People need income while they learn. That practical fact helped shape the business Stephen Deason was building. The Group’s Our record page describes how advice from Greg Block moved the plan toward paid work and led to OPA Staffing. For an employer considering the companies today, the history explains why carrying a hire on payroll sits at the center of the staffing service.
Stephen founded The OPA RASA Group and The OPA RASA Foundation in 2018. The Foundation is a separate nonprofit. The plan took shape in Malibu, on a kitchen-table whiteboard. The name followed that November. The companies’ current work grew from decisions made as the original idea met the demands of operating a business.
Advice that changed the plan
Greg Block founded First Step Staffing in Atlanta. He was an original board member and mentored Stephen. The record describes Stephen taking time to listen to that advice. When Greg read the plan, he told Stephen it was too early to raise money.
Greg’s concern was the person trying to complete a training program. Training takes time, and the person still needs something to live on. He advised putting people to work during part of the week and training them during the rest. The record calls that approach earn while you learn.
He also advised concentrating the work. OPA stayed out of white-collar training, apart from Stephen’s individual mentoring. OPA Staffing opened on Greg’s advice. The plan had become a business that could put people on payroll.
The record includes a later conversation on Greg’s back porch. Stephen told him that the staffing company had reached cash-flow break-even. Greg died shortly afterward. The account preserves both the practical advice and the relationship that helped Stephen act on it.
What an employer can see in that history
The operating question was how to connect learning with paid work. An employer considering paid training today has to answer it inside its own business. What work can the learner perform? Who will instruct the person? Which part of the working day can support both learning and the company’s required output?
Those decisions belong to the employer. A supervisor holds a duty to the company and needs time and authority to carry it. Training uses the supervisor’s attention, the workplace, materials, and operating capacity. The company needs to trace those costs through its own work when judging an arrangement.
The history gives the reason the issue mattered to the Group’s beginnings. For the present service, OPA Staffing’s page describes hiring carried on its payroll, paid work alongside training, and consulting for employers. An employer can take a defined need to the company and ask how that service would fit.
The companies’ work today
OPA Staffing has placed 2,000+ people and holds The Joint Commission Gold Seal of Approval. It puts candidates on its own payroll and carries the hire until the employer is ready to take it over. That arrangement gives employers a concrete service to discuss when they need people for the work.
OPA People carries the search side forward. It recruits leaders for healthcare organizations and nonprofits. A permanent leadership vacancy raises its own questions about the work, the organization, and who can authorize a search. The appropriate employer or board contact should bring those questions to OPA People.
The Foundation remains a separate nonprofit founded by Stephen. It publishes free guides and helps people find help near them. Readers looking for those resources can use the Foundation’s guides directory to choose a starting point suited to their needs.
Bring the history into a present conversation
A partner can use the record to understand the path from the original plan to the companies’ current services. An employer still needs a conversation about its own assignment, timing, and responsibilities. Identify the work you need done, then bring that request to OPA Staffing or OPA People.