Current and former employees of Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens are raising concerns about the work culture and current leadership of the historic Akron home of Goodyear founder F.A. Seiberling.
An anonymous email that was shared with Signal Akron, plus interviews with 10 current and former staffers and volunteers, detail concerns about the management style of President and Executive Director Jennifer Highfield. Issues related to those concerns, sources said, include a high rate of employee turnover, miscommunication and low morale at the nonprofit.
The email was sent to Stan Hywet’s staff and board members on May 12. It states that, since Highfield’s appointment in September of 2022, about 50 full-time staff members have left Stan Hywet. The majority of those exits were voluntary, according to the email.
An employee who left Stan Hywet in 2025 said that, when she worked there, the estate employed, at its highest, 47 full-time and part-time year-round staff members. With seasonal employees factored in, that brought the number to just under 100 workers, she said. According to its 2023 annual report, the most recent one available, 758 people volunteered at Stan Hywet that year.
In an email to Signal Akron on May 13, Stan Hywet’s Board Chair Lindsey Tomaszewski said the board is aware of the anonymous email and “is handling it through the appropriate internal process and channels.”
“The communication was sent without the Board’s awareness, constitutes an act of impersonation, and does not reflect the Board’s and the organization’s shared views. The Board remains actively engaged in all aspects of organizational oversight and continues to have full confidence in our President and Executive Director and team,” Tomaszewski said.
‘We feel so defeated’ — employees comment on Stan Hywet work environment
The palatial Tudor Revival estate in Northwest Akron is one of the city’s most famous landmarks. Built in 1915, it spans 70 acres and includes the manor house, gardens, a conservatory, a carriage house and the historic gate lodge, considered the birthplace of Alcoholics Anonymous.
More than 140,000 people visited Stan Hywet in 2023, according to its annual report. Deck the Hall, its popular annual holiday event, brought in $1.26 million in revenue in that year.
In interviews with Signal Akron, current and former staffers said they were concerned about Highfield’s communication skills, citing what they said was a lack of transparency in many workplace interactions with her.
“Some of us started to ask each other, ‘Is stuff happening to you?’ or ‘Did you experience this?’” said former curator Julie Frey. “The red flags started to show up.”
Employees also said they felt micromanaged under Highfield’s leadership. As a result, some tasks and projects took longer than usual to complete or were not completed at all.
The combination of communication issues and micromanagement, they said, contributed to an overall decline in employee morale at Stan Hywet.
“It got to the point where people left who were planning to retire from there,” said another former employee who left Stan Hywet in 2025. “The institutional knowledge that was allowed to walk out that gate is unbelievable.”
One employee who still works at Stan Hywet described the current mood at the estate as “awful.”
“We feel so defeated,” she said.
Another current employee agreed.
“Obviously, a lot of people still care about that place,” she said. “I still care about that place. I mean, I’m still hanging on. It’s not easy, I will tell you that. It’s rough.”
Board responds to anonymous email, expresses support for Stan Hywet’s president
Tomaszewski and the board’s executive committee sent two emails to staff and volunteers in response to the anonymous email, one on May 14 from Tomaszewski and a longer response on May 27 from the board’s executive committee. Both emails reiterate the board’s confidence in Highfield’s leadership.
Tomaszewski also sent a second email to Signal Akron on May 28, writing that “Stan Hywet continues to be an attractive employment option, drawing interest from a national talent pool of highly qualified candidates who are eager to join our growing team.”
Stan Hywet’s current financial status “is in a position of undeniable operational and financial strength,” Tomaszewski writes about the nonprofit.
She continued, “Our fiscal health is verified by a series of clean third-party audits, and our forward-looking strategy has directly enabled vital, long-term growth opportunities, including the strategic acquisition of additional real estate assets, the details of which are available via public record.”
The email also addresses Stan Hywet’s December 2024 purchase of the former World Harvest Church, unanimously approved by both Stan Hywet’s and the Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens Foundation’s boards, which are separate entities.
Tax filings for Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens, Inc. show that the nonprofit brought in $6.27 million in revenue in 2024, the most recent data available. This is down from $7.52 million in 2023. Its expenses have remained fairly steady over the last few years, coming in at $5.53 million for 2024.
Signal Akron sent questions to Highfield and Tomaszewski addressing the specific concerns raised by current and former employees. In a June 30 email, Tomaszewski said, “On behalf of the Board and our team, we have nothing further to add.”
