A civil rights lawsuit tells the story of workplace discrimination, verbal abuse, assault and rampant misogyny at a major Asheville company

Graphic by Orion Solstice

[This story describes acts of misogyny, discrimination, threats of violence, assault and workplace abuse]

Moog, the major synthesizer company, is one of Asheville’s most prominent businesses, considered a mainstay of the city’s economy (and marketing). In the public eye the “employee-owned” firm is known for progressive attitudes that seem to make it fit in with the popular image Asheville’s likes to project.

“To all the trailblazers, leaders, barrier breakers, artists, entrepreneurs, activists, family members, friends, colleagues, mentors, and all women who inspire us daily, thank you,” Moog’s official Twitter trumpeted last International Women’s Day.

This is the company Hannah Green thought she was joining in 2018 when she was hired as a sales assistant. She would come to see that image was far from the reality. According to a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by Green and her attorney, Sean Soboleski, instead of a wonderful career at a progressive company, she faced extensive misogyny, discrimination and even physical assault.

Now, she says her goal is “to make sure Moog Music never does this to anyone else ever again,” and the company’s facing a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking over $1 million.

A dangerous boy’s club

The image of Moog as a feminist, forward-thinking company breaks down with even a look at their employee demographics. Of 200 employees, barely 10 percent aren’t cis men. Describing Moog as a “boys club,” Green tells the Blade, might just be an understatement. Women in management are rare. While the current VP, Nick Valente, rose to his position in three years, a woman took 15 years to reach a management position. This comes, as multiple examples cited by the lawsuit allege, with a dangerously misogynistic workplace culture.

“There were so many inappropriate jokes,” Green said. “There was a joke about golden showers, they used to make dick jokes constantly.”

Jokes like that rarely just stay jokes. Work cultures like this always build towards something truly terrifying.

“One of my last weeks there the guy that assaulted me and carried a knife, made a joke about killing a woman in a sales team meeting,” Green recalls. Management took no action when she reported it.

Green was hired to Moog in 2018 from a temp company as a “sales assistant” and “personal assistant to the head of sales.” By the end of that year, she would be with the company full-time, managing 20 accounts of her own. But sales assistant would remain would remain her title while the work she did covered a far wider range of responsibilities.

Linda Lafferty, then Moog’s head of the sales department, would promise Green an official title change “soon” but that would not come to pass. Lafferty was one of the only women in management. She had been on the company for many years, hired by Bob Moog himself.

Early on Green says she thrived in her role. By the end of 2018 she would have an approved budget for 2019 that included the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) festival in Anaheim, with all its travel, accommodations, and many dinner meetings with clients.

At the end of that first year, Lafferty would leave the nearly all-male sales department to head the newly formed “Workplace Experience Department,” which was just Moog’s fancy name for human resources. This move left Green the only woman in the entire department.

At the very first meeting with the new sales department heads, in February 2019, they immediately stripped Green of her previously planned and budgeted attendance at NAMM. According to the discrimination complaint the festival gig was then given to Scott Brandon, a much newer male employee that shared a similar title.

Brandon’s attendance at the NAMM fest, representing Moog’s sales department, was made even more interesting due to the fact he did not have any sales accounts. This change also happened within a week of the festival, leaving Green little time to make her former accounts aware of the change.

Green expressed dissatisfaction with the changes to one of her new supervisors, Andrew Stryffeler. She remembers that Stryffeler then told her “we thought you’d like to be the mom of the sales department”.

When Green reported this to Lafferty the new HR department head even responded “wow, that’s sexist” in a conversation. Despite written communication with the HR department head referring to this incident nothing was ever done to rectify Stryffeller’s bigotry. There were also several incidents where Stryffeler, always unannounced, would strip Green of assigned duties and tasks and give them to other male members of the team who were less qualified, all in front of the entire department.

The very next month sales department managers called Green into a meeting and informed her that Brandon was being promoted to an International account manager position. This promotion flew outside of procedure in Moog’s own handbook, where a job posting has to be shared internally, Green was denied the opportunity to even apply.

