Don Sykes
Practitioner, advisor, and author. Helping organizations implement AI safely and effectively in operations that have to work and have to be auditable.
The career
Don Sykes has spent seventeen years in government contracting, most of it in senior program leadership across federal and international portfolios. His assignments have reached the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific, and the U.S. Antarctic Program, covering life and mission support, embassy operations and maintenance, war reserve materiel, installation modernization, and research support contracts. He has served as Country Manager, Senior Program Manager, and Deputy Program Manager, usually holding the operational schedule, the P&L, and the compliance record in the same hand.
The portfolios have been substantial. A $100M+ operations and maintenance program at US Embassy Baghdad. Deputy leadership of a $1.2 billion life and mission support program spanning nineteen sites and more than five thousand personnel in Afghanistan. Country management of a 400-person multinational logistics operation in Oman. Deputy program management on the Antarctic Support Contract for the National Science Foundation. Program property and asset accountability was one line item in that record, not its center. His time as a Program Property Manager was roughly two of the seventeen years; the rest was program leadership at portfolio scale.
That combination shaped what came after. Program management taught him where the operational cadence has to hold and where a missed milestone has a customer's name attached to it. Property accountability taught him what a defensible record looks like under audit. The advisory practice sits at the intersection: how to bring AI into operations at scale without breaking the audit trail, the chain of custody, or the schedule that carries programs to a defensible close.
The current focus
Don's current focus is Sykesystem Advisory, a practice that helps organizations implement AI safely and effectively in operations that have to work and have to be auditable. His first book, AI for Asset Accountability and Property Control, was published by Sykesystem Publishing in October 2026.
The practice runs the ground between generic AI strategy and code-level engineering. It draws on twenty years of integration and program leadership across federal and international contracts, commercial operations, and consulting, updated with formal training in AI and machine learning from Purdue. The book is one application of the methodology. The practice is broader.
Credentials and training
Don has been a member of the National Property Management Association for more than fifteen years. He holds the following certifications:
- CPPM Certified Professional Property Manager, National Property Management Association
- PMP Project Management Professional, Project Management Institute
- CFM Certified Facility Manager, International Facility Management Association
- SSBB Six Sigma Black Belt, Aveta Business Institute
He completed a Post-Graduate Program in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning through Purdue University and Simplilearn.
He holds an MBA from California Coast University, Summa Cum Laude.
Larisa Sykes
Don writes and advises with his wife, Larisa Sykes, a Senior Program Property Manager whose specialty is the examination itself. Her recent work has centered on preparing contractor organizations for DCMA Property Management System Analyses, the reviews that decide whether a company's property system is approved to hold Government Property at all. She is a co-author of the book and takes her own advisory engagements scoped to inventory, property, and asset accountability.
About Larisa →Working with Don
Advisory engagements are inbound only. Remote-first. The Advisory page describes the three engagements the practice takes and how to reach out.
For notes on the book, endorsements, or press, contact is the right door.
Don lives and works in Clarksville, Tennessee.