When contacted, Highfield responded with the official statement from the board. This was the same statement Tomaszewski sent Signal Akron on May 28.
Signal Akron also contacted Stan Hywet’s 16 other board members but received no responses.
Appointment of Highfield left Stan Hywet employees excited, hopeful
The anonymous email that was sent to staff and board members states that Highfield “has cycled through two executive assistants, two controllers; and overseen the turnover of the entire human resource department twice.”
A former Stan Hywet employee said when she worked there, the human resources department consisted of two full-time employees. Current employees said there is only one part-time staffer in the human resources department.
A number of departing staff members “explicitly stated they were leaving as a direct result of Jennifer Highfield’s leadership,” according to the anonymous email. It also says employees shared their concerns with Stan Hywet’s board members and during exit interviews.
When Highfield started at Stan Hywet in September 2022, the mood among employees was one of excitement, Frey said. She started working at Stan Hywet in 2014 and left in 2024 because she was unhappy with Highfield’s leadership.
After a nine-month search by an outside firm, Highfield was hired as the president and executive director. She previously worked at Stan Hywet from 2006 to 2010, serving as the director of fund development. Before stepping into the role of president of the estate, Highfield served as the president and CEO of the National First Ladies’ Library in Canton from 2018 to 2022.
“Jennie had a clear background in nonprofit and museums, and she was a longtime Akron resident and knew a lot of people,” Frey said. “There were also people on staff that had worked with her all those years ago, and were like, ‘Oh, she knows Stan Hywet. She has this foundation. This is great. We don’t have to start from scratch.’ So it was very positive.”
A former longtime employee agreed.
“I actually think everyone was really excited to have Jennie there,” said the employee, who left the estate in 2025. “It felt like [a] fresh start, and ‘Let’s get going here.’”
Former employee details concerns in letter to Stan Hywet’s board
Things started to change in the summer of 2023, Frey said.
When she left Stan Hywet in January 2024, Frey said she sent a 10-page typed letter to board president Tomaszewski, which she shared with Signal Akron, outlining her experience working at the estate under Highfield’s management.
In the letter, Frey said she had applied for the position of executive director. While she was disappointed she didn’t get the job, she wrote that she “only ever wanted what was best for the organization” and that she intended to “do everything I could to support the person who was chosen.”
Highfield accused her of running “a pack of mean girls,” Frey said in the letter, who spread gossip among the staff and undermined Highfield’s leadership. During a meeting, Highfield said Stan Hywet did not have a healthy culture and blamed it on Frey, the letter said.
“This was a devastating blow to me,” Frey wrote. “I may not always agree with my boss. I may be frustrated by a decision, but I would never foster an environment that undermines [Stan Hywet].”
Frey closed by telling Tomaszewski she’s happy to answer questions via phone or in person. Frey said she received a “thank you” from Tomaszewski in response to her email but never heard anything further.
‘It was like you didn’t know who to trust’
Other current and former employees told Signal Akron there was a breakdown in communication under Highfield’s leadership as well as issues with transparency.
“She had created an atmosphere where when she first came in, she talked about wanting to get people out of their silos, be a whole estate, not people in their individual departments. Well, what she did is she made it worse,” said one employee who left in 2025. “It was like you didn’t know who to trust, which is a horrible atmosphere.”
That former employee and Frey both mentioned instances of being told one thing by Highfield only to find out later that their colleagues were given conflicting information from her.
Frey recounts an incident in her letter to Tomaszewki regarding the performance of an employee in the education department. Highfield told her “she was desperate to fire” the employee but the “board was holding her back,” Frey wrote. That same week Highfield told another employee that the board was demanding she fire the education staffer, Frey said, but Highfield wanted to give him another chance.
Another staffer who left in 2025 said Highfield accused her of not being a team player.
“I kept saying, ‘I’m very sorry you feel this way. If you can give me examples, I’d like to address them,’” the staffer said. “I never got examples.”
After meeting with Highfield to share her concerns about a new software system, an employee said she left the meeting in tears after Highfield expressed doubt in the employee’s ability to manage the new system.
“She just kept putting me down, one thing after another,” the employee said. She worked at Stan Hywet for 13 years and quit in 2025.
‘Everything came to a grinding halt’
Jill Newman served as the financial controller at Stan Hywet from February of 2022 until May of 2024. While there, she and Highfield clashed over the management of the finance department, she told Signal Akron.
