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Landmark Education

Company type	Private LLC
Industry	self-help, self-improvement, personal development, management consulting, continuing education
Founded	January 1991
Headquarters	San Francisco, California, U.S.
Key people	Harry Rosenberg: Director; CEO Mick Leavitt: President Steven Zaffron: Director; CEO, The Vanto Group Joan Rosenberg: Vice President, Centers Division; Director Nancy Zapolski: Vice President, Course Development
Products	The Landmark Forum, associated coursework
Revenue	USD$77 million (2009)
Number of employees	450+ employees; 800 trained leaders, some of whom volunteer their time;
Subsidiaries	The Vanto Group (formerly Landmark Education Business Development or LEBD, from 1993 to 2007) Landmark Education International, Inc. Tekniko Licensing Corporation Rancord Company, Ltd.
Website	Landmark Education homepage

Landmark Education (LE) is a limited liability company that offers educational programs in personal development. The company hosts courses in approximately 115 locations across more than 20 countries.

More than 1.4 million people have taken Landmark's programs since its founding in 1991. It is an employee-owned, private company, headquartered in San Francisco, California whose origins were from the purchase of the intellectual property of Werner Erhard, who developed the est training. Landmark Education has developed and delivered over 40 personal development programs. Its subsidiary the Vanto Group, markets and delivers training and consulting to organizations.

Corporation

Landmark Education LLC operates as an employee-owned for-profit private company. According to Landmark Education's fact sheet, its employees own all the stock of the corporation, with no individual holding more than 3%. The company states that it operates in such a way as to invest its surpluses into making its programs, initiatives, and services more widely available.

As of 2005, Landmark Education stated that they have 200,000 participants in all of their courses annually with 70,000 to 80,000 people participating in the Landmark Forum. By 2008, more than 1 million people had taken part in Landmark Education's introductory program, the Landmark Forum, since 1991. Landmark Education reported revenues of approximately $81 million as of 2011.

History

Landmark Education, known from May 7, 1991 to February 26, 2003 as "Landmark Education Corporation (LEC)", purchased certain rights to a presentation known as The Forum from Werner Erhard and Associates. Since then, the name of the presentation has been changed to "The Landmark Forum" and the content has been revised. The group of people who purchased the rights registered themselves initially as Transnational Education, as The Centers Network, and (in Japan) as Rancord Company, Ltd.. Incorporation as "Landmark Education Corporation" (LEC) took place later in 1991. "Landmark Education International, Inc.", the first Landmark name incorporated in the State of California, was filed on June 22, 1987. In February 2003, Landmark Education LLC succeeded LEC.

The coursework and pedagogy of WEA evolved from est/Erhard Seminars Training, founded by Werner Erhard in 1971. According to Landmark Education, Erhard consults from time to time with its "Research and Design team". Erhard's younger brother (Harry Rosenberg) works as Landmark Education's Chief Executive Officer, and their sister (Joan Rosenberg) serves as the Vice President of Landmark Education's Centers Division.

Werner Erhard's lawyer, Terry Giles, serves as Chairman of the Board of Landmark Education. (A New York Times article credits Giles with resolving a long-standing rift among the descendants of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Business consulting

Vanto Group, Inc., founded in 1993 as "Landmark Education Business Development" (LEBD), a wholly owned subsidiary of Landmark Education Enterprises, Inc., uses the techniques of Landmark Education to provide consulting services to various companies. The University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business carried out a case study in 1998 into the work of LEBD. The report concluded that the set of interventions in the organization produced a 50% improvement in safety, a 15% to 20% reduction in key benchmark costs, a 50% increase in return on capital, and a 20% increase in raw steel production. LEBD became the Vanto Group in 2007.

Companies such as Panda Express and Lululemon Athletica pay for and encourage employees to take part in The Landmark Forum.

Licensing intellectual property

Tekniko, Inc., formerly owned by Werner Erhard, was the successor organization to Transformational Technologies, which was incorporated in 1984 by Erhard and management consultant James Selman. Tekniko Licencing Corporation, a California corporation owned by Terry M. Giles, later acquired this technology. In 2001 Landmark Education formed Tekniko Licensing Corporation, a Nevada corporation, which purchased Tekniko Technology from Giles' company.

