23 Apr A Marine, a Firing, and Two Staffing Empires Built From the Trades Up
Jared DeRuby, a fourth-generation electrician turned U.S. Marine turned CEO, explains how getting fired launched Talent Corps and Medical Talent into the middle of America's blue-collar and nursing workforce crisis.
Stranded on September 11
Jared DeRuby was asleep on a flight out of Washington Dulles when the world changed. A young Marine heading back to base, he was supposed to land at Myrtle Beach. Instead, the plane was redirected to Cincinnati. He woke up confused. "I was like, where are we? We've already made it," he recalled. He walked back into the terminal and saw the news. "I got stranded in Cincinnati, but I was like, oh my god. This is really happening."
He was already scheduled to deploy overseas on a med float. He called his first sergeant. "I don't think I'm gonna make it. I'm stuck. There's no area, you know, I couldn't rent a car. There's no buses going. It was crazy." Eventually a staff sergeant picked him up in Norfolk. Less than a week later, his ship left port.
It's the kind of story that becomes a prism for everything that follows — the discipline, the refusal to panic, the ability to move when the plan falls apart. All of it shows up in the two companies DeRuby runs today.
Raised Without a Roadmap
DeRuby grew up without knowing his biological father. His mother worked three jobs to keep them afloat. "She taught me the discipline of showing up to work," he told host Jeff Crilley. His grandfather and uncle stepped in as father figures, but he still struggled. "Got kicked out of school a lot growing up. My my poor mother. God, my my poor mother."
Four years in the Marine Corps gave him what he'd been missing. "Just with the discipline and, know, being able to do what I say I'm gonna do, the the drive, a sense of urgency, and an attention to the details that the Marine Corps instills in as a Marine," he explained. After his service, he headed south to work for his uncle's electrical business, LMD Electrical, joining a family trade that stretched back four generations.
Fired Into Entrepreneurship
The path to staffing started with a collapse. In 2008, a general contractor went out of business owing LMD a significant sum. "He said, you know, we're gonna do something else. So we shut down the business," DeRuby recalled. "I said, you know, I wanna try this staffing thing out. We used staffing at the last company, LMD."
He landed at CLP Resources, a publicly traded staffing firm, and dominated. "Ended up being their top sales producer for about eight years, nine years in a row," he said. Then the company wanted to restructure his compensation. He refused. "And they said, okay. Well, we're firing you. And that was in 2017."
That firing became the ignition. DeRuby launched Talent Corps, leveraging his electrical background to supply skilled tradespeople to the contractors he already knew. "My passion is putting people to work, and now they're providing for their families," he said. "It it it was awesome the way that it worked out."
Data Centers and Thousands of Electricians
Nine years in, Talent Corps focuses on mechanical, electrical, and plumbing contractors — about eighty percent electrical. The company also runs a solar division handling utility-scale projects, ground-mount systems measured in hundreds of megawatts. But the real growth engine is data centers. "The data center boom is real," DeRuby said. "That's where a lot of our growth the last this last year and moving forward, probably the next five, ten years, will be in the data center world."
The scale of demand is staggering. DeRuby described attending the Masters golf tournament the week before taping, where clients told him they'd need 1,300 to 1,500 more electricians within the next year. His second company, Medical Talent, runs thirteen-week travel nurse contracts placed directly with hospitals or through vendor management systems. A newer PRN division lets nurses work shift by shift and get paid the same day.
Gen Z Picks Up a Wrench
The generational shift in the workforce has landed squarely in DeRuby's favor. At a summit hosted by client Gaylord Electric, he scanned the room. "It was boomers, you know, gen x a little bit, not many millennials, and the gen z's were the the popular ones," he said. "You're starting to see that shift from you have to go to college to trade schools and going to IEC, ABC, and all the different apprenticeship programs, it's really taking off and it's nice to see."
The nursing side faces its own demographic pressure. Baby boomers are aging into higher-care needs while the pipeline of registered nurses remains thin. Even graduates who enter nursing programs face a mandatory year or two at a facility before they can move into travel assignments. During COVID, travel nurses earned upwards of $6,000 a week with housing and per diem. Rates have come down — DeRuby put the current average at $2,500 to $3,200 weekly — but the demand has not.
Don't React Every Day
Asked for the most important lesson from his entrepreneurial career, DeRuby didn't hesitate. "Don't react every day. Every day is a different day," he said. "Don't be afraid of what's coming. There's always gonna be a different curveball thrown at you. And it's how you react to it. Don't get emotional on everything. And don't get impulsive."
He credited the Entrepreneur Operating System — EOS — with accelerating the companies' growth. "Implementing that into my company has really made us a different and and we have gone, you know, the rocket juice growth is is real," he said. "Holding people accountable through that and and everyone's accountable to a number. It really worked."
A We Company
When Crilley pulled up the Talent Corps Instagram feed, DeRuby's voice shifted. "It's the people that we put to work," he said. "All the people that have helped me get to where I am today, it's not a me company, it's a we company." He pointed to the vendors, the customers, the employees — the whole ecosystem that turned a fired sales rep with an electrical pedigree into the leader of two national staffing operations. The kid who got kicked out of school keeps putting other people to work. That, he suggested, is the whole point.
Jared DeRuby is the Owner and Visionary of Talent Corps (talentcore.com) and Medical Talent (medical-talent.com), two staffing organizations serving the construction and healthcare industries nationwide. This episode was produced for The Jeff Crilley Show, recorded at the Real News Communications Network studios in Dallas.
Key Topics
- the data center construction boom
- Gen Z choosing trades over college
- travel nurse staffing and pay
- Marine Corps discipline and leadership
- the national nursing shortage
- Entrepreneur Operating System (EOS)
- blue-collar workforce staffing
- building a company after getting fired
About the Guest
Jared DeRuby is the Owner and Visionary behind Talent Corps and Medical Talent, two staffing organizations placing skilled tradespeople and healthcare professionals across the country. A U.S. Marine veteran and fourth-generation electrician, Jared built both companies from the ground up after nearly a decade as a top sales producer in the staffing industry. His firms serve top ENR 600 contractors on data center, solar, and commercial electrical projects, while Medical Talent specializes in travel nurse and PRN placements for hospitals nationwide.
Episode Timestamps
- 01:22 – Jeff introduces Jared DeRuby and his two companies
- 01:53 – Marine Corps background and the discipline it instilled
- 02:20 – Growing up with a single mother and no father figure
- 02:49 – Fourth-generation electrician enters the staffing world
- 04:25 – Gen Z skipping college for trade apprenticeships
- 05:36 – Talent Corps niche: MEP contractors, solar, and data centers
- 06:56 – Clients need 1,300–1,500 more electricians within a year
- 07:12 – Medical Talent and thirteen-week travel nurse contracts
- 08:22 – What travel nurses earn now versus during COVID
- 09:30 – Biggest lesson: don't react emotionally as a leader
- 10:25 – Jared was in the air on September 11, 2001
- 11:32 – How EOS fueled rocket-ship growth
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Episode Chapters
- 00:00 – Introduction
- 01:21 – Meet Jared DeRuby
- 01:47 – Marine Corps Background and Early Life
- 02:49 – From Electrician to Staffing Entrepreneur
- 04:21 – The Blue Collar Boom and Gen Z in Trades
- 05:24 – Talent Core: Clients and the Data Center Boom
- 07:04 – Medical Talent and Travel Nursing
- 09:29 – Lessons in Leadership: Don't Overreact
- 11:24 – EOS and Scaling the Business
- 11:56 – How to Connect with Talent Core and Medical Talent