Volunteer of the Year Awards

The Volunteer of the Year Awards recognizes outstanding National Public Lands Day volunteers who went above and beyond to make this year's event a success. Nominate a colleague, friend or even yourself to receive an award and be recognized through the NPLD website, social media and newsletters. 

The Volunteer of the Years Awards is looking for personal stories describing the efforts of a dedicated public lands volunteer in their community. This should be a person who has taken a leadership role to preserve and enhance a public lands area and encourage others to do the same.

The Volunteer of the Year Award application period is closed. Check back in the summer of 2012 for the next award period.

Volunteer of the Year Award Recipients 2011

The National Public Lands Day Volunteer of the Year Awards received a record number of nominations in 2011. Of the twenty-eight nominations, five outstanding individuals were chosen for awards because they demonstrated unusual dedication for their local public lands on NPLD and throughout the year.

The awardees are listed in alphabetical order:

Dr. Richard I. Ford -  Vecinos del Rio - Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project, Velarde, N.M.

The Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project is one of National Public Lands Day’s most unique events. For ten years, a local nonprofit, Vecinos del Rio, has partnered with the Bureau of Land Management to train youth to identify petroglyphs and study the historic Mesa Prieta rock site.  The Summer Youth Intern Program trains young people, including local Native American and Hispanic youth, to use GPS, photography, the scientific method and other tools to record petroglyphs and learn about their public lands and native history. National Public Lands Day is one of the important data collection days for the Summer Youth Intern Program.

Dr. Richard I. Ford has been a vital part of this project from the beginning, because he volunteers his time, labor and vast knowledge to teach the interns about the history of Mesa Prieta. He is a skilled archeologist and ethnobiologist and is able to make learning come alive for each of the young people involved in the program. He will not hesitate to drive to remote areas to pick up volunteers before the NPLD project and later, work one-on-one with a Native American intern to help make the connection between the petroglyphs and life on the Pueblos today.

Lewis E. Gorman III -  Open Space Commission, Cherry Hill, N.J.

Lew E. Gorman III loves the public lands of Cherry Hill, NJ and has spent years improving their quality and accessibility. Through his volunteer efforts on National Public Lands Day, and year-round with the Cherry Hill Environmental Advisory Committee, Lew has spearheaded a program to build a trail system on area public lands. He helped create 10 miles of new trails and two of these trails received National Recreational Trail designation by the US Department of the Interior. Volunteers who have joined Lew on his projects include Eagle Scouts and the NJ Youth Corps.

During NPLD 2011, Lew led several volunteer projects including invasive tree removal, trail maintenance and building an erosion control structure. If you live near Cherry Hill and have a passion for the outdoors and recreation, consider joining Lew on the trail.

Robert Schallmann - Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach, Seal Beach, Calif.

Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach participates in NPLD in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge and the Friends of Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge. For eight years, these groups have worked together to organize a large scale volunteer event to restore native vegetation on the salt marsh habitat.

Naval employee Robert Schallmann has been a key factor in the success of the Seal Beach event for the past eight years. Robert applies for award funding from the Department of Defense and expertly manages the budget to make good use of every dime spent. He helped find volunteers from a range of groups including scout troops, college, high school and middle school groups and organizations such as Boeing.  Almost 100 volunteers planted 735 native plants that will be used as habitat for numerous species.

Major Leonard "Len" Summers - Eglin Air Force Base Reservation, Fla.

Although this was the first year that Major Summers has participated in NPLD, he made a tremendous impact on the public land and his fellow volunteers. Major Summers recruited a team of volunteers to plant 200 grass seedlings, 40 longleaf pine trees and 200 trees, shrubs and forbs in addition to dispersing 160 square feet of seed and straw mulch and 900 square feet of bahia grass for erosion control. He motivated the team to get a lot of work done in a short period of time.

In just this year alone, Major Summers has helped plant over 1000 native species and has recruited 30 volunteers from his own squadron to help with erosion control projects. He has also volunteered with the Santa Rosa Beach Mouse research project and state stream restoration projects.

Mark Thien – J. Percy Priest Lake, Nashville, Tenn.

Mark Thien is so admired by his colleagues that two separate people nominated him for a Volunteer of the Year Award. Mark is the co-founder of the Nashville Clean Water Project which is dedicated to removing trash from J. Percy Priest Lake outside of Nashville. The Nashville Clean Water Project leads large scale volunteer events several times a year and depends on Mark’s efforts to recruit volunteers, advertise and plan the event.

Starting in early spring of 2011, Mark was already planning for their NPLD event. He worked with corporate, nonprofit and government partners to receive funding, supplies and sign up over 250 volunteers. On the day of the event, Mark lent a hand for the set-up, breakfast, registration, coordinating the projects and the end of the day clean-up. He even found time to man the trash barge! Mark put in 10.5 hours of non-stop work and was the catalyst for 5.1 miles of road and 6.5 miles of shoreline to be cleaned.