Since that time, the Vanto Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Landmark Education, has used Tekniko to license the "Tekniko methodology and intellectual property to a wide variety of corporations".

Course content

The Landmark Forum takes place over three consecutive days and an evening session (generally Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday evening.) Each full day begins at 9:00 a.m. and typically ends at approximately 10:00 p.m. Breaks are approximately every 2–3 hours, with a 90-minute dinner break. The evening session generally runs from 7:00 p.m. to 10:15 p.m. Course size varies between 75 and 250 people. Rules are set up at the beginning of the program, such as strongly encouraging participants not to miss any part of the program. Attendees are also urged to be “coachable” and not just be observers during the course. The program is arranged as a discussion where the course leader presents certain ideas and the course participants engage in voluntary sharing with the course leader to discuss how those ideas apply to their own life. Ideas presented, asserted and discussed include the following:

• There is a big difference between what actually happened in a person’s life and the meaning or interpretation they made up about it

• People pursue an imaginary someday of satisfaction

• Human behavior is governed by a need to look good

• People create their own meaning to life – none is inherent in the world

• People have “rackets”, which are persistent complaints that give rise to fixed ways of being

• People can “transform” by simply declaring a new way of being instead of trying to change themselves in comparison to the past

• Course participants are encouraged to call people they know during the course who they are incomplete with and either be in communication with the other person or be responsible for their own behavior.

• The Tuesday evening involves a presentation at which course attendees bring other people to learn about and voluntarily register for an upcoming Landmark Forum.

Community projects

Some other Landmark Education courses encourage or require participants to create a community project. In the Self-Expression and Leadership Program, participants are required to undertake a project that benefits the larger community or society as a whole.

In one program, the Team, Management, and Leadership Program, participants create a ‘game in the world’.

Evaluations and reviews

The New York Times reporter Henry Alford summarized his review of The Landmark Forum by saying "Two months after the Forum, I'd rate my success at 84 percent. I'm more prone to telling loved ones and colleagues, in person and without glibness, that I love or admire them. But I still operate from a base position that people are a lot of effort." Time reporter Nathan Thornburgh, in his review of The Landmark Forum, said "At its heart, the course was a withering series of scripted reality checks meant to show us how we have created nearly everything we see as a problem …I benefited tremendously from the uncomfortable mirror the course had put in front of me."

The Irish Mail on Sunday says the effects of The Landmark Forum "...can be startling. People find themselves reconciled with parents, exes and friends. They have conversations they have wanted to have with their families for years; they meet people or get promoted in work."

Landmark Education makes extensive use of web-published and word-of-mouth testimonials from customers to portray its effectiveness, and supplements these with studies, surveys, and opinions.

Some observers question whether and to what degree Landmark Education courses benefit participants. Others criticize the use of volunteers by Landmark Education; others highlight the connections with other groups and with Werner Erhard. Landmark has been criticized by some for being overzealous in encouraging people to participate in its courses.

Some newspaper articles about the Forum mention rumours or allegations that it is in some sense "cult-like". Landmark rejects the cult label and "freely threatens or pursues lawsuits against those who call it one." Journalists Amelia Hill with The Observer and Karin Badt from The Huffington Post have witnessed the Landmark Forum and concluded that, in their view, it is not a cult. Hill wrote, "It is ... simple common sense delivered in an environment of startling intensity." Badt noted the organisation's emphasis on "'spreading the word' of the Landmark forum as a sign of the participants' 'integrity'" in recounting her personal experience of an introductory "Landmark Forum" course. Part of this theme included repeated comparisons between program participants and Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi. Badt expressed the opinion that the course's word-of-mouth marketing methodology and its considerable focus on proselytizing amounted to "brainwashing". She also noted that, "At the end of the day, I found the Forum innocuous. No cult, no radical religion: an inspiring, entertaining introduction of good solid techniques of self-reflection, with an appropriate emphasis on action and transformation (not change)", pointing instead to problems lying with uncritical participants.

