AI Automation & Governance · DMV
Your best people are spending 8 hours a week on a process everyone quietly hates.
I rebuild one workflow at a time for owner-operated firms in the DMV — fixed scope, fixed price, eight weeks, a production system you own at the end. Cybersecurity background, so it holds up when your prime asks how the data is handled.
Strategy before software. Always.
This is for you if
- 20–200 employees, $5M–$50M revenue
- Regulated or federal-adjacent
- You personally make the AI decisions
- One workflow eats 8+ senior hours a week
- You tried AI tools and got nothing measurable
The problem
You didn't buy a tool problem. You bought a process problem.
Someone re-keys the same data into three systems. A proposal goes out late because 60% of the effort went into finding content that already existed. A controller who should be reviewing is producing instead. The intake form gets typed into the case system by hand.
Then a vendor sells you a license, your team layers it on top of the same broken process, and nine months later nobody can name a number that moved.
A sorted inbox is not an outcome.
The fix is not a better tool. It is redesigning one process with the agent as the primary actor — then choosing how much autonomy it gets, and measuring four things every month.
of CEOs say their job is on the line
if AI fails to deliver measurable gains by the end of 2026.
worry more about over-investing
than under-investing in AI. The fear is spending, not missing out.
Governance ranked the top success factor
ahead of both people and tools. Dataiku / Harris Poll, 2026 — 900 CEOs at $500M+ firms.
The offering
Three fixed-price engagements. Pick the one that matches where you are.
No discovery phase you pay for twice. No retainer drift. You know the price, the scope, and the end date before anything starts.
The Workflow Audit
$3,500 Fixed. Credited toward a build.
- Five-question audit on one workflow, run with the people who actually do it
- Honest verdict: automate, re-scope, or leave it alone
- Redesign sketch with the agent as first actor
- Recommended autonomy level and why
- Baseline numbers so week 8 has something to beat
- Written go / no-go you can hand to a partner
The 8-Week Build
$24,000–$38,000 Fixed once scope is set. No change orders in scope.
- Everything in the Audit, then built
- Production automation running in your tenancy, on your accounts
- Governance one-pager — who approves what, and when it escalates
- Runbook written for your staff, not for engineers
- Four-metric tracking sheet wired to the workflow
- Week-8 handover session with your internal owner
- 30 days of post-handover support
The Governance Sprint
$12,000–$18,000 Fixed. Standalone or bolted onto a build.
- NIST AI RMF-aligned program, sized for an SMB — not an enterprise binder
- AI inventory: what your staff is already using, approved or not
- Acceptable use policy your team will actually follow
- Per-workflow autonomy levels and approval gates
- Vendor and third-party AI risk review
- Data classification guardrails — CUI, PII, PHI, client-confidential
- One-page summary for primes, insurers, and clients who ask
Not sure which one? Take the 30-minute call — I will tell you which fits, including when the answer is none of them.
The method
A.G.E.N.T. — the framework every engagement runs on
Trained directly in the Harvard HDSI program. Five steps, in order, on one workflow. It is the reason the work produces a number instead of a demo.
Audit
Look honestly at how the work happens today. Five questions about one workflow, asked of the people who perform it — not the org chart's description of it.
Gauge
Write the outcome in one sentence and pass the "so what?" test. If the outcome can't survive that question, the workflow is not ready and we stop here.
Engineer
Redesign with the agent as the primary actor. Not the old process with a chatbot bolted on. Not faster — different.
Navigate
Choose an autonomy level for this workflow: validate, direct, sign off, or own. Per workflow. Never one blanket policy across the company.
Track
Four metrics, reviewed monthly: cycle time, unit cost, quality, capacity unlocked. If you can't measure it, you didn't transform it.
Proof
What one workflow, done properly, is worth
Property management · DMV · ~60 employees
Tenant maintenance request triage
- Audit finding
- Leasing agents spent 22 minutes a day manually routing requests. Urgency was judged by whoever opened the email first.
- Redesign
- Agent classifies urgency, drafts the work order, and matches to the right vendor. Human signs off on anything flagged high-urgency or over a cost threshold.
- Autonomy
- Level 3 — sign off. The agent acts; a person approves before dispatch.
