OAK RIDGE, Tenn. — Standing on the stage of an auditorium named for him, former Congressman Zach Wamp looked back at the first year of a regional aerospace, defense and technology conference he began as a freshman on Capitol Hill.
The 30th annual Tennessee Valley Corridor National Summit brought university leaders, federal contractors and members of Congress from five states together for two days at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, the nation’s storehouse of bomb-grade uranium.
Wamp convened the first summit in 1995, when he was newly sworn in as a Republican representing Tennessee’s 3rd Congressional District, anchored by Chattanooga in the south and Oak Ridge in the north.
Thirty years later and 15 years out of the House, Wamp sees the summit’s mission accomplished under his successor, U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann.
(READ MORE: EPB, Oak Ridge take quantum leap in their 10-year collaboration)