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Travis Evans, DMD, the new guy, had actually been around for years.

“At 9 years old, I used to clean and vacuum the floor when I needed money. Some of the staff — even some of our patients — have known me since I was 5 years old.”

His mother, Keri, who does day-to-day bookwork from home, has known him forever.

The new dentist graduated from West Linn High School and may find classmates in the appointment book.

Dr. Travis, 30, is the son of Rick Evans, DDS, 53. The younger Dr. Evans, a 2009 graduate of Boston University School of Dental Medicine, is buying into his father’s practice of family and cosmetic dentistry. What is it like to partner with a professional who is also a parent?

Dr. Travis grins. “It’s a fun kind of mentoring situa-tion. We lunch together one or two times a week.” In contrast to the mentoring fun, buying into the practice is a sober process. He says they make it busi-nesslike; making sure each has a clear understanding of the agreement. The process involves accountants and attorneys.

“It’s critical to be open and honest. Personally, we put trust and loyalty at the forefront of our relation-ship.”

Dr. Travis joins a thriving practice located in an attractive building occupied by his father for less than two years. There is room for an expanded practice. The new partner brings a special interest in endodontics, procedures that deal with tooth pulp and issues surrounding the root. He won the American Association of Endodontists Student Achievement Award, the only one in his graduating class to do so. Does this mean that the senior dentist, Dr. Rick, will cut back on his working hours?

The younger Dr. Evans says no. “We’ll still need to refer certain patients to other specialists, but I plan to build the practice for both of us. I’m fluent in Spanish, which will help.”

His wife of six years, Liz, and their sons Calvin and Miles are learning their way around Oregon now that they have moved from Boston.

It will be some time before the boys, now 4 and 2, could choose to join the practice run by their father and grandfather.

he children of successful business owners face a quandary that most of us never have to think about: whether or not they should throw themselves into the family business or strike out on their own, in hopes of making their own unique mark on the world.

Is there a point where you really know that this deci-sion, to take over somebody else’s business — even if your last name is the same as the owner — is the right one?

“It is somebody else’s business,” said Emily Powell, who took over as CEO of Powell’s Books from her father this past summer. “And I still think of it that way.” In fact, she said, it will probably be several years down the road, after she has been through all kinds of respons-es to momentous events, that it will indeed seem like her own business.

The company, now a Portland-area landmark known around the country and the world, was started by Emily’s grandfather, Walter Powell, who borrowed a page from Mike Powell’s fledgling used-book business back in the Windy City and decided to open a similar store here. When Mike and his wife moved back to Portland in the 1970s, he joined forces with his dad, and then came the move that many consider the key to Powell’s phe-nomenal success: To a store full of used books, they decided to add new ones — hardcover and paperback —

on the same shelves.

“And that was unique,” Emily told a group of folks gathered for a Beaverton Chamber of Commerce lunch-eon back in January.

Unique enough, apparently, to turn the quirky store on Burnside into a book-selling monster. More stores were opened, including a Beaverton location in 1984, the first one outside of downtown. It was moved in late 2006 to a brand new spot at Cedar Hills Crossing. At the Portland Airport alone there are three small Powell’s outlets to serve travelers.

Although she grew up in the business, stocking shelves, running the cash register and helping customers, Emily Powell did spend a while trying a bunch of other things. In the San Francisco Bay Area, she tried being a pastry chef, a real estate seller and more.

But, she acknowledged, she has “the family DNA, and this was something I was already passionate about. It was also an incredible opportunity.”

So, she asked herself, is this something I can be good at — and continue to get better at? The answer didn’t strike her like lightning, she says.

“For me, there was never one moment because I grew up in the business, and I loved it.”

Emily Powell has a friend in Beaverton who had to ask himself similar questions: Domonic Biggi, whose grand-mother Rose famously started grinding and bottling horseradish in the basement of her home in 1929. Rose