Street roots., January 21, 2011, Page 8, Image 8

Turning another page
Michael Powell reflects on creating the legendary book store and keeping it strong fo r the next generation
BY JOANNE ZUHL
Michael Powell: I think we had a
commitment to a couple things. One was to
his past July, Michael Powell, the
afford readers the broadest possible
architect behind the icon Powell’s
perspective of reading, so that meant having
City of Books, handed over the
a lot of different books on the shelves and
company to his daughter Emily, now the that necessitated a lot of space, so letting it
third generation to run the family-owned
grow, but growing at a pace our customer
business after Michael and his father Walter. base grew, so there was an organic process.
Yet every Portlander feels a little bit of a
The store started out here in Portland at
birthright to Powell’s. It is the largest
about 3,000 to 4,000 square feet and grew
independent bookstore in the nation, and
in chunks, from'10,000 to 20,000 and to its
yet it still feels like our collective personal
current level. At no point in that process did
library, a giant cubbyhole where we go to
we say we were going to be a certain size or
get lost for an hour or a day - and happily
a certain volume o r anything. We were just
emerge 20 pounds heavier.
seeing that our customers were indicating
This is what Michael Powell created,
that they could stand it to be bigger and so
turning a store into a destination. Thirty
we made it bigger. The bigger wasn’t about
years after Powell bought the company from
just bigger, it was about giving good books
his father, Powell’s flagship store at the
and opportunity, and that meant time on the
corner of 10th Avenue and Burnside stands
shelf to find a readership. And then having
defiantly between the old and the new,
staff commensurate with that, and creating
between the city1 s historic core and the
a healthy environment
revitalized Warehouse and Pearl districts;
We didn’t sit down and do a strategic plan
between the physical and the virtual.
to take us out 10 o r 20 years. It was an
The halcyon days of brick and mortar
organic process. It was a commitment to
bookstores would appear to have passed. On creating as broad a audience for books and
the other edge of Portland, the downtown
as broad an book audience for readers as we
Border’s store has closed shop. The nation’s possibly could.
second-largest physical bookstore chain is
on the brink of bankruptcy as it tries to
J.Z.: A n d you started bringing in speakers.
refinance and to drum up cash. A decade
ago, Borders’ owners made a miscalculation
M.P.: That was organic, too. It was that
in unloading its online sales to a little
the only speakers we could get were self-
company called Amazon.com, now the
published or oddball writers that were
largest seller of books in the United States.
writing marginal books. It was a very New
Powell’s has taken a few nicks from the
York Coast thing. And I literally went to a
market changes, recently closing its
tradeshow once with a very polished
technical bookstore. Street Roots sat down
brochure that showed that Portland was an
with Michael earlier this month to talk
airport between San Francisco and Seattle
about how Powell’s has thrived and how it’s
and you could send your speakers to
going to survive. We begin by talking about
Portland on their way between the two. So
the plan to turn a family business into the
slowly over time we developed a reputation.
largest independent bookstore in the nation. And now we get a nice selection.
STAFF WRITER
T
J.Z.: In July you handed the company over
to your daughter, Emily.
M.P.: She earned i t She earned the right
to take it on. She is the president, my wife
and I are the owners.
J.Z.:
going to stay involved?
M.P.: To coach her and to be available to
do small projects and keep handling books
in some manner, but not as president of the
company.
J.Z.: What did she learn from you?
M.P.: I have no idea, you’ll have to ask
her th a t Probably damn little.
I’m always surprised when she talks
about her experience. When she’s out
speaking publicly she’ll talk about books
being influential to her in her formative
years. She also has a passion for the
business, but these are times that are
particularly challenging in the book world,
and she also has the knowledge and intuitive
use of the technology. You can view any of
the other social networking ideas as a way
to promote reading - or as a challenge to
reading. And so I think she can position the
company to be in that role.
J.Z.: K> m bought the business from your
dad in 1981. Was there even a kernel o f
thought about where the media was going to
go a t that time?
M.P.: No. The first time we took
cognizance of how the media was evolving
was when we decided to put some of our
See POWELL'S, page 9