Architecture before ornament.
We start with the load-bearing systems, identity, data, networks, the workflow, then choose tools. A stack is not a strategy.
Women-owned | SBA and Virginia applications in | Herndon, VA
IT, architected for the mission.
FameArch designs, secures, and runs the systems federal and commercial teams actually depend on, including the AI layer most IT shops still treat as an afterthought.
- Women-owned firm
- SBA and Virginia certifications applied
- Federal and commercial
- NIST | FedRAMP | CMMC aligned
- Established 2022
Agencies
Organizations our team has supported.
Products
Software and platforms the team has worked in.
USDA and NIH, including the National Cancer Institute, are agencies the team supported as a subcontractor to prime contractors. LabWare and Microsoft Azure are products used on that work. The marks are not an endorsement.
The firm
Women-owned IT, built for the mission.
FameArch designs, secures, and runs the systems federal and commercial teams actually depend on: AI with a named owner, architecture before tools, and operations that still answer the phone.
We are a women-owned firm in Herndon. SBA and Virginia women-owned certifications are applied for, not yet awarded. Our team has supported large agencies as a sub to primes, including USDA cloud migration and SAS, LabWare LIMS, and project and requirements work at NIH's National Cancer Institute.
Who we are
Practices
Seven ways in. One standard of care.
New flagship practice
Artificial intelligence is not a sidecar.
Most IT programs still treat AI as a pilot. FameArch treats it as infrastructure: models, data, controls, and the people who have to live with the result. We design systems that answer real operational questions, not demos that stall in a sandbox. If you cannot say who owns the model, what it was trained or retrieved from, and who may see the answer, you do not have a system. You have a demo with a legal department in its future.
- Generative AI applications
- AI agents and workflow automation
- Machine learning and predictive analytics
- Computer vision and sensing
Who we serve
The rooms we work in.
Federal civilian
Agencies that have to modernize without gambling the mission or the next assessment.
Government contractors
Integrators and product firms that need a small-business partner who can actually deliver the slice they sold.
Commercial operators
Companies whose IT has to be boring in the best sense: secure, costed, and usable on a Monday.
Conservation & environment
Authorities, NGOs, and programs that manage land, water, species, and climate commitments.
State & local
Cities, counties, and state agencies that have to modernize under public scrutiny and a budget that does not reset like a venture round.
Energy & utilities
Operators of grids, water, and facilities who cannot treat IT as a side office.
Selected work
USDA, NIH, and the work around them.
Cloud & Infrastructure
USDA applications, refactored and moved to the cloud.
As a subcontractor to a prime, our team refactored data-center applications so they were cloud-ready, then migrated them for USDA programs.
Digital Transformation
SAS support for USDA, as a subcontractor.
Our team provided SAS support on USDA work under a prime: the analytics and reporting layer programs depend on, not a slide about data.
Software Engineering
LabWare LIMS, supported as the lab actually runs it.
Our team supports LabWare LIMS: the laboratory information management system labs use for samples, workflows, and records.
Digital Transformation
NIH National Cancer Institute: project and requirements.
As a subcontractor to a prime, our team provided project management and requirements management for healthcare research programs, including NCI.
Cloud & Infrastructure
A civilian agency, on a landing zone that could pass.
GovCloud landing zone, identity boundary, and a migration sequence that kept mission systems available through cutover.
Artificial Intelligence
A knowledge assistant that cites its sources.
A retrieval-augmented assistant over policy and program records, with access control and human review on every high-stakes answer.
Methods
A sequence you can inspect.
01
See the system
A bounded look at what is actually load-bearing.
02
Design the next state
A target that respects how people absorb change.
03
Build in the open
Short increments. Visible demos. Security in the pipeline.
04
Operate, then transfer
Runbooks as if we will not be in the room.
Point of view
Beliefs we will not negotiate.
Compliant by construction.
Federal and commercial partners do not get two different standards. Controls are designed in, so audits are a harvest of evidence, not a reconstruction.
AI with a named owner.
Every model in production has a person, a purpose, and a kill switch. Intelligence that cannot be governed is just risk with a demo.
Leave it runnable.
Documentation, paved roads, and operators who were in the room. We measure success by whether the system still works the month after we step back.
Insights
Written like we have to live with it.
Software Engineering | 6 min
A paved road, or folklore.
If every team invents a pipeline, you do not have a platform. You have a collection of laptops and a story about DevSecOps.
Artificial Intelligence | 7 min
AI that can survive a conversation with counsel.
If you cannot say who owns the model, what it was trained on, and who may see the answer, you do not have a system. You have a demo with a legal department in its future.
Digital Transformation | 6 min
Change is part of the architecture.
A new system that nobody uses is not a transformation. It is a capital expense with a training video.
Questions
Straight answers.
Who does FameArch work with?+
Federal agencies and the primes who serve them, including USDA and NIH, plus commercial and laboratory operators. Our team's past performance includes USDA cloud migration and SAS support, LabWare LIMS, and project and requirements work at the National Cancer Institute. We also support conservation programs. We are built for teams that cannot treat downtime or an audit as a surprise.
Are you a women-owned small business?+
FameArch LLC is a women-owned firm in Herndon, Virginia. We have applied for SBA women-owned small business certification and for Virginia women-owned certification. Neither has been awarded yet. We will not list a certification we do not have.
Do you really do AI, or is it a slide?+
AI is a flagship practice, not a bullet under ‘innovation.’ We design generative systems, agents, classical ML, and the data and governance layer those systems require. If a use case is theater, we will say so before we staff it.
Which clouds and frameworks do you work against?+
AWS, Azure, and GovCloud, with delivery aligned to NIST SP 800-53, FedRAMP, CMMC, ISO 27001, ITIL, and Zero Trust as the engagement demands. We map controls to the boundary you actually have, we do not sell a framework as a product.
Can you run day-to-day IT as well as projects?+
Yes. Managed IT, service desk, endpoints, and workplace platforms sit alongside project work. Many clients want one firm that can both modernize and keep Tuesday morning working.
How do engagements start?+
A conversation, then a scoped discovery. We will not write a novel of a proposal before we have seen the system. Most work begins with a defined increment and a named owner on both sides.
Do you team as a subcontractor?+
Yes. We prime small, well-bounded work and we subcontract on larger vehicles where our practices fill a gap. Our team has already done that for primes supporting USDA and NIH. We will not be a pass-through.
Where are you based, and do you work on site?+
Herndon, Virginia, 205 Van Buren Street, Suite 120. We work on site when the system or the people require it, and remote when they do not. Discovery almost always includes time in the actual rooms where the work happens.
Tell us what is load-bearing.
A short conversation is enough to know whether we should work together. Bring the constraint, not a slide deck.
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