How I Built Resilience: Emily Powell of Powell's Books

Hey everyone and welcome to How I Built This Resilience Edition from NPR. On these episodes, we're hearing from entrepreneurs and other business leaders about how they've been building resilience into their businesses during this very challenging time. And today we're gonna hear from Emily Powell. She's the owner and president of Powell's Books. Powells is based in Portland, Oregon, and it's one of the largest family owned independent booksellers in the world. Emily is the third generation owner of Powell's books, and she knew early on that she wanted to take over the business her grandfather started,

In nineteen seventy one. My grandfather used to drive a really beat up Chevy pickup truck and I thought it was the coolest thing to go riding in his pickup truck. It was the first company car, you know, it had the Powell's logo on the side and I would say You know, the age of three or five. Oh, when I grow up, I want to drive the bookie truck. That was my grand aspiration to drive his pickup truck. So yeah, I had a pretty good sense um from an early age. When you grow up in a place that's as magical as Powell's, you know, it was big early uh and fast.

I don't know anyone who would have turned that down, I think, as an opportunity. It's pretty it's pretty wonderful. I I also r read something that you said that you don't think that Powells would have survived or thrived anywhere else except for Portland. Um. Wha why? Wha why do you think so?

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