Landmark Education makes no claims of a religious nature but the relationship of the training programs to religion sometimes occurs in reviews of the training. While reviewers have noted the lack of religious elements in the programs or the compatibility of the programs with various religions, some academic sources suggest the programs possess religious features, address participants' spiritual needs, or are even a form of new religion. In their 2002 book Cults, Religion, and Violence, authors David G. Bromley and J. Gordon Melton noted that some governments were overly restrictive towards New Religious Movements and Personal Development groups, illustrating this by the appearances of Landmark Education and many other organisations in lists of "Sectes" published by government commissions in Belgium and France.

Following a series of investigative articles in the national daily Dagens Nyheter and programs on the private TV channel TV4, Landmark Education also closed its offices in Sweden as of June 2004.

According to Le Nouvel Observateur, the French office of Landmark Education closed in July 2004 after labor inspectors, following a site visit that noted the activities of volunteers, made a report of undeclared employment.

Legal disputes

Since its formation in 1991, Landmark Education LLC (LE) has been involved in approximately a dozen lawsuits in the United States and four more in Europe, initiating defamation actions against authors and journalists who intimated that it is a cult. Critics of Landmark have portrayed these actions as an assault on free speech or an attempt to suppress legitimate comment, whereas LE has insisted that it only seeks to have inaccurate statements corrected and to protect its products from unfair disparagement.