According to the lawsuit this promotion occurred despite Moog knowing that Green was more qualified for the position, had been with the company longer, had direct account management experience in her career, and had a stellar record while working at Moog for over a year at that time while managing twenty-four accounts for the company.

Nick Valente, one of the two sales managers, stated that Green’s job title and some duties would
be changing without a change in salary. The other manager, Stryffeler, added “this
would be a faster route to the account manager position” for Green.

Around this time, the complaint alleges Brandon began to physically intimidate Green, looking over her shoulder while she was seated and working and commenting on how she conducted her duties and tasks. Despite not being her supervisor he attempted to tower over her and micro-manage her, checking her time card to keep tabs on her coming and going.

A culture of abuse

These incidents were taken to the department heads by Green but no known action to stop Brandon was ever taken. If one was, it certainly didn’t work. In a one-on-one meeting, Green recalls that Valente told her that “certain people in the department” were concerned about Green’s hours and it was “creating an upset”.

Eventually Brandon would start making comments to Green on behalf of management. After an overseas trip with Stryffeler in August 2019, Brandon stated that he and Valente discussed her “future at Moog.”

What followed, Green remembers, was a torrent of misogyny. Brandon told her that management “weren’t sure that you can be on a plane for five hours, find your way around a new city, and get to your hotel” “and if you have a nightmare or something, you can’t just not show up for your meeting that day or call and put it off”

There was more. Brandon continued that “what happens if one of these guys (the distributors) is an asshole to you and you have a panic attack? You can’t just freak out!” and “can you even travel? I mean you have kids and a family. Did you ever think about that?”

Green reported, in person and in writing, these statements to the “Workplace Experience Department.” No action was taken.

The lawsuit alleges that, unhindered in his escalating abuse, the next month Brandon would verbally and physically assault Green at a work event, “MOOG Pro.”

In this violent, near-hour-long rant he would scream at Green that she was a “fucking liar” and that she would “never move up in the sales department” and physically put his hands on her.

Brandon also told her that according to Valente, Green “would never get an international sales manager position because Green “isn’t bilingual.” Brandon, who was the international sales manager, is not bilingual.

After Green had broken into tears, she asked Brandon “why are you doing this?” he replied, “Oh, so I guess it’s my fault because I’m a man!” This went on until Green stated again that she was at work on time on a day Brandon said she wasn’t, and Brandon violently slammed his hands on the small table in between them and screamed, “No! You were not! You’re a fucking liar!”

According to the lawsuit when Green notified their supervisor, Valente, the next morning, she was instantly denied access to an event she had planned that was scheduled to happen later that day. As head of HR Green recalls that Lafferty’s only concern seemed to be whether or not any clients had seen the assault, going on to state Brandon “would be fired immediately” if that were the case.

The eventual “solutions” to violent intimidation and assault were for Brandon to work from home for the rest of the week, move his desk away from Green’s when he returned, not exhibit violent or controlling behavior towards Green, not exhibit controlling behavior over Green’s projects that did not involve him, and not to act as Green’s “manager” or assert any authority over Green in the workplace. As that meeting finished, Brandon returned to his desk to pack up for his week home by throwing things and being disruptively loud. According to Green, he barely followed these incredibly minor, almost insulting “solutions.” He kept his pay and position.

The management who had enabled this abusive environment kept rising in the ranks of Moog. Valente would next be promoted to vice president and Joe Richardson was hired by Moog as the new chief marketing officer.

After this Valente met with Green to discuss her future at the company. During these conversations, Valente revealed the creation of a new department, “Sales Operations”, and said the new department would “need a manager.”

Valente explained to Green that the duties of the new position consisted of duties that Green already did, and this move would be a “step-up, and a “natural progression” for her, then asked if she would be interested. She responded that “of course she was interested”. A promotion, stepping up in the company, recognition for work she had already been providing, and most importantly the move was further from Brandon.

