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Not to be confused with the unrelated Landmark School

Landmark Education
Company typePrivate LLC
Industryself-help, self-improvement, personal development, management consulting, continuing education
FoundedJanuary 1991
HeadquartersSan Francisco, California, U.S.
Key peopleHarry Rosenberg: Director; CEO

Mick Leavitt: President
Steven Zaffron: Director; CEO, The Vanto Group
Art Schreiber: General Counsel; Chairman, BOD; Director
Joan Rosenberg: Vice President, Centers Division; Director

Nancy Zapolski: Vice President, Course Development
ProductsThe Landmark Forum, associated coursework
RevenueDecreaseUSD$77 million (2009)
Number of employees450+ employees;
800 trained leaders, some of whom volunteer their time;
SubsidiariesThe Vanto Group (formerly Landmark Education Business Development or LEBD, from 1993-2007)
Landmark Education International, Inc.
Tekniko Licensing Corporation
Rancord Company, Ltd.
WebsiteLandmark Education homepage

Landmark Education LLC (LE) is a personal training and development company which offers educational programs in approximately 115 locations in more than 20 countries worldwide.

An employee-owned, private company, it has its headquarters in San Francisco, California. Landmark Education delivers its courses primarily to individuals in a group setting. The company's standard introductory course is The Landmark Forum.

Landmark Education had its origins in the purchase of the intellectual property of Werner Erhard, who developed the est training program .

Since its founding in 1991, Landmark Education has developed other courses. Its subsidiary the Vanto Group (formerly Landmark Education Business Development, or LEBD, from 1993–2007), markets and delivers training and consulting to organizations.

Landmark Education is listed as "dangerous" by government commissions in Belgium and France, having been placed on the French Parliamentary list of "Sectes" (cults) in 1995 (Rapport fait au nom de la Commission d'enquête sur les sectes). It has also been identified as a cult by a number of publications.


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. Over one million people have taken part in Landmark Education's introductory program, the Landmark Forum, since 1991. Landmark Education reported revenues of $70 million $76 million in as of 2005.

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 with Arthur Schreiber named as Agent for Service of Process. 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.

According to statements made by Landmark Education CEO Harry Rosenberg in 2001:

...Erhard kept the Mexican and Japanese branches of the operation... Last year , Landmark had revenues of $58 million, and ... the company has bought outright Erhard's license and his rights to Japan and Mexico.

The prior president and registered agent of Werner Erhard and Associates, Art Schreiber, functions as Landmark Education's General Counsel and Chairman of the Landmark Education Board of Directors. Schreiber also functioned as Werner Erhard's attorney. Werner Erhard's lawyer, Terry Giles, serves as Chairman of the Board of Landmark Education. According to a New York Times article, Giles was credited with resolving a long standing rift among the descendents 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., was owned by Werner Erhard, and 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 program takes place over the course of a Friday, Saturday, Sunday and a Tuesday evening. Hours are from 9am to 10pm each of the first three days, and three hours of the evening on the final night. Tuition is about $500 per person in the US. About 150 people take part in each course. 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 “being right about” or giving excuses for one’s own actions
  • 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 upset with and either forgive the other person or apologize for their own behavior.
  • The Tuesday evening involves a sales presentation at which course attendees bring other people to learn about and sign up for The Landmark Forum.

Some other Landmark Education courses encourage or require participants to create a community project.

Relationship to religion

Landmark Education makes no claims of a religious nature but the relationship of the training programs to religion is a common theme in reviews of the training. While some reviewers note the lack of religious factors or the compatibility of the training with various religions, others consider its programs to possess religious features, to address participants' spiritual needs, or even to be a form of new religion. Two lawsuits have been filed by individuals asserting that their employers fired them for refusing to attend Landmark Education courses, claiming that their employers were forcing them to attend “religious events” both lawsuits were dismissed with prejudice.

