Page 4 - BusinessWest February 3, 2025

Entrepreneurial Drive
Jessika Rozki Puts Her Transportation Venture on the Road to Success
BY GEORGE O’BRIEN
[email protected]
If Jessika Rozki has any regrets — and she doesn’t have many — the big one would be that she doesn’t get to drive much anymore.
She still fills on occasion if one of her regular drivers is out, but most all of her time is spent at her desk at the Agawam home of Rozki
Rides.
There where she needs to be as she plans and
executes a growth strategy for this venture she launched in 2019. But she says she would much rather be behind the wheel, with children in the seats behind her.
“It’s way more fun to drive than being in here — I love children’s transportation,” said Rozki, who spent 13 years as a school-bus driver in Chi- copee and thus speaks from experience.
“Every free resource that’s out here for entrepreneurship ... I made sure I signed up and took classes. I didn’t take any shortcuts; I just wanted to learn and take advantage of every resource that was out here. I didn’t take no for an answer.”
She eventually left that job because she could no longer bring her daughter along on her route, and spent some time as a stay-at-home mom thinking about what could, and should, come next.
The eventual answer to that question has become one of this region’s more intriguing sto- ries of ... well, let’s call it entrepreneurial drive. It’s become a model, if you will, for how someone can take an idea — and then take full advantage of the vast resources within the area’s entrepreneurial ecosystem — and transform it into a thriving busi- ness and employer.
It’s called Rozki Rides.
It started as what she called an “Uber-like” service by which Rozki would take children to school, afterschool activities, and other functions and gatherings. And it has evolved into a multi- faceted transportation company, one with seven school buses and six vans, used to take young people (200 a day, on average) to a wide array of
4 FEBRUARY 3, 2025
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