About Don Sykes · Sykesystem

The career

Don helps businesses use AI their team can actually account for.

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 polar research support, covering life and mission support, embassy operations and maintenance, war reserve materiel, installation modernization, and research support contracts. He has served as Country Manager, Deputy Program Manager, and Senior Program Manager, usually holding the operational schedule, the P&L, and the compliance record in the same hand.

The portfolios have been substantial, and the titles understate them. 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 in Afghanistan, with more than 3,500 of its roughly five thousand personnel under his direction, including a large medical and mental health operation and two complete sub-programs, each with its own program manager and deputy. Six years as Country Manager in Oman, the prime signatory on the company’s commercial registration, responsible for a 400-person multinational operation across multiple sites, port and airfield operations, and dozens of task orders. Program property and asset accountability was one line item in that record, not its center: roughly two of the seventeen years.

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 that every tool, vehicle, and part has to be traceable, or the money leaks. The advisory practice sits at the intersection: bringing AI into the records a business runs on, so the owner sees the loss while there is still time to fix it.

The current focus

Don's current focus is Sykesystem Advisory, a practice that helps owner-operated and mid-size businesses fix specific pain points in the operations that run on records, raising quality while cutting cost and time. His first book, AI for Asset Accountability and Property Control, was published by Sykesystem Publishing in October 2026. His second, AI Rules for Your Business, follows in November 2026.

The practice runs the ground between generic AI strategy and code-level engineering. It draws on twenty years of operations and program leadership across commercial work, consulting, and international contracts, updated with formal training in AI and machine learning from Purdue. The first 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 remote-first. The Advisory page describes the six engagements the practice takes, from a two-week Readiness Assessment to ongoing advisory, and how to reach out.

For notes on the books, endorsements, or press, contact is the right door.

Don lives and works in Clarksville, Tennessee.