Red Leaf Forestry, Inc.

Red Leaf Forestry, Inc., a Hot Springs, Arkansas-based SBA 8(a)-certified minority-owned and self-certified small disadvantaged business, executes forest management and vegetation treatment services as a prime contractor to the federal government, competing predominantly under 8(a) set-asides and Total Small Business designations across delivery orders, blanket purchase agreements, and indefinite delivery contracts. The company operates as a Subchapter S corporation and does not subcontract; it operates 100% as a prime across its federal footprint.

Red Leaf's customer concentration is extreme. The USDA Forest Service Region 8 (Southern Region) accounts for 134 awards representing $59.3 million in combined potential value — 93% of Red Leaf's total award count and 92% of its $64.3 million combined potential value. The Forest Service Region 9 (Eastern Region) places 42 smaller awards ($1.3 million combined), the Forest Service carries 9 awards ($213 thousand), the Army's Installation Management Command Northeast Region funded a single $970 thousand Forestry Support contract at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri (an 8(a) sole-source award running through September 2028), and the Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service holds one $2 million award. This concentration reflects Red Leaf's specialization: the company delivers chainsaw-based manual forestry treatments, herbicide application (foliar, cut-surface, hack-and-squirt methods), tree planting (containerized longleaf, shortleaf, loblolly, and bare-root pine), site preparation, midstory and understory removal, timber stand improvement, crop tree release, invasive species control, and hazard tree felling across national forests and grasslands in the Southern and Eastern regions, primarily in Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, Texas, and Oklahoma.

Red Leaf holds five prime vehicle positions with the Forest Service, anchoring its prime footprint. A $7.5 million single-award BPA with USDA Forest Service Region 8, awarded September 2025 with completion through August 2030, covers vegetation management services across National Forests and Grasslands in Texas (Lyndon B. Johnson, Caddo, Angelina, Sabine, Sam Houston, and Davy Crockett), including invasive species treatments, revegetation, mechanical site preparation, planting, herbicide applications, hazard tree felling, wildlife habitat management, and Red-Cockaded Woodpecker monitoring. A second $7.5 million single-award BPA, awarded March 2023 with completion through February 2028, covers vegetation management and wildlife protection services across the Southern Region broadly. A $6.7 million Indefinite Delivery Contract with Region 8, awarded August 2022 and completing August 2027, provides manual forestry services (tree planting, herbicide application, vegetation treatments using hand tools, midstory control, thinning, crop tree release, invasive species control, fireline construction, and pine beetle suppression) on the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee under a Total Small Business set-aside. A $10 million multiple-award BPA, awarded May 2022 with completion through May 2027 and designated Total Small Business set-aside, funds vegetation management services across North Carolina national forests (chainsaw release, understory control, timber stand improvement, tree planting, midstory removal, and site preparation). A $5 million single-award Indefinite Delivery Contract, awarded November 2021 and completing October 2026 under Total Small Business set-aside, supports vegetative management services (chemical site preparation, tree planting, midstory removal, tree release, invasive species control, woodland restoration) on the Ozark-St. Francis National Forest in Arkansas. Task orders under the two $7.5 million vehicles, the $6.7 million contract, and the $10 million BPA dominate Red Leaf's recent award activity — the top five parent vehicles (Indefinite Delivery Contracts AG64R4C100017, AG447UC120022, and 12444022D0005, a 2015-2019 Texas vegetation-management vehicle, and IDC 127DF520D0012) carry 105 task orders aggregating roughly $4.6 million combined potential value.

Award volume shows contraction. Red Leaf received 14 awards in 2022, 19 in 2023, 13 in 2024, 9 in 2025, and 2 in 2026 year-to-date. Only two awards reach completion within the next twenty-four months (combined potential value $10 thousand), indicating minimal near-term recompete exposure — Red Leaf's larger vehicles (the two $7.5 million BPAs and the $10 million NC BPA) extend through 2027, 2028, and 2030, creating stability but also suggesting that the recent slowdown in annual award counts reflects customer ordering patterns rather than loss of standing. The company's recent contract mix spans firm fixed-price delivery orders ranging from $7 thousand (containerized handplant pine on 28 acres in Zavalla, Texas, November 2026) to $503 thousand (slashing, planting, and vegetation services at Cherokee-Coquille site in Cleveland, Tennessee, May 2025), most priced at $20 thousand to $150 thousand per task order.

The Service Contract Inventory dataset captures only two SCI-reportable prime service contracts above the $150 thousand threshold, spanning FY2023–FY2024: aggregate invoiced revenue of $504 thousand across 0.2 FTEs, derived at a median government-paid rate of $1,049.14/hr. SCI is a partial view that excludes goods, products, micro-purchases, classified work, and non-federal revenue; the $504 thousand represents a small slice of Red Leaf's federal delivery. The company's core business model — task-order-driven vegetation management across small to mid-sized delivery orders — falls beneath or outside SCI thresholds for most awards, making SCI-reported figures unreliable as a measure of federal services volume or workforce scale.

Red Leaf competes in 8(a) Competitive and 8(a) Sole Source designations where set-aside applies, and in full-and-open (no set-aside) designations under established BPA and IDC vehicles once awarded. The 8(a) sole source Fort Leonard Wood contract and sole-source purchase orders for $261 thousand (site prep, planting, midstory removal in Kentucky, June 2024) and $179 thousand (crop tree release on Stearns Ranger District, August 2022) reflect Red Leaf's capability to secure larger-ceiling single-source awards within the 8(a) program; most task orders flow through competitive and non-set-aside mechanisms once the parent vehicle is in place.

Pruning, Planting, Chainsaw, Chemical Spray, Reforestation