The OPA RASA Group and the OPA RASA Foundation started together in 2018. On October 10, 2018, in Malibu, the plan went onto a whiteboard on Tony Fatouros's kitchen table. The name followed on November 4, 2018.
OPA Staffing puts candidates on its own payroll and carries the hire until the employer is ready to take it over.
Greg Block founded First Step Staffing in Atlanta in 2007 to put people coming out of homelessness to work. He was one of our original board members. He started mentoring Stephen in late 2017. Stephen is headstrong, which is a polite word for stubborn, and it took him about two years to listen. In October 2019 Greg read our plan and told Stephen it was not ready to raise money. People in a training program have nothing to live on while they train, he wrote, so put them to work two or three days a week and train them the rest. He called it earn while you learn. He also said to skip white-collar training and do one thing well. OPA stayed out of white-collar training, apart from Stephen's one-on-one mentoring. OPA Staffing opened late that year on Greg's advice. About nine months later, Stephen sat on Greg's back porch and told him the staffing company had just reached cash-flow break-even. Greg died two weeks later, on August 14, 2020.
OPA Staffing has placed at least 2,000 people and holds The Joint Commission Gold Seal of Approval. OPA People now carries the search side forward. It places leaders with healthcare organizations and nonprofits.
What we learned, in print
Valued, Stephen Deason's book for employers who want to do this work, is forthcoming from Alder Creek Editions. Residual Claimants, the first book of The Paid Last Series, is for owners.
Our founder
Stephen Deason founded The OPA RASA Group and The OPA RASA Foundation in 2018. He is an applied economist, entrepreneur, operating executive, and author of Residual Claimants, a book for business owners.