Sandia Labs’ Program Aims to Offer Career Opportunities for Battlefield-Injured Military Personnel

Two U.S. Army female veterans from Albuquerque, New Mexico, have become the first women to join a Sandia National Laboratories-run career development initiative for injured soldiers in the battlefield.

Iraq war veterans Gabrielle Holcomb and Lindsey Kibler joined the Wounded Warrior Career Development Program that aims to hire injured military personnel for up to three years and help them transition into full-time jobs at the national lab, Sandia said Thursday.

WWCDP also intends for retired servicemembers to acquire career skills through mentoring and training in support of the national lab’s national security missions.

According to Sandia, WWCDP is based on Oracle’s Wounded Warrior Program and seeks to encourage participants to pursue college degrees as well as share military experiences with other veterans to facilitate understanding of the combat theater.

Battlefield-injured servicemembers “bring leadership, integrity and that mentality of national security and national service that contributes to the missions at Sandia National Laboratories,” said H.E. Walter II, an Air Force veteran who helped introduce WWCDP in 2010.

Lockheed Martin subsidiary Sandia Corp. operates the national lab for the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration.