Landmark Worldwide

Not to be confused with Landmark School or Landmark College.

Landmark Worldwide

Company type	Private LLC
Industry	Self-help
Founded	January 1991
Headquarters	San Francisco, California
Key people	Harry Rosenberg: director, CEO; Mick Leavitt: President
Products	The Landmark Forum, associated coursework
Revenue	USD$77 million (2009)
Number of employees	525+ employees
Subsidiaries	The Vanto Group Tekniko Licensing Corporation
Website	landmarkworldwide.com

Landmark Worldwide (formerly Landmark Education), or simply Landmark, is a limited liability company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It offers programs in personal development.

The company started with the purchase of intellectual property based upon Werner Erhard's est training seminars. Landmark has developed and delivered over 40 personal development programs. Its subsidiary, the Vanto Group, also markets and delivers training and consulting to organizations.

Landmark's programs have been categorized by some scholars as religious or quasi-religious in nature. Landmark and many of the company's customers deny such characterizations, while some researchers question that categorization as well.

Corporation

History

The Landmark Forum, its direct predecessors the Forum, est (Erhard Seminars Training) and its other, related, iterations have been proffered by a continuum of various companies beginning with the founding of Erhard Seminars Training, Inc. by Werner Erhard in the early 1970s. Erhard had no formal training in psychology or psychiatry and had previously been an encyclopedia salesman, who became involved with Zen Buddhism, Scientology and Mind Dynamics. This brought about the idea of starting an organization to promote his vision of human transformation, which he entitled est (both for the Latin "it is" and as an acronym for Erhard Seminars Training). Before leaving his position at Mind Dynamics, Erhard considered setting up est as a church, but instead opted to go with a for-profit, complex web of onshore and offshore shell companies and bank accounts. These were set up by the "controversial" corporate attorney Harry Margolis.

A shell company controlled by Margolis, Saratoga Restaurant Equipment Co., was transformed into Erhard Seminars Training Inc. Erhard sold his intellectual rights (which Erhard and Landmark call the "technology") to a Panamanian company protected by Panama's secrecy laws and run on Erhard's behalf by Margolis. The Panamanian entity, Presentaciones Musicales S.A., in turn licensed the "technology" and Erhard's services to Erhard Seminars Training Inc. for $1 million. In turn, Erhard Seminars Training Inc. raised the money for licensing the intellectual property from a Nevada shell company set up by Erhard's lawyer. Later, Erhard's employment contract at a very modest salary was transferred to Erhard Seminars Training Inc., making it appear as though neither he nor Erhard Seminars Training Inc. were garnering much financially, while profits were siphoned off through various maneuvers to Erhard's offshore companies and accounts. As Erhard had no direct ownership of Erhard Seminars Training Inc., the setup allowed the company to tout Erhard as a simple employee who was compensated very modestly (at $30,000 per year). As the corporate staff expanded, Erhard hired Scientologists to create a program (the "Well Being Department") to monitor and motivate employees and volunteers.

After Erhard's attorney was indicted for irregularities involving his tax shelter schemes, Erhard and Margolis went about restructuring the company as a non-profit. In 1979, Erhard Seminars Training, Inc. was dissolved, replaced by a non-profit charitable foundation named 'est, An Educational Corporation'. Erhard's official salary at the new company was raised to $48,000 (plus a separate profit-sharing deal). At the same time, ownership of Erhard's intellectual property held by Presentaciones Musicales, was transferred to a new entity in the Netherlands named Welbehagen. Welbehagen, in turn, licensed rights to present the seminars to est, An Educational Corporation at an even higher price, generating additional tax write-offs. Another entity, The Werner Erhard Charitable Settlement, was set up on the Isle of Jersey and given ownership of est, An Educational Corporation. Meanwhile, a Swiss corporation, the Werner Erhard Foundation for est, was set up and control of Welbehagen was assigned to it.

In 1977, Erhard set up the non-profit charitable "Hunger Project" (later retitled "Making a Difference"), funding it with a $400,000 loan and a $100,000 charitable grant from the est Foundation. The goal was to end hunger, first in the U.S. and then worldwide within 20 years. The Hunger Project was used to heavily promote est seminars to donors, volunteers. Est also held seminars on the Hunger Project in which the entire proceeds went to est itself. Despite raising some $67 million between 1977 and 1989, the project contributed less than $2 million to programs that directly addressed hunger, with the remaining funds remaining in the Erhard network of corporations and trusts.

By 1981, Erhard decided to simplify the complicated structure of overseas companies and charitable trusts that controlled the tangle of est-related entities and funneled moneys generated by est to offshore accounts. Again, Harry Margolis was used to set up a new scheme whereby a new entity, Werner Erhard and Associates with Erhard as sole proprietor, purchased the assets of the various dummy corporations and charities. This was arranged through a series of "phoney" loans funneled through various Erhard and Margolis friends, trusts and offshore entities. The scheme allowed the new Werner Erhard and Associates entity to claim large tax deductions (which were later disallowed), and to show net operating losses, from a sale that was essentially Erhard buying the assets of a business that he already controlled with the proceeds flowing back to Erhard's offshore accounts.

In 1984, Erhard launched a new company, named Transformational Technologies, to market est-based motivational courses and consulting services to corporations and government entities. In its first 18 months, Transformational Technologies licensed over 50 franchises at a $25,000 upfront licensing fee with a percentage of licensees' revenues going to Erhard.

Erhard had experimented with a modified version of est as early as 1983. By 1985, faced with increasing controversy and drastically falling recruitment numbers, Erhard replaced the est seminars a slightly modified and less authoritarian program which he "rebranded" as The Forum. A series of follow-up seminars was introduced at the same time. Minor adjustments (less hectoring of those who wanted bathroom breaks, more comfortable chairs, brief meal breaks, etc.) were made to est under its new title, though the methods, purposes and format were largely the same. Later, managers realized that significant revenue was being generated from signing up participants for the follow-up courses, so the duration of the intitial course was reduced from 6 days to 3 days so as to enable seminar presenters to hold more initial seminars during the same time period, consequently increase the sign-ups for the higher-priced follow-up courses, and market The Forum to the acquaintances of an increased number of new participants. The price of the initial seminars was also reduced to attract more initial recruits without increasing the number of Forum leaders.

By 1990, Werner Erhard and Associates was faced with lawsuits, tax fraud investigations (later dropped), a flood of bad press and declining enrollments. Erhard decided that the time had come to leave the U.S. and began liquidating his properties and shipping valuables overseas. Yet another corporate change was explored in which Erhard would sell assets of Werner Erhard and Associates and Werner Erhard and Associates International to yet another new entity. In early 1991, Erhard fired Werner Erhard and Associates CEO Don Cox, who had been urging radical changes in the way the company was being run and making overtures to buy an interest in Werner Erhard and Associates, and replaced him with his own brother Harry Rosenberg. A company named Transnational Education Corporation was set up, consisting of a few family members and top Erhard loyalists headed by Erhard's brother Harry Rosenberg. Transnational Education Corporation acquired various assets of Werner Erhard and Associates and Werner Erhard on 31 January 1991. As with some of the previous iterations of the company, Erhard had no direct ownership of the new entity, but retained control of the intellectual property on which the Forum and other courses were based. He also retained rights to run the Forum operations in Japan (which accounted for 70% of Werner Erhard & Associates International's revenue) and Mexico (where real estate was also retained by Erhard). Certain valuable properties owned by Werner Erhard and Associates were also retained by Erhard as part of the changeover. Erhard licensed the rights to hold the Forum and other courses based in Erhard's intellectual property to Transnational Education Corporation for a period of 15 years in exchange for an up-front payment of $3 million and license royalties for the remainder of the contract. These amounts were not directly paid to Erhard, but rather to his overseas corporations and trusts. One of these trusts was ostensibly to repay creditors, the chief of which was a large tax-avoidance circular loan to himself (ruled, and later upheld, as a disallowed tax deduction) which Erhard had used in acquiring the assets of his own offshore shell companies during the 1981 formation of Werner Erhard and Associates. The offices of Werner Erhard and Associates and its seminars continued operations with much of the same staff under the new name. Transnational Education Corporation later changed its name to Landmark Education Corporation in May 1991. In June 2004, the company was reorganized into a limited liability company, Landmark Education LLC, and subsequently renamed to Landmark Worldwide LLC in 2013.

