Salas Fermin

Salas Fermin is a minority-owned, Hispanic American small business sole proprietorship located in West Covina, California, specializing in environmental and forestry-related services. Registered in SAM.gov since 2013, the company primarily provides specialized vegetation sampling and collection services to federal agencies. Their core expertise involves collecting botanical specimens such as conifer cones, tree needles, pollen, and other vegetation samples for research and management purposes, with a particular focus on supporting forest regeneration, health monitoring, and land management initiatives.

The company has consistently been awarded federal contracts through the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Region (Region 5), primarily for cone collection and vegetation sampling across multiple California national forests. These contracts, typically designated as total small business set-asides, have included specific tasks like collecting mature conifer cones from forests such as Sequoia, Stanislaus, Los Padres, Angeles, San Bernardino, Cleveland, Shasta-Trinity, and Modoc. The contract values have ranged from $0 to $32,480.50, with services involving specialized techniques like tree climbing, using shooting/slinging equipment, and mechanical lifts to obtain specimens. Some notable projects have included screening white pine needle samples for blister rust resilience and collecting cones for future reforestation needs.

Salas Fermin holds a Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA) with the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region, awarded on July 27, 2022, with an ultimate completion date of July 31, 2027, and a ceiling value of $250,000. This multiple-award BPA covers cone, needle, pollen, and vegetation sampling collection services across California's national forests and the Lake Tahoe Basin. The BPA allows for flexible task orders with firm-fixed-price values, enabling the Forest Service to quickly procure specialized field services as needed. Individual task orders have been issued for specific collection needs, supporting the agency's critical programs in forest regeneration, management, research, and land management initiatives across different national forest regions.