Green met with Richardson to go into more details of the new department. One of those meetings he requested a “run-down of everything that Green did from the time a purchase order is received to the time the instrument leaves the building” after given those details Richardson said “Wow! So, we need to get all these little things off your plate so that you can focus on your ‘new role.’”

Before their next scheduled meeting Mike Adams, Moog’s president and majority owner, directly assigned a project to Green. As the project was completed and only needed to be organized Scott Brandon offered to assist so that Green could go take her lunch break. When Green returned from that lunch Brandon was presenting it to Adams. Green reported the incident, and Valente told Brandon to “stay in [his] lane.”

When Brandon returned from that caution he aggressively stated, “I guess I’m just gonna stay in my lane!” The rest of that day, whenever asked to do something, Brandon would shout exclaim, “No! I can’t do that! I’m stayin’ in my lane!”

The same day he loudly stated he “always had a knife on [him].” This was after he had already assaulted Green. This was all reported to Valente. The next meeting with Richardson followed the last but this time Green brought in an idea she had of creating an online customer “portal” to automate customer interaction with Moog. Richardson then asked if she would be available for a call later with a company that Richardson was to speak with about this “portal” solution, telling her that she “would be the best person to explain our process to them.”

In early 2020 two other positions would become available during the months of these meetings with Richardson. Green was qualified for these positions but discouraged from applying, being told she had to wait. Since Green’s next meeting was about to come up just before the second position closed for internal applications, she requested a meeting to get some clarity. Green wanted to be assured that the department she had been developing and the position running it would, in fact, go to her.

According to the lawsuit, Green asked Richardson directly about the manager position, Richardson responded by saying, “I want you to know that I know that you are the Sales Ops person” at Moog, and that “anytime I have a question about Sales Ops, you always have the answer.”

Richarson went further, saying “since I’ve been here, I have noticed that any time I ask you to perform a Sales Ops-related task, that you knew what you were doing, and you got it done quickly and efficiently.” Richardson then told Green they (other management) were going to “finalize that position and post it in the next two weeks.” HR reassured her she’d have a shot at the job.

What happened was very different. Not long after that meeting, Lafferty and Green would have to have another. Green would inform Lafferty that Stryffeler was specifically re-assigning her duties, tasks, and responsibilities relating to sales operations and analysis” to Scott Brandon.

Green reminded Lafferty of Brandon’s many acts of intimidation and told Lafferty that she was afraid of him and that she would be forced to quit her job if that position went to Brandon. Green also told Lafferty that she had not spoken to anyone else about these concerns because of the culture in the sales department.

In discussing the sales operations management position Lafferty said that “they should have heard something by now,” and that she “would do some investigating and call her [Green] back”. Lafferty followed up a few days later requesting Green attend an in-person meeting with Valente and Richardson that week.

That meeting’s objective was simple: she was being fired. Valente told Green that Moog was “dissolving her position.” Valente then claimed the new department and management position Green had developed was “not happening.”

Green offered to stay on until Aug. 1 to help train others on her duties. In an in-person meeting, the lawsuit asserts that Valente responded that “if you stay until August 1st, I will hand you a check on that day for two months’ severance pay”. Green agreed, assuming most of her work at that time would take place at home due to Covid-19. Before the meeting was over Lafferty said that “if any new positions become available, she would let [Green] know”.

Valente added that “if they decided to move forward with the Sales Ops thing, they would let [her] know as well.” Lafferty followed up with an email on what was allegedly Moog’s “standard severance package”, and demanded Green sign it. Green asked for clarity, as the details of this were not what had been discussed in their meeting, Lafferty never responded.

Green would follow this meeting with an email directly to Adams in April 2020. She would tell Adams directly of some of the misogyny, discrimination, and unfair treatment that she had continued to endure, thinking that perhaps he hadn’t been informed. Green received no response. Just after this email Lafferty, attempting to create the appearance of some kind of investigation, demanded a Zoom meeting with Green “or she would be closing the investigation”. Lafferty knew Green was attending a close relative’s funeral because Green had to specifically request approval for the time off. Green offered to answer questions via emails. Lafferty refused. One week before August 1 Green received an email containing a “Release, Confidentiality and Non-disparagement Agreement”. This was the first mention of such. Green refused to sign, Moog immediately refused to pay the agreed-upon severance.

