![\"(Courtesy](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Oncor_StoriesofHonor_MichaelWhitten_2.png\")
<\/p>\nLong before joining Oncor, Michael Whitten knew he would join the military. Both of his parents had been lieutenant colonels in the Air Force, and he wanted to follow in their footsteps. He also wanted to start his career as an officer, so he joined the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) in high school and again in college (SROTC). He was commissioned as an Army second lieutenant just after graduation in June 2005 and planned to stay for 20 years due to the growth potential he saw there. Whitten\u2019s motivations for serving went beyond family history.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to be part of something bigger than myself,\u201d said Whitten. \u201cI saw great camaraderie in the Army with service to the nation at the core of it, and I wasn\u2019t going to let someone else take a role my family history and education destined me to fill.\u201d As an Army logistics officer, Whitten deployed to Iraq for 14 months and to Afghanistan for eight. He then had the honor of serving in the Republic of Korea. He saw what it took from his team to maintain a democracy and preserve the right for people to choose their own path. What he didn\u2019t know at the time is how much this work prepared him for his future role at Oncor.<\/p>\n
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Teamwork Under Pressure<\/strong> Whitten\u2019s most significant takeaway from his Army service was teamwork and the constant feeling that he was part of a larger mission \u2013 contributing what he could in his role with the training he had.<\/p>\n \u201cNo individual was the key contributor, but all of us together helped make it work. Each brick in the wall doesn\u2019t individually hold it up, but all of us together start to see and manifest our contribution and how we impact others,\u201d said Whitten.<\/p>\n On the 100th anniversary of his division (2nd Infantry Division Forward), he and 5,000 others formed a human replica of the division\u2019s patch \u2014 a living mosaic. For about three hours, individuals in red, white, and black shirts jostled shoulder to shoulder to build the pattern. No single person made up the mosaic and it took all of them in their places to create it.<\/p>\n Finding Oncor\u2019s SkillBridge Program<\/strong> Whitten spotted an Oncor LinkedIn ad for the Department of Defense\u2019s (now Department of War) SkillBridge program and found the hope he was looking for. \u201cEvery service member\u2019s transition is filled with elements of anxiety, hope, and fear of the unknown,\u201d said Whitten. \u201cThe joy of finding a new path helps override that feeling. That\u2019s why programs like this are so beneficial, and why I will always advocate for them.\u201d<\/p>\n In March of 2025, he entered his SkillBridge internship at Oncor for the last 79 days of his Army career. For their part, the Army still covered his salary and benefits, but he was able to try out Oncor as his next step. It gave him a plan and a direction.<\/p>\n \u201cI cannot speak highly enough about the program. My goal was to prove that SkillBridge could be a win-win, and if I did not have a job at the end, I would still have immense pride that I helped open the door to Oncor and the military in creating an enduring partnership,\u201d said Whitten. A lot of folks leaving the military get lost in the process. With Oncor, they took the rag to the mirror and removed the fog so I could see something ahead of me.\u201d<\/p>\n Oncor hired Whitten at the end of his internship, the company\u2019s first SkillBridge intern and hire. Today, he looks forward to his 10-year SkillBridge anniversary photo and hearing, \u2018Here\u2019s the Oncor SkillBridge alumni cohort from 2025-2035.\u2019<\/p>\n He is now a Supervisor of Transmission & Distribution at the Oncor HUB facility in Midlothian. He also works at the Liggett Material Center in Irving, helping with ongoing reorganization efforts. Staying close to his military roots, Whitten participates in veteran-related activities within Oncor.<\/p>\n Whitten has two children, nine and 11, and his wife is a middle school teacher. He was away from his family for 18 months, and his wife shouldered the burden, so he\u2019s grateful to be a part of daily family life and activities. \u201cEveryone my wife works with says that Oncor is the greatest organization in DFW to work for and I couldn\u2019t agree more.\u201d<\/p>\n This <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/01\/11\/oncor-a-son-called-to-serve-starts-a-new-chapter\/”>article<\/a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fortworthreport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&quality=80&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n <img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/?republication-pixel=true&post=355519&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/01\/11\/oncor-a-son-called-to-serve-starts-a-new-chapter\/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } <\/script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/fortworthreport.org\/p.js”><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by Meliza Aguilera, Fort Worth Report January 11, 2026 Long before joining Oncor, Michael Whitten knew he would…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":509347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,7371,7372,42266,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-509346","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fort-worth","10":"tag-fortworth","11":"tag-sponsoredcontent","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-tx","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115878596720658387","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Whitten worked behind the scenes, supporting the soldiers, ensuring vendors were paid, and validating and funding contracts in Afghanistan so the necessary supplies would be available to support personnel on the ground. In supply and logistics, they had to ensure they fulfilled contracts, obligated funds appropriately, and had repair parts available as needed.<\/p>\n![\"(Courtesy](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Oncor_StoriesofHonor_MichaelWhitten_1.png\")
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Whitten\u2019s goal was to reach 20 years in the military. But as he neared that milestone, the demands of a military life were beginning to take a physical toll, and his family was ready to settle. It was an anxious, uncertain time. Where would they live? What did he want to do? Since he knew his retirement date was approaching, Whitten moved his family to Texas 18 months early to be near his wife\u2019s family.<\/p>\n