In our, family we've been calling the trustee the "tai-pan" because in the book Noble House by James Clavell, the tai-pan was the one descendant in each generation who was chosen to manage the family's wealth to advance the family's mission as much as possible.

FORBES: A Bicycle Trust For Christmas

When our children are older, our plan is to have one of them become the tai-pan.

FORBES: A Bicycle Trust For Christmas

For estate-planning reasons, neither my wife nor I could be the initial tai-pan, so we chose our trusted financial advisor, Dave.

FORBES: A Bicycle Trust For Christmas

In case the tai-pan gets into mischief, we also created the position of trust protector, whose only power is to fire and replace the trustee.

FORBES: A Bicycle Trust For Christmas

It's probably unrealistic for us to expect that all of our descendants will turn out great, but I hope that in each generation there will be at least one descendant who would make a good tai-pan.

FORBES: A Bicycle Trust For Christmas