Aftermath

What Green describes in her last months at Moog — the sudden shuffling around of duties, vague promises of new positions followed by firing and retaliation — are a common tactic in abusive workplace environments. Fired because she continued to assert her rights, and report valid claims of discrimination and unfair treatment.

“I think women have always had to deal with a certain level of misogyny in the workplace, some of it was always expected, so we get numb to this idea that we can and should be treated fairly by our employers,” Green tells the Blade. “After seeing all the documentation stacked up in front of me, I realized that I needed to do something to make sure Moog Music never does this to anyone ever again.”

This deep culture of misogyny can even be backed up by women employees, as Lafferty repeatedly ignored Green’s complaints and failed to promote Green as originally promised.

As the head of hr she had plenty of power to step in. What of Valente and Richardson, could they not see how dangerous other’s behavior was? How does an international company founded in the 1970s just now in 2018 get an HR department? At the head of it all, Mike Adams is seemingly absent but also clearly aware of what’s going on.

The complaint, filed in federal court in March, alleges that the company repeatedly violated Green’s civil rights, citing multiple causes of action, including two separate discriminations based on sex, plus breach of contract, emotional distress, retaliation, and wrongful termination. Green is seeking damages including front pay, compensatory and punitive damages, along with the originally agreed severance.

“As a result of these discriminatory acts, breach of contract, and negligent affliction of emotional distress, Ms. Green is seeking an amount exceeding $1.1 million dollars in compensatory and punitive damages plus attorney’s fees and costs,” Soboleski, her attorney, tells the Blade.

Green says she hopes for “Moog to take the necessary steps to ensure that they create and maintain a safe and inclusive environment for all genders; that way they can actually be the kind of company that they portray to the world.”

Sadly Green’s story is not at all uncommon. Asheville’s reverence for “local business” at all costs often masks exploitation, bigotry and violence in multiple forms. Putting owners and managers — usually white, well-off cishet men — on a pedestal is an environment ripe for abuse.

The founders of Waking Life were revered in the business community and received extensive financing. Even after direct evidence emerged of their rampant misogyny and abuse, plenty of business notables grumbled that the fight for basic justice went too far by shutting down their business.

Jonas Gerard was still supported by many in the gentry side of the city’s art world, even as rape and sexual assault allegations mounted, including the publishing of a draconian legal document his company tried to intimidate a survivor to sign. When locals protested, police relentlessly attacked and arrested them.

Often “progressive” is just another marketing tool used by companies both small and large. Schemes like “woke capitalism” from companies like No Evil Foods, that seem to celebrate social justice, even socialist ideals. Product names like “El Zapatista” (they are not affiliated with the Zapatista movement in any way) & “Comrade Cluck” conjure images of anti-capitalism and supporting workers. But after months of union-busting and the illegal firing of labor organizers, we’ve all learned these are nothing more than clever marketing. Fake meat co-opting radical change images & names, only to be given an opportunity to prove they believe in the images & fall gravely short. Much like Moog, No Evil Foods likes to use all the right words while not valuing any of them.

Everyone who works in Asheville knows stories like Green’s; many of us have faced similar abuse. Too often the damage goes unpunished and the people who perpetrated it stay in their positions of power. Even if someone’s fired the structures that allowed them to take place often stay untouched. Until those are truly dismantled, workplace abuse will remain the status quo.

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Veronica Coit is birth giver to two, mother to a few and grandma to one. They are a hair stylist by trade; cat rescuer and advocate by passion. Veronica is an award-winning community volunteer who founded Asheville Cat Weirdos and the ACW Emergency Fund, both with the goal of improving the lives of companion animals and their humans in WNC.

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