Virginia Tech Jet Landed in Newport News Before the Jefferson Lab Groundbreaking

N51VT, the Virginia Tech Foundation's Citation, flew Blacksburg to Newport News on the afternoon of June 11. The next morning, the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility broke ground on a new Data Center that will house its High Performance Data Facility, with Virginia Tech President Tim Sands joining DOE Under Secretary for Science Dario Gil, Governor Abigail Spanberger, and Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones at the lectern.

Sands used the ceremony to announce a new VT Spark Institute that will plug into the lab's mission. The Newport News leg is the cleanest VT explanation for a Peninsula trip in this window; the flight log doesn't say who was aboard, but the published attendee list does.