Barry Baker, longtime head of prominent Spokane-based general contracting company Baker Construction & Development Inc., says he doesn’t need to go into the office every day, but now he’s having too much fun there to stay away for long.

Baker retired in early 2025 after having worked at the company for nearly half a century, leaving day-to-day operations in the hands of a carefully planned succession team.

His daughter, Brooke Baker Spink, is now the CEO, marking the third generation of family leadership in the company. Brian Valliant is president, and Lucas Holmquist is executive vice president.

“We worked on our succession plan for probably 10 years,” Baker says. “Last year, we pulled the trigger, and I moved from president and CEO. They now call me chairman and EO, which stands for ‘extra overhead’,” he jokes.

While Baker says he’s proud of his daughter’s rise in the company, he’s also quick to say she has earned her place every step of the way.

“This wasn’t a situation of nepotism,” he says. “We have a family rule that after college you have to go to work for somebody else for five years before you can come to the company in a management position.”

Baker Spink worked in the insurance industry for five years and then took a pay cut to join Baker Construction’s business development team, he notes. She has now been with the company for 13 years. Baker's son, Barry “Bubba” Baker, also works at Baker Construction, helping to run the company’s equipment division.

Baker is known for heading to the office at the company headquarters at 2711 E. Sprague nearly every day.

“We’re encouraging him to come in later, leave earlier, and travel more,” Baker Spink says.

While his role in the company is evolving, his influence will always remain, she says, adding, “We’re fortunate we’re always going to have his perspective and his experience to help guide us.”

Baker is credited for putting in the work to coach the next generation of leadership to ensure the future of the company, including handing over the day-to-day operations to the executive team, she adds.

“He has been there to help us through every step of the way because he’s been at this for almost 50 years,” Baker Spink says.

Yet, despite his long tenure at the business, Baker Spink says that her father also is open to new ideas and a fresh perspective on leading the company into the future.

“I credit it to him for leading from a place of empathy and not from a place of ego,” Baker Spink says.

She says she admires how her father has merged his family and work life.

“At no time did I ever feel like one was coming at the expense of the other,” she says. “He did a masterful job of balancing both.”

Her father also has instilled the concept that Baker Construction isn’t just a company.

“It’s a legacy we are all responsible for continuing,” she says. “It’s truly being the boots on the ground and giving back in a multitude of ways so that we can leave the community better than we found it.”

Baker is a longtime board member of Modern Electric Water Co., of Spokane Valley, and Fairmount Memorial Association, of Spokane, and he’s currently on the statewide Association of Washington Business executive committee.

Other boards and organizations he’s been involved in include Greater Spokane Incorporated, the Greater Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce, the Boy Scouts of America Inland Northwest Council, and the Better Business Bureau. He also was chairman of the Spokane Area Economic Development Council in 2001.

Baker says the company is celebrating 75 years of business with roots going back to 1951, when his father and mother, Jon and Vera Baker, entered the construction business in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada, where they took on a line of prefabricated metal buildings. They moved the family business to Wenatchee, Washington, in the late 1950s. In 1972, the family moved to Spokane, where Jon and Vera established Baker Steel Buildings.

Baker joined the company in 1977 upon graduating from Central Washington University with a degree in business administration.

“I felt needed at the business,” he says. “I graduated from college on Saturday, came home on Sunday, went to work on Monday, and I’ve been here 49 years.”

In that time, annual revenue has grown to $140 million in 2025 from about $700,000 in the early years, he says.

Baker says the Spokane market isn’t big enough for the company to focus on one niche. By necessity, the company expanded beyond prefabricated buildings in the early 1980s, and has diversified into industrial, commercial, retail, and medical markets, taking on the name Baker Construction & Development along the way.

“If somebody wanted to build something, we better be able to build it,” Baker says. “It took a long time to break into medical. Now we do a lot of medical, and we have a great resume in just about every building type.”

Baker Construction also has expanded its reach geographically, largely through relationships with clients with multistate footprints that have led the business to markets outside of the Inland Northwest.

“If you do a nice job for a customer here, they go, ‘Would you go to Seattle?’” he says. “Then you do a great job in Seattle, and they go, ‘Would you go to Denver?’ And now we’re licensed in 12 states.”

Baker's involvement in real estate investment and development began around 1980. He’s a member of an investment group that owns and leases out commercial properties, including offices and warehouse buildings in the Spokane area, the historic Schade Towers east of downtown, and medical and office buildings in Liberty Lake.

“I saw the people who accumulated wealth in our business did it with development,” he says. “Because the construction business is highly cyclical, I wanted to make sure we had some recurring revenue when it went bust, and development was a good vehicle for that.”

Looking ahead, Baker says he hopes to spend more time with his six kids and seven grandchildren.

So far in retirement, he and his wife Sheri have begun to enjoy travel opportunities, having recently returned from Japan. Coming up, the couple now plan to travel to Chicago, which will be the launch point for a 2 1/2-week road trip along the historic Route 66, which terminates in Santa Monica, California.

Meantime, Baker says he still enjoys serving as a mentor to the company’s leadership team.

“They’re really excited, and they’re hardworking, and it’s fun because they do come to me for my opinion,” he says. “To be able to stay involved with people is probably one of the biggest luxuries that I have. I'm most thankful for the people that I've met and the people that I've been able to work with, because I certainly couldn't do it on my own.”