Dr. Richard Fischer, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center, Mississippi, received the PIF Investigations Award for his work on conducting avian inventory, monitoring, and management projects on numerous military installations around the country. Dr. Fischer has been the Corps of Engineers national representative to the Partners in Flight initiative since 1998 where he has been instrumental in providing Corps Districts and the military with research information on the importance of riparian zones, wetlands, and other habitats to neotropical migratory birds. He has authored several publications and articles for the Corps and military addressing such issues the importance of Corps of Engineers lands as breeding and stopover habitat for migratory birds, and recommendations for riparian habitat improvement for birds.

Chris Eberly, the Department of Defense PIF Program Manager, Virginia, received the 2001 PIF Leadership Award for greatly expanding the role and participation of the Department of Defense (DoD) in the PIF initiative. Chris works extensively with natural resources managers to integrate bird conservation plan information into installation land-management planning, and plays an active role in promoting DoD natural resources management and bird conservation through organizing, participating, and making presentations at regional and national PIF meetings. Chris is webmaster for the PIF web site, initiated a proposal that led to the creation of the North American Bird Conservation Initiative web site, and published a completely revised and expanded international directory on the PIF web site. He also was Chair of the PIF Federal Agency Committee and is currently Vice Chair of the PIF Northeast Working Group. His Virginia license plate reads "PIF."

Dr. John Sauer, USGS Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, received the PIF Public Awareness Award for his instrumental efforts in making trend, map, and summary data from the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) database available to a broad audience on the World Wide Web. BBS trend data are a key component in PIF species assessment rankings, and this fact has helped raise the awareness of the conservation community of the existence and importance of this survey. John has also contributed significantly to developing appropriate analysis procedures for BBS data, and for using these data for novel research investigations.

Robert Altman, American Bird Conservancy, Washington, received the PIF Stewardship Award. Bob was responsible for authoring or co-authoring 5 Bird Conservation Plans that cover all landbird habitats in Oregon and Washington, ranging from shrub-steppe to several types of western coniferous forests, grasslands to riparian, oak woodland to chaparral. Recommendations in these plans are shaping research and land management priorities within several State and Federal agencies, and on private lands. He has also been instrumental in promoting and implementing grassland conservation techniques for private landowners and oak woodland restoration stretching from Oregon to British Columbia.

Walker Golder of the Audubon North Carolina Coastal Office is the recipient of the PIF Stewardship Award. As manager of Audubon's North Carolina Coastal Island Sanctuaries for the past 12 years, Walker has been instrumental in protecting key habitats for nesting colonial waterbirds, including the Lea-Hutaff Island complex that will be a designated State Natural Area under Audubon's management. This habitat provides what is considered by many to be an unparalleled coastal resource. He is also the state coordinator of the Important Bird Areas program in North Carolina, which now has 90 IBA’s located in all habitats across the state.

Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory (RMBO) was the recipient of the PIF Group Award for Public Awareness for their Prairie Partners program that includes monitoring prairie birds, outreach with private landowners to increase public awareness of the importance of prairie habitat, and providing incentives to landowners interested in habitat improvement projects on their lands. The RMBO has also formed several partnerships with government agencies and non-governmental organizations primarily for monitoring and outreach.

Fort Riley Directorate of Environment and Safety received the PIF Group Stewardship Award for their Threatened and Endangered Species Management Program. The installation, which has been designated an Important Bird Area, conducts extensive inventory and monitoring programs for a variety of groups of birds, and implements an extensive prescribed burning program (25,000 acres of grassland annually on a rotational basis) specifically for priority species such as greater prairie-chickens, upland sandpipers, grasshopper sparrows, dickcissels and Henslow’s sparrows.

The Fort Hood Natural Resources Management Branch is the recipient of the PIF Group Investigations Award. The installation, which is a Globally Important Bird Area, has extensively studied population trends and productivity of Golden-cheeked Warblers and the Black-capped Vireos, to maintain and enhance populations and habitats while maintaining military mission readiness on Fort Hood. The Fort also has conducted extensive research on the influence of Brown-headed Cowbirds on warbler and vireo nest success, and subsequently implemented a successful control program to reduce such parasitism. Additional studies on Fort Hood evaluated the effects of recreational off-road vehicle use in and near breeding habitat of both species; conspecific attraction of Black-capped Vireos to colonize unoccupied habitat; and the regeneration of warbler habitat following wildfire.