Newman wanted to hire a senior accountant not long after she started. One was hired, but Newman said it soon became clear that he was not a good fit for the role. She wanted to fire him and hire someone new, but Highfield pushed back, she said. This went on for months.
When the employee quit in February of 2024, Newman used a temp agency to hire someone. This also caused friction with Highfield, she said, who wanted all hiring to go through her. This also affected the hiring of a new full-time finance employee, Newman said. Highfield wanted to do all the first-round interviews with the applicants on her own.
“At that point, she was starting to take control of everything, and she was doing it in all the other departments,” Newman said. “Well, that just creates no outcomes. Everything came to a grinding halt.”
Restructuring led to inefficiencies, employees say
Under Highfield’s leadership, Stan Hywet employees underwent a restructuring in 2025. While no one received pay cuts, changes in job titles left some employees feeling like they had been demoted — while still performing the same job duties they always had. Managers became specialists and specialists became coordinators.
“When she unveiled that at our staff meeting, it made a lot of people angry, and they were voicing their opinions, and she just closed herself off and almost stopped the meeting, and she had HR come up and talk,” said the employee who quit after 13 years. “It was just a very uncomfortable meeting.”
The restructuring was part of Highfield’s strategic plan, several former employees said. It was presented as an effort to streamline work and make processes more efficient. In reality, the former employees said, projects and tasks often took longer to complete under Highfield’s leadership because she wanted to have the final approval on many decisions.
“Things really started to grind to a halt and weren’t moving on [the] property because she had to see every decision when it came to public programs,” Frey said. “Anything that was happening in the manor house, the seasonal exhibit, any kind of interpretation we were doing — she had to read everything, edit everything. You would send her emails, and weeks and weeks and weeks would go by [without a response].”
A current employee said proposals sent to Highfield would “languish for months.”
“By the time we get any kind of word back, it could be a year,” the current employee said. “And then I have to go back to the contractor and be like, ‘Hey, I need updated numbers because I’m sure your proposal doesn’t stand from six months ago.’”
Employees say concerns went unanswered
Frey said she and some of Highfield’s other direct reports, which included other senior-level employees, tried to discuss the issues with Highfield but made little progress.
Three of the former employees Signal Akron interviewed said that, during their exit interviews, they shared their concerns with human resources. One employee said there was an anonymous number staffers could call to share issues or complaints. She said she called the line but never received a follow-up.
Under Highfield’s leadership, staff meetings also changed. One current employee said they used to have regular staff meetings, but now, they have all-hands meetings that volunteers and board members are invited to. Because of this, the meetings are now much larger and there are no opportunities to ask questions.
“We haven’t been allowed to ask questions at staff meetings for a year. They literally tell us that. ‘Hold your questions. If you need a question, find them afterwards and ask them,’” the employee said. “It’s a lecture. It’s not a meeting.”
So far, there have been two all-hands meetings this year, another current employee said.
Passion for history and the Seiberling legacy remains among employees
The last time current employees said they received an updated employee handbook was in 2024. Typically, staff would receive a new handbook each year. They also said they have not had any staff training in two years to address new policy changes.
Several staffers also mentioned the suspension of employee appreciation programs such as goodbye parties for retiring staffers, group outings before the estate opens for the season and gift card distributions during the holidays.
“We don’t get paid a ton, so for our quote unquote Christmas bonus, we get a $25 Acme gift card,” a current employee said. “And we did not get that last Christmas.”
She continued, “And it’s just something you expect. As silly and trivial as it is — not even a card, no ‘Thanks for a great year.’ Because especially during Christmas, we all work really, really hard with the Deck the Hall event, and we’re putting a lot of hours in. To not get our silly little gift card was like a slap on the face.”
In Signal Akron’s interviews with current and former Stan Hywet staffers, one theme kept coming up: their love for the former home of the Seiberling family. They discussed their passion for the work and the strong relationships they built with their colleagues. Many described it as a family.
“I love that place. It is beautiful,” said one former employee. “It’s a nonprofit. You just don’t do it for the money.”
Inscribed above the manor house’s front door is the phrase “non nobis solum,” meaning “not for us alone.” It’s the motto of Stan Hywet.
“It was a place that felt like it supported the Seiberling legacy of non nobis solum,” said the employee who left Stan Hywet after 13 years. “And it had turned into this cold, heartless place that didn’t support anybody or anything.”
