Ward Laboratories, Inc.

Ward Laboratories, Inc., a for-profit small business headquartered in Kearney, Nebraska, provides soil and plant sample analysis services to federal research agencies as a prime contractor, specializing in soil chemical analysis, nutrient testing, microbial community composition assessment, and forage analysis. The vendor operates exclusively as a prime across all fifty-six awards in the source data, with no subcontract exposure, and competes predominantly full-and-open rather than under SBA set-asides, though recent work includes two total small business set-aside purchase orders.

Ward Laboratories' customer footprint is heavily concentrated in USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) research programs. The top five customer offices account for 92% of combined potential value, led by the USDA ARS Field Research Implementation and Information Delivery Plains Area (33 awards, $751 thousand combined potential value), followed by the USDA ARS Central Program Planning Coordination and Support (1 award, $500 thousand), the Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey (1 award, $135 thousand), the USDA ARS Pacific West Area (5 awards, $122 thousand), and the Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development (1 award, $46 thousand). The Plains Area dominates both award count and dollar value; customer concentration skews heavily toward USDA ARS regional research operations.

Ward Laboratories holds a $500,000 single-award indefinite-delivery contract with USDA ARS Central Program Planning Coordination and Support running through June 4, 2029, with eight task orders issued to date under that vehicle carrying $211 thousand in combined potential value. Recent capability work includes a $47,966.94 delivery order from USDA ARS Plains Area for soil and plant sample analyses (September 2026 through August 2027), a $25,540.06 delivery order from Pacific West Area for forage sample analysis (August 2026 through August 2027), and a $141,947.40 purchase order from Plains Area for soil sample analysis supporting a five-year precision agriculture research study in Akron, Colorado (May 2023 through May 2028). The vendor also performs work through the U.S. Geological Survey on a $250,000 indefinite-delivery requirements contract through March 2027 and holds a prior $38,955.98 USDA ARS purchase order for dry matter, protein, acid detergent fiber, minerals, and nutritional analysis on 1,494 corn samples.

Activity is flat to modest — two awards in 2022, four in 2023, four in 2024, five in 2025, and three in 2026 — with three awards worth $215 thousand combined potential value reaching completion within the next twenty-four months. The vendor's primary NAICS concentration is Testing Laboratories and Services (53 of 56 awards), with PSC codes centered on soil analysis, scientific data analysis, and reference laboratory testing. Work is performed at Ward Laboratories' facilities in Fort Collins and El Reno, Colorado; Temple, Texas; and Maricopa, Arizona, as well as at agency research sites in Akron, Colorado and Dubois, Idaho. Combined obligated dollars across all awards total $886 thousand (52% of combined potential value), reflecting conservative spend velocity across the portfolio.

Ward Laboratories specializes in testing soils, plants, feed, forages, water, manures, fertilizer, and other special testing projects.