Low level management has created a very bad culture of lying, unethical behavior (stealing, a.k.a. siphoning contract work off to a personal LLC), shady hiring/firing practices for female contractors, poor communication, no opportunities for training, no opportunities for advancement, no willingness to listen to employees, no willingness to provide clean drinking water, and no willingness to talk to HR about employee concerns (see comment about listening to employees), no willingness to outfit the lab with equipment needed for multiple projects at the same time.
What's just as bad is that low level leadership Is completely out of touch with the culture that has been created and how it affects employee morale, and how it affects the ability to recruit and retain top engineering talent in a market like this (Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area). Every initiative I took to improve employee morale was squashed, followed up with a comment such as "just keep your head down." I suppose that's like an ostrich sticking it's head in the sand when a predator is nearby. Just ignore the problems facing the team and focus on your immediate task of billing the customer.
I could only put up with this culture for so long and ultimately I found something better. As the saying goes: people don't leave companies, they leave managers. It couldn't be more true in this case.