The former chief operating officer of Lexington Regional Health Center has filed a lawsuit against the facility alleging discrimination based on her gender.
Kirsten Faessler, who stepped down from her position in September 2025, has filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in the District of Nebraska, alleging that board members, two CEOs and fellow staff members all engaged in sex discrimination.
Faessler’s suit alleges the hospital violated her civil rights under Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Nebraska Fair Employment Practice Act.
According to the suit, tension between Faessler and board member Rob Anderson began when Faessler — serving at the time as director of rehabilitation services — reported concerns about patient quality of care by staff at Plum Creek Medical Group in 2014.
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After a failed mediation, the group pulled hospital privileges and “Rob Anderson’s treatment of Kirsten began to change.”
In August 2020, CEO Leslie Marsh promoted Faessler to chief operating officer.
According to the suit, Marsh, Faessler and another female administrator voiced concerns about IT breaches and HIPAA violations with hospital CIO Rob Hanna in 2021.
In a separate incident in 2021, Faessler raised concerns “about Dr. Brady Beecham’s contract compliance and documentation issues.” That led to Beecham parting ways with the hospital.
After those incidents, the suit alleges, the “workforce culture changed dramatically.”
“Board members and male executives ridiculed Marsh, calling her ‘paranoid’ and questioning her credibility for raising concerns about IT breaches, HIPAA violations and governance failures,” the suit said.
In the following three years, “the culture became increasingly hostile, retaliatory and secretive,” the suit alleges.
In February 2024, Marsh was fired by the hospital board.
Faessler, who according to the suit operated about 75% of the hospital operations, was not considered for the interim CEO role after Marsh’s firing. The suit alleges that despite her experience and institutional knowledge, she was not considered because of her gender.
The board ultimately elevated Chief Financial Officer Wade Eschenbrenner as interim CEO in March 2024. That same month, Faessler filed a discrimination charge with the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission.
Faessler’s suit alleges that she faced a hostile work environment during Eschenbrenner’s term as interim CEO, and that she and other female executives were purposefully excluded from “C-suite” meetings.
“Being excluded from C-Suite meetings directly interfered with Kirsten’s ability to carry out her responsibilities as” COO, the suit alleges.
Eschenbrenner also issued low performance evaluations for Faessler and three other female employees — all four of whom had supported Marsh. The suit alleges that male executives “were not subjected to the same scrutiny or given similarly low performance evaluations as their female counterparts.”
The hospital board hired Jason Douglas as full-time CEO in March 2025 and Eschenbrenner returned to his duties as CFO.
Douglas initially invited Faessler to executive meetings, but several months later his treatment of her changed, the suit says.
In August, Douglas presented Faessler with a performance improvement plan without any prior notification of poor performance. According to the suit, Eschenbrenner was in that meeting, but no member of the human resources department was present.
According to the suit, Chief Human Resources Officer Jill Denker had no knowledge of the performance improvement plan, which was formulated from a community sentiment survey conducted on Facebook and Instagram and “represented less than one percent of the service area population,” the suit says.
Faessler went on continuous family and medical leave “due to situational anxiety by the hostile workplace” in August 2025. On Sept. 2, 2025, she resigned, effective Oct. 2.
On Sept. 24, 2025, Faessler filed a second discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
