This is How I Got Here, a series where we chart the career journeys of technologists. Want to tell your story? Get in touch.
When Jermonica and Jason Boardley left behind nearly half a million dollars a year in salaries and their decades-long corporate accounting careers to drive high needs kids to school, some of their friends couldn’t believe they’d made such a drastic change.
The business they started in 2022, JB Premier Transportation, fulfilled the Bear, Delaware, couple’s dream to own a business that provided a needed service for some of Delaware’s most vulnerable children and while also leaving them more time for personal service to the community.
They found a need to serve via Delaware’s MyMarket procurement portal, where business owners — and entrepreneurs looking for ideas for businesses based on existing gaps — can search and bid on available state contracts.
“The light bulb went off, and we said, ‘That’s it. That’s going to be our business.’”
Jermonica Boardley, JB Premeire Transportation
“I saw that there were three different school districts in Delaware looking for third party transportation for the vulnerable population,” Jermonica told Technical.ly. “The light bulb went off, and we said, ‘That’s it. That’s going to be our business.’”
JB Premiere Transportation currently has three vehicles, and each of the Boardleys drive children themselves, while offering a safe and enriching space they refer to as the first and last marking periods of the day.
In this edition of How I Got Here, Jermonica, 48, shares what brought the couple to school transportation and how making a leap of faith gave her career purpose.
This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.
What did you want to do as a kid?
From grammar school, I’ve always been great with math. I always loved solving problems and trying to figure things out. We’re originally from Irvington, New Jersey, which is Jersey about 15 minutes from New York City. I come from pretty much a middle class family. My mom and dad both were blue collar workers. My dad retired from UPS, and my mom was in the medical field.
After taking bookkeeping in high school, my bookkeeping teacher was like, if you’re going to college, definitely do accounting. I ended up going to Delaware State on a full scholarship, and graduated magna cum laude.
What was your career journey?
After graduating from Delaware State in 1999, my career started as an entry level accountant at IBM in New York, where I worked for about a year and a half. The cost of living was through the roof. And at that time, DuPont was the biggest employer here in Delaware. I ended up getting hired by DuPont in November of 2000 into their accounting organization, and I went on to work there for another 22 years.
[Jason and I] met at DuPont in February of 2001 and we got married in May of 2003. Fast forward to 2020, COVID happens. We’re both working from home. He’s working downstairs, I’m working upstairs, and we really enjoy our time together. During that time, I said, this is not where I want to be for the next 10 or 20 years. So I ended up leaving DuPont in 2022 and going to work for a minority-owned company.
I wanted to go work for a small, minority owned company for a couple different reasons: In my 20 some-odd years with DuPont, I never worked for anyone or reported to anyone that looked remotely like me. During my last 10 years at DuPont, I was reporting directly to the CFO of the company, and I got heavily involved in their DEI initiatives. I became very, very passionate about DEI and I felt like the impact that I was having in corporate only went so far as one person, so I wanted to go work for a company where I could have a bigger impact. I also wanted to be able to see how to run a company from end to end, not just the accounting and finance piece of it, but how to strategize and things of that nature. Meanwhile, Jason was still in corporate at that time, at Wells Fargo.
How did you land on school transportation?
Our criteria when we first said we wanted to leave our jobs was, one, we want to do more in our ministry. Two, we wanted to be together. Three, we did not want to be tied to an office in the morning. And four, we wanted to make an impact every day, and we wanted to do something where it impacted vulnerable populations.
One of the things that I got from working for a small business was going on the procurement site for Delaware to see what opportunities were available. When I went out there, I saw that there were three different school districts in Delaware looking for a third-party transportation for the vulnerable population. We don’t have any children of our own. We said, that’s going to be our business to really make an impact with the special needs children, the foster and homeless children. So that was the beginning of our journey.
What does a typical day look like?
We drive students from six to nine in the morning, and then we have between nine and two to ourselves or to pursue volunteer and spiritual work, and then it’s time to get the kids back home. Our day ends around 4:45, five o’clock at the latest.
What makes us different in this space is us. We knew what we brought to the business end with our corporate experience. What we bring to the transportation end is excellence. We recognize that we’re dealing with vulnerable populations, and we help to set their mood for the day. So we dress up every day. Our colors are black and gold. In the car nothing is played but jazz, they’re not going to hear anything with any words that can have a negative influence on them. And we have encouraging conversations in the vehicle. So our approach is really different. We want to make sure that these young ones are being transported with dignity and safety and with respect. That’s our brand.
Three of our autistic children were truant last year, and it was in huge part because of transportation. They just couldn’t get them on the van, so the children weren’t making it to school regularly. So those three students were able to come out of truancy because transportation was improved.
What advice would you give to people who want to do what you do?
Trust, faith and believing in yourself, and surrounding yourself with people that also believe in you and believe in your dream. A lot of times we become our worst enemies with things that we tell ourselves negatively, or other people tell us negative things. We’re accountants. We left corporate America, we left a lot of money on the table, and we’re telling folks that we’re going to do this, and they’re like, ‘You’re about to go drive vans?’ But we believe in ourselves.
And then I would just stress the importance of branding. Branding and consistency, one thing that I learned very early on is that people buy people. They don’t necessarily buy products and services. They buy people. If you don’t make money your priority, if you just focus on the branding, consistency and excellence, the business will follow.
Where do you see yourselves in the future?
My dream would be for JB Premiere Transportation to be a household name for transportation services in Delaware. We are now looking to expand our fleet, hire additional personnel, things of that nature. And we are currently looking for investors.