About
Who we are.
AC5 Labs is a single-principal consulting firm based in Vail, Arizona, founded in 2026 to deliver senior-led quality, compliance, data, and software work to organizations that don't have the budget for Big-4 rates or the patience for six-month engagements.
The bench behind the firm draws on quality-management work inside multi-billion-dollar Department of Defense programs, where Lean Six Sigma is applied across thousands of employees, hundreds of process areas, and the kind of audit-grade evidence the federal supply chain demands. That same discipline travels into every engagement we run: documented processes, defensible evidence, and lightweight software where operations need it to stick.
Build capability is part of the offer, not just the pitch. The firm has designed and shipped a multi-tenant production SaaS end-to-end on a modern web stack (Next.js, Supabase, Stripe, AI integrations, automated PDF generation). Quality discipline and software delivery come from the same hands.
The firm sells across four buyer tracks because the underlying discipline is the same. The vocabulary changes (NAICS for KOs, ISO clauses for quality directors, plain English for SMB owners), but the rigor doesn't.
The bench
What ‘senior-led’ actually means here.
Credentials
MBA, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, and service-disabled USAF veteran status. Senior credentials held end-to-end inside a single-principal firm, not spread across a delivery team a client never gets to meet.
Track record
The principal's prior work includes hands-on Quality Management inside a 4,000-employee federal program. Process-improvement projects achieved 87 percent defect-rate reductions. Software co-design removed tens of hours of repetitive operational labor per week. The same discipline ports directly into commercial QMS rebuilds, SLED audit-readiness work, and SMB compliance starter engagements that AC5 Labs runs as a firm.
How we work
What you can expect from an engagement.
Founder-delivered
The principal consultant runs the work. No offshore handoffs, no junior-staff bait-and-switch. If the project gets too big for one person, we tell you up front and either scope down or recommend a partner with capacity.
Written framing before the quote
After a discovery call, you get a one-page written framing of the problem and our recommended approach, before any quote. If the framing doesn't match what you actually have, we'll know early and can adjust or part friends.
Fixed fee where it makes sense
Productized engagements (SOP Pack, QMS Gap Assessment, Compliance Starter) are fixed-fee. Larger engagements quote either fixed-fee or capped T&M based on what makes the risk-sharing fair. No open-ended billing.
Ship working software
Where a small piece of automation or tooling will make a recurring SOP actually stick, we'll quote and build it. We don't outsource development. The principal ships the code.
Mission
What we exist to do.
Help small and mid-sized organizations across federal subcontracting, state and local government, commercial enterprise, and small business build the quality management, compliance, data, and software systems they actually need, without Big-4 rates or six-month engagements.
Veteran-owned, service-disabled, and built to last. SDVOSB self-certified today, SBA-verified soon. AZ-formed and AZ-based.
Want to see the work?
Past performance is anonymized where required. Transferable engagements documented across federal and commercial contexts.