References

1. (January 7, 2002). "Landmark Education Celebrates 11 Years of Business and Growth". LandmarkEducation.com. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
2. (August 19, 2002). "Minutes of the General Meeting of the Board of Directors of Landmark Education Corporation" (PDF), p. 1. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
   Note: Facsimile image retrieved from the Landmark Education Litigation Archive on October 25, 2007.
3. ^ Landmark Fact Sheet, LandmarkEducation.com. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
4. The Landmark Seminar Leader Program. LandmarkEducation.com. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
5. ^ (January 16, 1991). Articles of Incorporation, dike.de. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
   Quote: "This letter serves as the consent by Landmark Education Corporation for the use of the name "Landmark Education International, Inc." by our wholly-owned subsidiary, currently known as Werner Erhard and Associates International, Inc."
6. Company History. LandmarkEducation.com. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
7. ^ Badt, Karen (March 5, 2008). "Karin Badt: Inside The Landmark Forum". The Huffington Post. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
8. Landmark Events and Locations. Landmark Education.com. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
9. Nathan Thornberg April 10, 2011 Change We Can (almost) Believe In.
10. Dr. Steve Wechsler, April 10, 2011 ABC, Syracuse.
11. ^ Faltermayer, Charlotte; Richard Woodbury (March 16, 1998). "The Best of Est?. TIME. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
12. Werner Erhard biography. werner-erhard.com. Version as of October 10, 2004, retrieved through Internet Archive on October 22, 2008.
13. (February 1, 2008). "Landmark Education Business Development, LEBD, Changes Name to Vanto Group". Reuters. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
14. About Us. LandmarkEducation.com. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
15. ^ Stassen, Wilma (September 2008). "Inside a Landmark Forum Weekend" Health 24
16. ^ LP/LLC information. California Secretary of State. Filed February 26, 2003. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
17. Pressman, Steven (1993). Outrageous Betrayal: The dark journey of Werner Erhard from est to exile. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-09296-2, p. 254. (Out of print).
18. Corporation information. California Secretary of State. Filed June 22, 1987. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
19. Dewan, Shaila (May 3, 2010). "Hired to Bring Order, Kings' Adviser Brings Peace". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 2010-11-02. Terry M. Giles ... the self-improvement techniques of EST. (Werner Erhard, the creator of EST, is a client.)
20. Dow Jones & Co., Inc. (2010). "Landmark Education Corporation". The Business Journals. American City Business Journals, Inc. Retrieved 2010-11-02. Landmark Education Corporation - Company Executives - Terry Giles - Chairman of the Board
21. Logan, David C. (1998). "Transforming the Network of Conversations in BHP New Zealand Steel: Landmark Education Business Development's New Paradigm for Organizational Change", University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business, L984-01.
22. . Business Week. 2010-11-18 http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_48/b4205098143983.htm. Retrieved 2011-03-14. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
23. . Fast Company. 2009-04-01 http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/134/om-my.html. Retrieved 2011-03-14. {{cite news}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
24. Norman Bodek (1985). ReVision: The Journal of Consciousness and Change, Vol 7, No. 2, Winter 1984 / Spring 1985
25. Case Financial Inc · DEFM14A. SEC filings on secinfo.com. Filed May 3, 2000. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
    Quote: "Mr. Giles is the owner of Tekniko Licensing Corporation, which licenses intellectual properties owned by Tekniko to businesses throughout the world."
26. Pacific Biometrics, filings. Form SB-2. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
27. Landmark Education information.
28. ^ Hill, Amelia (2008-03-05). "I thought I'd be brainwashed. But how wrong could I be…". The Guardian. London: www.guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2009-12-09.
29. ^ McCrone, John (2008-11-22). "A Landmark Change". The Press. The Press (New Zealand).
30. ^ Odasso, Diane (2008-06-05). "My Landmark Experience". The Huffington Post. www.huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2009-12-09.
31. "Velo and Vintage on Second Saturday". Sacramento Press. 2010-05-06. Retrieved 2011-03-14.
32. 31/entertainment/24990821_1_breast-cancer-survivors-breast-cancer-survivors-duck-breast "Cherish the mammary: Restaurants raise funds for breast cancer survivors". Philadelphia Daily News. 2008-07-31. Retrieved 2011-03-14. {{cite news}}: Check |url= value (help)
33. "Some of Detroit's Major Miracle Makers". Time Magazine, Detroit Blog. 2010-09-21. Retrieved 2011-09-20.
34. "Cyclists gear up for challenging event". San Diego Union-Tribune. 2008-04-19. Retrieved 2011-03-14.
35. Mauro, Lucia (2001-10-26). "Middle Eastern arts on tap". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2011-10-14.
36. "Helping professionals take up community welfare projects". Chennai, India: Hindu Times. 2010-09-13. Retrieved 2011-10-14.
37. "Charity walk to boost anti-suicide initiatives". Bay of Plenty Times. 2011-08-20. Retrieved 2011-10-14.
38. "Local couple finds true love is closer than you think". The Daily Courier. 2011-02-13. Retrieved 2011-10-29.
39. Alford, Henry (2010-11-26). "You're O.K., but I'm Not. Let's Share". New York Times. Retrieved 2011-03-14.
40. "Change We Can (Almost) Believe In". TIME Magazine. 2011-03-07. Retrieved 2011-03-14.
41. "Landmark Forum: One Weekend to fix your LIFE?". Irish Mail on Sunday. 2012-02-18. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