Tysons govcon · ~40 employees
Proposal response
60–70% of effort was going into finding and reformatting content that already existed. An agent-driven retrieval and assembly layer cut non-writing time by 40% — and made the technical narrative more competitive.
Falls Church accounting · ~30 employees
Month-end close
The controller was producing 80% of the work and reviewing 20%. With the agent pulling trial balance, flagging variances, and drafting commentary, that flipped to 90% review. The firm took on 30% more client work without hiring.
Fit
I would rather lose the deal than take the wrong one
Good fit
- 20–200 employees, $5M–$50M revenue
- DMV-based or adjacent — Richmond, Baltimore, southern PA
- Govcon, healthcare, legal, accounting, property management, title
- The owner is personally involved in the AI decision
- At least one workflow burns 8+ hours a week of senior time
- You want to own what gets built
Bad fit
- You want a strategy deck, not a working system
- You want six workflows automated at once
- You want someone to run it for you forever
- Nobody internally will own it after handover
- The decision needs four committees
- You are shopping for the cheapest hourly rate
Free — no call required
Strategy Before Software: The SMB AI Readiness Kit
Five working tools, not a whitepaper. The same instruments I use in the first two weeks of a paid engagement — scoring sheets, a policy template you can adopt as written, and the vendor questions that end bad deals early.
- Workflow Triage Scorecard — score 3 workflows on 8 weighted criteria, find the one worth automating first
- The Autonomy Ladder — the 4 levels, and how to pick one per workflow instead of company-wide
- One-Page AI Acceptable Use Policy — fill-in-the-blank, NIST AI RMF-aligned, adoptable this week
- The Four Metrics Sheet — cycle time, unit cost, quality, capacity unlocked
- 12 Vendor Due-Diligence Questions — plus the 7 workflows you should never automate first
Send me the Kit
18 pages. Delivered in under a minute.
FAQ
Questions owners actually ask
What does an engagement actually cost?
The Workflow Audit is a fixed $3,500. Build engagements run $24,000–$38,000 depending on the number of systems the workflow touches. The Governance Sprint runs $12,000–$18,000. Every engagement is fixed-scope and fixed-price, quoted before work starts. There are no hourly bills and no change orders for work that was in scope.
Why only one workflow at a time?
Because multi-workflow programs are where SMB AI budgets go to die. One workflow, taken end-to-end through audit, redesign, build, and measurement, produces a working system and a number you can defend. Three workflows, half-built, produce a status deck. Fixed scope. One workflow at a time.
We already have Copilot and ChatGPT. Isn't that the same thing?
No. Those are assistants layered on top of how the work happens today — a person still drives every step. Automation means the agent is the primary actor and the person reviews. That is a redesign, not a faster version of the old process. Not faster. Different.
What happens when you leave?
You own everything: the accounts, the automation, the runbook, and the governance one-pager. It is built in your tenancy on platforms you already pay for where possible. Week 8 is a handover session with whoever will own it internally. Real automation runs while you sleep and survives the moment you stop watching.
We hold CUI / we're pursuing CMMC. Can we do this at all?
Yes, and this is the reason to hire someone with a cyber background instead of an automation generalist. Data classification and boundary decisions come first — before any tool selection. Where a workflow touches CUI, the architecture keeps it inside your existing authorized boundary or the workflow gets re-scoped. I will tell you plainly when a workflow is not a good candidate.
How much of my team's time does this take?
Roughly 6–10 hours total across 8 weeks, concentrated in weeks 1–2. Two working sessions with whoever actually performs the workflow, one session with the owner, and short weekly checkpoints. If your team has to run the project, you bought the wrong thing.
Do you do retainers or managed services?
Not as a default. The engagement ends with a working system you own. If you want ongoing monitoring or a second workflow afterward, that is a separate fixed-scope agreement. I would rather you not need me in month four.
Are you actually local?
Yes. Based in Virginia, serving the DMV — DC, Northern Virginia, Maryland — with secondary coverage in Richmond, Baltimore, and southern Pennsylvania. On-site for the audit sessions when it helps. Remote for the rest.
One workflow. Thirty minutes. A straight answer.
Bring the process your team complains about most. We will look at it together and I will tell you whether it is worth automating, what it would take, and what it would cost.
30 minutes. One workflow. You leave with a plain answer on whether it is worth automating — whether or not you hire me.