Evaluations

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. Independent third parties have carried out a limited amount of scientific research—not dependent on corporate funding—on Landmark Education.

Criticism and response

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.

The contention that the Forum is "cult-like" has been aired in at least half a dozen newspaper articles over the last decade and, according to InformationWeek in 2006, the organization Cult Awareness and Information Centre labeled Landmark Forum as a "cult". 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 regards the course's word-of-mouth marketing methodology and its considerable focus on proselytizing as "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.


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 Magazine 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.”


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. In their 2002 book Cults, Religion, and Violence, authors David G. Bromley and J. Gordon Melton noted that Landmark Education is listed as "dangerous" by government commissions in Belgium and France, having been placed on the French Parliamentary list of "Sectes" (cults) in 1995 (Rapport fait au nom de la Commission d'enquête sur les sectes). 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.

Legal disputes

For details of litigation involving Landmark Education, see Landmark Education litigation. For details on non-litigation legal events, see Landmark Education and the law.

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. ^ Faltermayer, Charlotte; Richard Woodbury (March 16, 1998). "The Best of Est?. TIME. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
  10. Werner Erhard biography. werner-erhard.com. Version as of October 10, 2004, retrieved through Internet Archive on October 22, 2008.
  11. (February 1, 2008). "Landmark Education Business Development, LEBD, Changes Name to Vanto Group". Reuters. Retrieved on October 22, 2008.
  12. Bromley, David G. (2002). Cults, Religion, and Violence. Cambridge University Press. p. 114. ISBN 0521668980. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  13. About Us. LandmarkEducation.com. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
  14. ^ Stassen, Wilma (September 2008). "Inside a Landmark Forum Weekend" Health 24
  15. ^ LP/LLC information. California Secretary of State. Filed February 26, 2003. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
  16. 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).
  17. Corporation information. California Secretary of State. Filed June 22, 1987. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
  18. (July 9, 2001). "Pay Money, Be Happy", New York, p. 1. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
  19. Articles of Incorporation (Domestic). Art Schreiber, President and Registered Agent. Filed June 22, 1987. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
  20. Jackson, Steve (April 18, 1996). "It Happens". Westword. Village Voice Media. Retrieved 2008-08-24. That got Sumerlin into some unusual reading of her own: angry correspondence from Landmark officials, including Art Schreiber, Landmark's current president and Erhard's former attorney, and Harry Rosenberg, Erhard's brother, who's on the Landmark board.
  21. 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.)
  22. 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
  23. 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.
  24. . 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)
  25. . 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)
  26. Norman Bodek (1985). ReVision: The Journal of Consciousness and Change, Vol 7, No. 2, Winter 1984 / Spring 1985
  27. 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."
  28. Pacific Biometrics, filings. Form SB-2. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
  29. Landmark Education information.
  30. ^ Hill, Amelia (2008-03-05). "I thought I'd be brainwashed. But how wrong could I be…". The Guardian. www.guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2009-12-09.
  31. ^ McCrone, John (2008-11-22). "A Landmark Change". The Press. The Press (New Zealand). {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  32. ^ Odasso, Diane (2008-06-05). "My Landmark Experience". The Huffington Post. www.huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 2009-12-09.
  33. "Velo and Vintage on Second Saturday". Sacramento Press. 2010-05-06. Retrieved 2011-03-14.
  34. "Cyclists gear up for challenging event". San Diego Union-Tribune. 2008-04-19. Retrieved 2011-03-14.
  35. 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)
  36. Ben Porat, Shahar (April 2006). "Teacher of the Confused". Time Out. Israel. pp. 42–44.
  37. 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)
