Today we celebrated the retirement of John Vanderwerp and his 35+ years of service at IUCF / MES Hall. John has been an instrumental part of every major project in this building since the 1980s – starting with his early work in the scintillator lab, making detectors for the K600 polarimeter and PINTEX among many others, to his essential contributions to the STAR Endcap project in Brookhaven National Laboratory. More recently, John played a key role in assembling the Halbach array used in the UCNTau experiment at Los Alamos and the COHERENT program at Oak Ridge. Whether spending long nights at the lab, cruising the open road with his motorcycle or Jaguar, or sailing the seas on his boat – John’s tenacity and sense of adventure certainly left its mark on CEEM. We wish him all the best in his future endeavors!
Our celebration, although restricted due to the ongoing pandemic, heard many stories being retold from years and projects past, all filled with admiration and a fair few laughs! In honor of his time here, Mark Luxnat presented John with a plaque affixed with an old Conflat Flange – one of the many John worked with over the years. Afterwards, cupcakes and conversation rounded out the celebration.
For more pictures and information about John’s time here, please flip through the slideshow below.
