Reginald Stephens

Before Reginald Stephens joined the staffing industry, he was an offensive lineman in the National Football League. Selected by the Cincinnati Bengals in the seventh round of the 2010 NFL Draft, Stephens spent five years in the NFL.

“Going from moving humans, usually large ones … across the football field to moving humans across state lines for new jobs has been quite the transition,” Stephens says.

But it’s a transition he’s excelled at. He began his career in healthcare staffing as a permanent recruiter after moving back to his hometown of Dallas. Today, he is senior VP at Curative Talent, a Dallas-based healthcare staffing firm. Stephens leads the clinical search business for the company’s East region, comprising 20 states east of the Mississippi. His team includes 25 people. He was named Leader of the Quarter in April — his second full quarter with the company — and earned the same accolade at his prior staffing firm three times.

Accolades aside, Stephens describes his biggest accomplishment in staffing as the day-to-day improvement moving forward and being able to lead and grow teams.

“The people that I’ve been able to positively impact, the teams that we’ve been able to build, I think all those things kind of culminate to my biggest accomplishment to this point,” he says.

While a career in staffing hadn’t been part of Stephens’ postfootball plans, things work out in unexpected ways. And working in staffing enables him keep moving people to new positions. In this case, it’s helping healthcare professionals.