  38. Lazarus, Baila (April 11). "Attain Freedom from the Past". Jewish Independent. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
  39. 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. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 107 (help)
  40. Bhugra, Dinesh (1997). Psychiatry and Religion: Context, Consensus and Controversies. Routledge. p. 126. ISBN 0415165121.
  41. Chryssides, George D. (2006). The A to Z of New Religious Movements. The Scarecrow Press, Inc. pp. 197–198. ISBN 0810855887. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  42. 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)
  43. Beckford, James A. (2003). Social Theory and Religion. Cambridge University Press. p. 156. ISBN 0521774314.
  44. Partridge, Christopher (2004). New Religions: A Guide. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 406. ISBN 0195220420. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  45. Arweck, Elisabeth (2005). Researching New Religious Movements. Routledge. p. 166. ISBN 0415277558.
  46. Lewis, James R. (2005). Cults. ABC-CLIO. pp. 123–124. ISBN 1-85109-618-3.
  47. McElhatton, Jim (27 November 2007). "Democratic PAC faces lawsuit for employee 'religious events'". Nation/Politics. The Washington Times. Retrieved November 27, 2007.
  48. ABC News staff (May 23, 2008). "Lawsuit Claims Sex Harassment, Cultish Behavior: Sperm Bank Employee Claims He Was Fired After Refusing Boss' Sexual Advances". ABC News. ABC. Retrieved 2009-08-24.
  49. USDC - District of Columbia; Case 1:07-cv-02103-PLF Document 16
  50. USDC Southern District of New York; Case 1:08-cv-03578-JSR Document 14
  51. "Brief Quotes". LandmarkEducation.com. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
  52. Graham Rayman, "Suit Against Sperm-Bank Firm Claims Sexual Harassment and Cult-Like Behavior", Village Voice, 20 May 2008
  53. *Bass, Alison (March 3, 1999). "The Forum: Cult or comfort?". The Boston Globe. The New York Times Company.
  54. Jones, K. C. (December 1, 2006). "Landmark Drops Copyright Infringement Subpoenas On Google And Anonymous Critic: Landmark sought a subpoena to find out who posted hidden camera footage from an event held by the French branch of the organization". InformationWeek. United Business Media LLC. Retrieved 2008-12-05.
  55. "EST; The Forum; Landmark Education". Cult Awareness and Information Centre. culthelp.info. Retrieved 2010-01-13. Landmark Education wrote to me, objecting because I have these articles listed on this site. They claim that they are not a cult and therefore demand that they be removed for this reason. This I will not do. I have a disclaimer posted on this site which clearly states my position regarding the organizations listed. Most of the articles regarding Landmark/Forum/EST are anecdotal - subjective experiences of others who have been through the Landmark/Forum/EST experience. They are provided to give an alternate viewpoint to that found on their own website. I reiterate what is said on our opening page: Just because a group is mentioned on this site does not mean we regard it as a destructive cult. Both Cults and Isms are listed to provide information for those seeking the downside of many of these movements. If the writers of the articles refer to Landmark as a cult, we take no responsibility for this. It is the opinion of the writers based on their own personal experience. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 558 (help)
  56. 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.
  57. 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. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 301 (help)
  58. 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
  59. 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. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |quote= at position 199 (help)
  60. "You're O.K., but I'm Not. Let's Share". New York Times. 2010-11-26. Retrieved 2011-03-14.
  61. "Change We Can (Almost) Believe In". TIME Magazine. 2011-03-07. Retrieved 2011-03-14.
  62. 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."
  63. "Defence workers trained by 'cult'", ABC News, 2 April 2008
  64. (1996) "Liste des sectes dangereuses" (French). atheisme.free.fr. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
  65. (May 26, 2004). "Landmark Education - Droit de Répons - France 3" (French). landmarkeducation.fr. Retrieved on October 23, 2008.
  66. Bromley, David G. (2002). Cults, Religion, and Violence. Cambridge University Press. p. 114. ISBN 0521668980. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  67. http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?a=23694
  68. http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?a=24466
  69. http://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/landsting-kopte-kurs-av-landmark-1.86286
  70. Tidskriften Analys & Kritik - Irrationalismen

External links

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