SPOKANE, Wash. — A fellow carpenter who worked alongside the victim in the Spokane Tribe Casino collapse is heartbroken over her death on Tuesday. Missy Barnaby is now sharing just how inspiring Ana Vetter was to everyone she met on the job.
In the construction industry, you never know who you’ll meet at a new job site. So, it’s nice when you find a familiar face.
“There's so many people that I've met through this who are just great,” Barnaby said.
Vetter became a familiar and friendly face to her over the years. They first met in 2018 at the Women Build Nations conference in Seattle.
“I really kind of connected with her," Barnaby said. "We really hit it off and she was really nice.”
They met again in 2020 during a workshop at the Local 59 Carpenter's Union Hall in Spokane. To their surprise, three years later, these two familiar faces ended up working together on the Spokane Tribe's expansion project in Airway Heights.
“We had our laughs, our stories, and we always just had a great time,” Barnaby said.
After months of seeing the sun rise together on the job, Barnby and Vetter became close. That’s why Barnaby's heart broke when she learned Vetter died in the Tuesday morning collapse.
"Just the confusion of everything that went on at that moment," Barnaby said, while fighting back tears. "Everybody, we were just all in still in shock. So, today has been hard."
She remembers the last conversation she had with Vetter earlier that morning. She told Barnaby the crew is impressed by her work—a big compliment for a woman in a male dominated industry.
“She's like, the crew says you're a good carpenter, they really like you," Barnaby said. "She let me know that and it made me feel good, made me feel happy, like cool!”
That’s just who Vetter was, she said. Always supporting fellow crew members and encouraging her union sisters to stick with it.
Those last words of encouragement will be a memory Missy will always cherish from the familiar face she met years ago.
This week is also National Women in Construction Week. It celebrates women in construction. Barnaby said this week means something more personal for her now after losing Vetter. She hopes to inspire other young women in the industry just as Vetter did.
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