Joseph Woehrle grew up picturing the blue uniform, the mission, the legacy. Instead, after a medical disqualification, he was suddenly juggling college coursework and flipping burgers at a fast-food joint. The contrast was jarring and it didn’t take long for him to see that this wasn’t where his story would end.
“I didn’t have a sense of purpose,” Woehrle said. “That’s when I consulted a specialist, passed
my medical exam, and enlisted at age 21.”
Joining the military gave Woehrle a sense of purpose and mission that has carried through his career – even today. He went on to serve in the United States Air Force (USAF) for 16.5 years, where he found his home and his love for the military. Those experiences became the foundation for his future at Oncor and sparked a deeper calling: guiding other service members through the often-difficult transition to civilian life.
Leadership Takes Flight
In the Air Force, he was stationed all over the world. For six years, he was a C-130 aircraft mechanic, tasked with maintaining the cargo planes still in use from the 1950s and 1960s. He was stationed in Germany and deployed to Kuwait for missions in Iraq. He was also in Okinawa, Japan, and then at Minot Air Force base in North Dakota, where he knew he wanted to pursue a different path.
It was there that Woehrle decided to reenlist but cross-train for another job, which meant a transfer to another base in Little Rock, Arkansas as a C-130 Loadmaster, a highly skilled aircrew member responsible for everything that goes on (and off) an aircraft cargo, people, equipment, and often mission-critical assets. Their work blends logistics, safety, physics, and precision decision-making. Here, his leadership skills really took off. The Loadmaster relieves the pilots from troubleshooting issues that occur in flight, so they can focus on flying the plane. Besides transporting cargo, he was also responsible for airdrop operations, dropping everything from a Humvee to personnel out of the back of the plane.
While stationed in Little Rock, Woehrle was deployed Afghanistan. At the end of that tour, he went to Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, where he was assigned to a staff tour. In that role, he eventually supported missions for the President of the United States (POTUS). “We provided red carpeted stairs for the president so he could get off the airplane without using internal stairs,” Woehrle said. “We made sure they had fuel. For Air Force One, we put our own fuel on the plane. We don’t typically buy fuel from other countries, but when we do, we test the fuel before it goes into the plane.”
Woehrle next became an inspector general for his unit, consulting with those assigned to a mission to evaluate how they would carry it out. He would then report back to the commander any gaps in the procedures and recommend additional resources to facilitate the mission. He made it back into the skies as a Loadmaster and even returned to Germany. But while overseas, he was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, a progressive condition that eventually left him with no choice but to medically retire.
A Detour with Purpose
“It was absolutely terrifying,” Woehrle said. “I woke up one morning and everything I had planned for in my life had changed – going to work, putting on a uniform, knowing what time I needed to be there, and what I was supposed to be doing.”
The military typically gives those leaving time to transition to civilian life. In Woehrle’s case, it was rapid because it was a medical release. He took all the leave he had coming and began looking for a job while he was still in Germany. He found Oncor’s ad for a design associate, applied, was hired, and completed about six months of training. Little did he know how great a fit Oncor would be and how inspired he would be to connect others to the same opportunity.
“We had to learn electrical systems on the airplanes, and the math I use in my job at Oncor is very much the same,” said Woehrle. “The math we used to anchor cables for our paratroopers is the same we use for conductors.”
Although Woehrle joined the company as a direct hire, his own experience navigating the difficult shift from military to civilian life made him a driving force behind bringing the DoD’s SkillBridge program to Oncor. True to its culture of embracing ideas at every level, the company quickly rallied behind the initiative. The program not only provides vital support for veterans transitioning into civilian careers, it also creates a steady pipeline of highly skilled, disciplined, mission-driven talent. With the launch now complete, the company expects to bring on more Skillbridge interns in 2026.
SkillBridge enables anyone leaving the military to leave up to six months early. If accepted into the program, the individual interns at a company for six months while the military continues to provide a paycheck and medical coverage, with the hope of being hired at the end of that time.
“After transitioning to Oncor and realizing how amazing this company is to work for, I wanted other veterans to experience the same,” said Woehrle. “I submitted the idea to get Oncor enrolled into SkillBridge to help other veterans transition more easily to the civilian world, and a few short years later, thanks to Joe Pennington and his team, we have done just that!”
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