Within the past few weeks, many former IFI/RECF employees and community members have come forward with their stories of abuse, harassment, and misconduct from the executive staff within these organizations. I have spent the past several years recovering, while at the same time being terrified to share my story for fear of retribution. Seeing all the other amazing people have the courage to make themselves heard after all this time made me feel safe enough to share my experiences, and made me confident that they wonât be ignored and swept under the rug.
I began working for IFI and its subsidiaries in 2017. It seemed like a dream job for me at the time, but I can now see how that was very much too good to be true.
My mother had passed away about a year prior. I was just about as heart broken as a person could be. She had been drinking buddies with Tony Norman - the owner, President, and CEO of IFI. They were regulars at different bars in Greenville, and he always invited her to sit at his table with him. My mom was even there when Tony physically grabbed a random server at Chilis and said, âthis is gonna be my next girlfriend,â who ended up being Samantha, his now-ex wife. My mom had always pushed me to get into robotics, and said if I wanted to stay close to home, IFI would be an amazing step for me, one that would open many opportunities. I got my interview with Tony and started a week later. I was super excited because I felt my Mom wouldâve been proud.
For a while everything was alright, the execs didnât know me too well, and Tony was in China, so it was pretty quiet at the desk. I was told to âhave a strong backboneâ and ânot get my feelings hurtâ because âengineers are particular and can be meanâ (Tonyâs assistant told me this), specifically warning me about Bob and Tony being âabsolute a**holes if things arenât going exactly how they wantâ. I was freshly 21, and had never seriously drank outside of a couple parties underaged (one which was actually at Tonyâs house). I wasnât keen on drinking, but noticed that most of our events revolved around it, and as a young woman barely making rent with the measly hourly pay, I felt pressured to keep up. I didnât have money to go clubbing or out to bars like friends my age did.
Around the Halloween party in 2017, things started to change. In my personal life, I had just moved out of an unfortunate roommate situation, and finally into an apartment on my own. My ex-roommate will be referred to as âSâ. She had threatened me with a firearm to âget outâ, but that wasnât where it ended. She worked for a restaurant that IFI used for catering their lunches, and would call Jessica in HR to complain about me âcalling [her] job to cuss [her] out when Iâm placing [our] order,â when I never even spoke to her. Then it was a complaint that we stopped using them because âobviously this is over a grudge Morgan has over meâ instead of the fact that half of the executives simply didnât like their food, and that I was instructed to stop ordering. Since I was no longer calling her job for orders, the claims became that I was âcalling her personal phone from the office daily to harass herâ. Everytime this was claimed I asked HR to get with the IT department to see who I was supposedly making calls to if they thought there was any legitimacy to her claims, but they refused to do so, saying they believed me.
Back to the party, Tonyâs assistant was on maternity leave so I had to handle being Tonyâs personal assistant in addition to my normal duties. I was expected to show up to Tonyâs house and get things ready at noon that day, and wasnât able to leave until 3am after the party had died down. I had to stay to pay the cops working the party so that Tony wouldnât be âbotheredâ. I went to pay the cops, and I was a couple hundred short so I had to go find Tony to get more money. He was talking to his friends and had an intern on his arm. He let go of her and grabbed me, smiled, and asked his friend âisnât she pretty? Iâd love her to myself but I donât like to s**t where I eat.â I saw how he was with the intern and it disturbed me⌠I immediately went home to wash the Norman stench off me. The following work day, I asked to speak to Jessica about the situation. She acted very supportive of me and said she would talk to Tony about it to ensure something like that never happened again. I highly doubt the conversation ever left her office, because I almost certainly wouldâve been fired that week if she did talk to him.
I remember my ex-roommate then started dating someone in HEXBUG, so she started being invited as a plus-one to all company events that I was not only invited to, but was always required to work through. I brought the topic up to HR of how she had been harassing me, and how sheâs now being invited to be in closed spaces with me. I was assured she would keep her distance. At the Christmas party, while everyone was watching Star Wars, she decided to sit behind me and every couple of minutes hit my chair and say âdead momâ like a middle school bully.
On July 20, 2017, Dan Mantz, the then-president of Rack Solutions, invited both his own employees and myself to a dinner at the Flying Saucer on occasion of his last day at the company before moving to the REC Foundation to become their new CEO. I was excited to be included. While I did work for all three companies (VEX, HEXBUG, Rack Solutions), it was very rare that I received invitiations to team events for any of the three.
Leading up to this point I had had multiple one-on-one moments with Dan that at the time I thought to be completely innocent. For example, he personally explained to me the execitive portion of his job because he recognized I was interested in learning more than just being behind the front desk. We also had many chats sitting in his office when I had nothing to do at my desk, specifically regarding what I wanted to do with my future. I honestly looked up to him as a father figure.
Given the nature of what I thought was our mentor/mentee relationship, I was extremely hurt, frightened, and angered when after the dinner that evening Dan told me how he âwould love to get [me] over to RECF to be his âsexy little assistantâ. This was sexual harassment plain and simple, and it made me realize that those thoughts of his were always there, and that his interest in my future wasnât as innocent as I initially thought when he pulled me into his office. None of my coworkers, let alone my male colleagues, were ever invited in for âchats about their futureâ, despite sharing nearly identical ages and backgrounds to myself.
I reported Danâs inappropriate comments to Jessica in HR, but was told in no uncertain terms that âthere was nothing to be done because he is no longer an IFI employee.â
When we finally moved into the new building, Larry (COO) was discussing me getting a promotion out of the front desk, and as a result I started working harder. At this point I was still not offered a salary over hourly work, and was asked to not log too many off clock hours for parties and similar. I got a call one night about how someone needed to grab alcohol from either the building to bring to Tonyâs, or to grab some from someone and bring it to Tonyâs for a party he was having, and if I could help. I didnât have much to do, so I did and when I got there I walked up to Tony to see him sitting with my old roommate, S, as sheâs finishing up talking about how crazy I am. She then said âI just know her mom would hate who sheâs becomeâ while looking me in the eyes. It all happened in slow motion but I thought âhere it is, finally proof Iâm not crazy,â but Tony started laughing. He turned and saw I was there and laughed so hard he almost cried. I left immediately.
I took PTO the next work day to collect myself because I was confused. My next day at work I sat down with Tonyâs assistant and explained what happened, and told her I wanted to run it by her before going to Jessica because I didnât want to cause trouble, just get things situated so she wouldnât interfere with my work anymore. The day went on as normal. I came into work the next day to be pulled into the small room I had named the âFiring Officeâ. Since I used to be the one notarizing everyoneâs exit paperwork, I knew the office all too well. While the attorney John had me there I brought up (for a second time) both instances I was sexually harassed, and was told âIâm the companyâs lawyer, not yoursâ. I was offered $1600 in severance pay, which represented one month of my paycheck, to leave the company and not report any misconduct. Accepting this has been a huge regret of mine ever since. I was young, and that felt like a lot of money for me at the time, given that my rent and bills were less than $600 a month.
I have remained silent about my experiences, and the abuse and harrassment I recieved from Dan Mantz, Tony Norman, and IFI as a company until now because I was afraid. I was afraid of being retaliated against for telling my story. I was afraid that I would be re-opening old wounds that would only serve to further cause me harm. Most of all, I was afraid that no one would care. The posts from some of my former colleagues, including Amy Yznaga, Chuck Glick, Jay Trzaskos, and Andrew Remmers showed me that my story and experiences matter and deserve to be told.
Sincerely,
Morgan Crabtree
Edit:
1 for spelling error, 2 correction, severance was one month of my pay not two