles District IDIQ set aside for small business. Representative prime work includes a $1.24 million Marine Corps delivery order for cultural site evaluation at Twenty-Nine Palms (July 2022–March 2026), a $792,980 National Park Service delivery order for emergency burial recovery and stabilization at Vicksburg National Cemetery (2024–2025), a $1.07 million Forest Service contract for archaeological survey supporting fuels reduction (referenced in 2024 award summary), and numerous Class III cultural inventory BPA calls ranging from $27,829 to $677,215 across BLM and Forest Service regional offices.

Activity has trended downward on an annual basis—43 awards in 2022, 39 in 2023, 30 in 2024, 33 in 2025, and 8 in early 2026. Recompete exposure is modest: 19 awards (combined potential value $3.5 million) face ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months. In its subcontractor role, Paleowest delivers cultural resource and environmental consulting services to large engineering firms. Named primes include Ch2M Hill (disaster recovery management consulting, wetland restoration, and environmental consulting), Solv LLC (historic property management and environmental review support), and EA Engineering, Science, and Technology (environmental consulting, Superfund site cultural assessments, and park planning). SCI-reported invoiced revenue across federal service contracts above the $150,000 threshold totaled $7 million over FY2022–FY2024 (zero reported in FY2025), with FY2024 activity reaching $3.7 million across 23.8 FTEs. Government-paid hourly rates on prime SCI contracts ranged from $0/hr at the tenth percentile to a median of $59.90/hr and $338.34/hr at the 90th percentile, reflecting a mix of field labor, technical specialists, and senior leadership. Across SCI-reportable prime contracts, subcontractor hours share was zero percent, indicating Paleowest performs work predominantly with in-house personnel. The firm's GSA Schedule labor portfolio spans 15 categories at $34.20–$99.00/hr, with representative roles including Field Director ($70.20/hr, Bachelor's, 5 yrs experience) and Project Principal ($99.00/hr, Master's, 10 yrs experience); no security-cleared positions are offered.

The award portfolio is heavily concentrated in environmental consulting services (283 awards) and research and development in social sciences and humanities (131 awards), with the vast majority mapped to PSC code R407—Special Studies/Analysis–Archaeological/Paleontological (256 awards). Paleowest operates as a prime-focused firm, with 465 of 482 awards held directly. The 17 sub-awards come primarily from large environmental engineering primes executing disaster recovery, wetland restoration, and environmental compliance work where Paleowest contributes specialized cultural resource expertise. No major fixed recompete cliff appears in the next twenty-four months, though the portfolio's downward activity trend may signal either pipeline tightening or timing shifts in Forest Service and BLM procurement cycles across the Western United States and Southeast.

Archaeological and paleontological consulting services