Hi
I would like to tell you about the occipital pain, pain in the occiput should be diagnosed differentially from cervical spondylosis. I think there is no chance of spondylosis. But usually upper neck pain may be caused due to the muscular spasm of the suboccipital extensors. It may be a result of bad posture.
After all your stretching programmes, you can advice him a good posture especially tuck in head which releases the load on muscles. Occupational modifications should be ruled out , which may aggravate the condition.