NEWS & STORIES
Al Warner Recognized with Phil Johnson Exceptional Leadership Award
Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing (PHWFF) takes great pleasure in presenting the Phil Johnson Exceptional Leadership Award to Al Warner for his dedicated and inspiring service to our organization from 2013 to 2021. During this period, his selfless effort and extreme generosity were directly responsible for the growth and continuous improvement to the PHWFF Walter Reed National Military Medical Center Program in Bethesda, Maryland.
During this time, Al directly led all aspects of the program’s administration and management. Through his tireless efforts the program provided exceptional fly tying, fly rod building, fly casting, fly fishing education, and fly fishing outing program activities for the program’s participants. Always the consummate volunteer, Al continually places the participants’ needs and wants as his highest priority. Attentive to detail, Al always knows the specific focus for each participant to succeed – fly tying, fly casting, knots, stream entomology – and always lending a friendly ear.
Through the years, Al organized and executed numerous fly fishing outings for the program’s participants. These outings occurred at no cost to the participants and were donated as a direct result of Al’s supreme networking abilities and a genuine care for our veterans. He also organizes the Program’s weekly activities based on the need of our participants – some tying flies, some fly casting or fly rod building, and others covering stream entomology or some other form of fly fishing education. This balance of activities relative to the participants’ interests served to sustain
and strengthen the Program. Al also organized the Armed Forces Retirement Home fly fishing outing every month. This outing is an outstanding venue to introduce the program’s participants fly casting and landing fish.
Al served as an excellent teacher, mentor, and servant-leader to this program. His dedication to our Core Values: Compassion, Accountability, Excellence, and Community allowed him to create an active and impactful program that provides a pathway towards post-traumatic growth for our participants. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he also served as a conduit to keep our participants and volunteers connected in the virtual environment thereby ensuring the program remained a community where our participants can heal.
His commitment to our Cause inspired all volunteers and participants involved in the program to become a stronger team and to build better friendships. All who know Al will attest to the positive impact the program made on their lives and the role model of selfless devotion, mentoring, and leadership he provided to them.
Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, Inc. is proud to bestow upon Al Warner the Phil Johnson Exceptional Leadership Award for his tireless and extraordinary service to our organization and to those wounded, ill, and injured Servicemen and Servicewomen and disabled Veterans whom this organization serves.