42. "Brief Quotes". LandmarkEducation.com. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
43. Graham Rayman, "Suit Against Sperm-Bank Firm Claims Sexual Harassment and Cult-Like Behavior", Village Voice, 20 May 2008
44. *Bass, Alison (March 3, 1999). "The Forum: Cult or comfort?". The Boston Globe. The New York Times Company.
    • Graham Rayman, "Suit Against Sperm-Bank Firm Claims Sexual Harassment and Cult-Like Behavior", Village Voice, 20 May 2008
    • Christa D'Souza, "Sex Therapy", The Times (London), 13 July 2008, Features/Style p. 12
    • Una Mullally and John Burke, "Labour senator promotes group classified in France as 'cult-like'", Sunday Tribune (Dublin), 31 July 2005, p.N1
    • Scioscia, Amanda (19 October 2000). "Drive-thru Deliverance; It's not called est anymore, but you can still be ridiculed into self-awareness in just one expensive weekend". Phoenix New Times.
    • "Defence workers trained by 'cult'", ABC News (Australia), 2 April 2008
45. Scioscia, Amanda (19 October 2000). "Drive-thru Deliverance; It's not called est anymore, but you can still be ridiculed into self-awareness in just one expensive weekend". Phoenix New Times.
46. Badt, Karin (2008-03-05). "Inside The Landmark Forum". The Huffington Post. HuffingtonPost.com. Retrieved 2009-08-11. I questioned the odd apolitical bias of the program. Martin Luther King and Ghandi [sic] were not just victors of positive thinking: they had a radical political agenda to re-adjust political inequality. Their belief system was based in believing in something more than ourselves. Why were we being compared to Gandhi and King if we could stand up to our husbands and get a more successful career? concluded, per forma, with moving descriptions of Gandhi and King.
47. Badt, Karin (2008-03-05). "Inside The Landmark Forum". The Huffington Post. HuffingtonPost.com. Retrieved 2009-08-11. Yes, they urge us to proselytize, which rather than a cult technique, might just be an unfortunate mistake in marketing strategy
48. Badt, Karin (2008-03-05). "Inside The Landmark Forum". The Huffington Post. HuffingtonPost.com. Retrieved 2009-08-11. Participants, having heard the argument drone in their ears for 9 hours in a period of 72, began to cheer and smile as they raised their hands to say they too had the courage to stand for the Forum. This was brainwashing.
49. Ben Porat, Shahar (April 2006). "Teacher of the Confused". Time Out. Israel. pp. 42–44.
50. Cannon, Patrick Owen (June 14, 2007). "Communication for Planetary Transformation and the Drag of Public Conversations: The Case of Landmark Education Corporation". Tampa, FL: University of South Florida: 1–504. SFE0002150. Retrieved 26 January 2010. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
51. Lazarus, Baila (April 11, 2008). "Attain Freedom from the Past". Jewish Independent.
52. Pennington, Basil (1993). "Expert Opinions" (PDF). Landmark Education. Retrieved 26 January 2010. While it is not religiously oriented, the full human enlivenment which it brings about leads to the person becoming more lively in the practice of his or her particular faith. It is a purely natural or human program but can be used by the faithful Christian in service of living a more lively Christian life.
53. Bhugra, Dinesh (1997). Psychiatry and Religion: Context, Consensus and Controversies. Routledge. p. 126. ISBN 0-415-16512-1.
54. Chryssides, George D. (2006). The A to Z of New Religious Movements. The Scarecrow Press, Inc. pp. 197–198. ISBN 0-8108-5588-7. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
55. Kronberg, Robert (2002). "Psychogroups and Cults in Denmark". Cultic Studies Review. 1 (1). International Cultic Studies Association. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
56. Beckford, James A. (2003). Social Theory and Religion. Cambridge University Press. p. 156. ISBN 0-521-77431-4.
57. Partridge, Christopher (2004). New Religions: A Guide. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 406. ISBN 0-19-522042-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
58. Arweck, Elisabeth (2005). Researching New Religious Movements. Routledge. p. 166. ISBN 0-415-27755-8.
59. Lewis, James R. (2005). Cults. ABC-CLIO. pp. 123–124. ISBN 1-85109-618-3.
60. Bromley, David G. (2002). Cults, Religion, and Violence. Cambridge University Press. p. 114. ISBN 0-521-66898-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
63. Christian Palme (2002-06-03). "Landsting köpte kurs av Landmark". DN.SE. Retrieved 2012-04-18.
64. Tidskriften Analys & Kritik - Irrationalismen
65. Marie Lemonniera, "Chez les gourous en cravate", Le Nouvel Observateur, 19 May 2005, accessed 7 December 2008; French text: "L’'Inspection du Travail débarque dans les locaux de Landmark, constate l'’exploitation des bénévoles et dresse des procès-verbaux pour travail non déclaré." English translation: "Labor inspectors turned up at the offices of Landmark, noted the exploitation of volunteers and drew up a report of undeclared employment."
66. "Defence workers trained by 'cult'", ABC News, 2 April 2008
67. (1996) "Liste des sectes dangereuses" (French). atheisme.free.fr. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
68. (May 26, 2004). "Landmark Education - Droit de Répons - France 3" (French). landmarkeducation.fr. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
69. "File:2004 Landmark v Ross complaint.pdf - Wikimedia Commons". Commons.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 2012-04-18.
70. "File:2004 Landmark v Ross answer.pdf - Wikimedia Commons". Commons.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 2012-04-18.

External links

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• Landmark Education official website
• Landmark Education page in the Skeptics Dictionary

• Companies established in 1991
• Employee-owned companies of the United States
• Companies based in San Francisco, California
• Training companies of the United States
• Human Potential Movement
• Personal development
• Large-group awareness training