Sterling moved to College Station in 2005. Two years later, he helped open a national massage therapy chain in both College Station and Bryan. In 2009, he went to work with Dr. Marcy Halterman, a local Chiropractor where he learned the benefits of massage therapy combined with chiropractic care.

In 2011, an old client that used to see him from the national chain found him and asked when he was going to open his own business. After some discussion about having found a small office but not having the funding (he had two small babies to support at this point, he was broke!) she walked out of the therapy room with a check for $1,000 to purchase a package of 20 massage therapy sessions. He opened Sterling Therapeutic Massage that very same week.

In 2019, Sterling was forced to move to a new, bigger location in Bryan - right before the quarantine happened. In 2020, Sterling had a huge problem, he was forced to shut down like everyone else. It was through the tremendous grace and loyalty from his clients he was able to maintain the business and after the quarantine was lifted business was back to normal relatively quickly.

2021 saw the addition of Randa Stephens, LMT as Sterling’s second therapist to join the ranks of Sterling Therapeutic Massage. Growing was slow and natural thanks to word of mouth referrals and wonderful Google reviews. Austin Davis, LMT joined Sterling Therapeutic Massage in 2024.

Also in 2024, Sterling realized the need for something new to grow the business and so decided to rebrand. Stress Less was born out of that realization - a clinic that will emphasize massage as a method of stress management instead of just being another massage place in College Station and Bryan.