Landmark has claimed that it has never paid royalties to Erhard. This may superficially be correct, as the payments were paid to Erhard's corporations and trusts, rather than directly to Erhard himself. Alternatively, Landmark has also claimed that royalties were indeed paid to Erhard and passed through to pay off Erhard's creditors. Landmark CEO Rosenberg has claimed that Erhard's rights on the intellectual property on which the Forum and other courses are based was purchased by 2002, though no documentation for this was offered.

While Erhard has maintained a degree of relationship with Landmark and has appeared at company events, in addition to his interest in royalty payments, Landmark has insistently denied that he has any involvement with the current business and downplayed historical connection to Erhard and est. Landmark has also acknowledged that Erhard has continued as a consultant to the company. It has also denied any direct connection between its programs and Erhard's est and Forum, even though it directly took over the Forum operations in 1991, continued to pay licensing royalties for Erhard's intellectual property, claims to have outright purchased the rights to Erhard's intellectual property by 2002, has included Erhard's est and Forum statistics in its own historical participant statistics, and engages Erhard as consultant.

Landmark's foundation course, "The Landmark Forum", has been further updated over the years. It has since developed a lot of training courses and seminar programs throughout tens of countries around the world.

The corporation was originally registered as Transnational Education and changed its name to Landmark Education Corporation in May 1991. In June 2003 it was re-structured as Landmark Education LLC, and in July 2013 renamed Landmark Worldwide LLC.

Terry Giles is Chairman of the Board and Erhard's lawyer.

Current operations

According to Landmark it is a "for-profit company 100% owned by approximately 530 employees through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) and similar international plans. The organization's executive team reports to a Board of Directors that is elected annually by the ESOP." In addition, its subsidiary, the Vanto Group, focuses on marketing and delivering training and consultation services to corporate clients and other organizations.

Business consulting

Vanto Group, Inc., founded in 1993 as "Landmark Education Business Development" (LEBD), a wholly owned subsidiary of Landmark Worldwide Enterprises, Inc., uses the techniques of Landmark 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 with BHP New Zealand Steel. 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 2008.

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 Licensing Corporation, a California corporation owned by Terry M. Giles, later acquired this technology.

The Landmark Forum

Landmark's entry course, The Landmark Forum, is a prerequisite for the majority of their other programs. The course varies in size between 75 and 250 people, and is arranged as a discussion where the course leader presents certain ideas and the course participants engage in voluntary discussions applying those ideas to their own life. 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.

Various ideas are presented, asserted and discussed during the course. For example, the course maintains that there is a big difference between what actually happened in a person’s life and the meaning or interpretation they made up about it, and that human behavior is governed by a need to look good. Another tenet of the course is that people pursue an "imaginary 'someday' of satisfaction", and that people create meaning for themselves since "there is none inherent in the world". The course also maintains that people have persistent complaints that give rise to unproductive fixed ways of being, but that people can “transform”, by a creative act of bringing forth new ways of being, rather than trying to change themselves in comparison to the past. Course participants are encouraged to call people they know during the course, with whom they feel they have unresolved tensions, and either be in communication with the other person or be responsible for their own behavior.

An evening session follows closely on the three consecutive days of the course and completes the Landmark Forum. During this final session, the participants share information about their results, and bring guests to learn about the Forum.

Religious characteristics

Some scholars have categorized Landmark and its predecessor organizations as new age, self religion or a new religious movement. Other observers have noted relationships between the training programs and religion or a spiritual experience, including a lack of religious elements in the programs and the compatibility of the programs with existing religions. Others, such as Chryssides, classify Landmark as either quasi-religious or secular with some elements of religion. A number of newspaper articles have noted that the Forum has been labeled "cult-like" (although various scholars have disputed this characterization). Landmark has denied that it is a religion, cult or sect, and "freely threatens or pursues lawsuits against those who call it [a cult]".

Journalist Amelia Hill with The Observer witnessed the Landmark Forum and concluded that, in her view, it is not religious or a cult. Hill wrote, "It is ... simple common sense delivered in an environment of startling intensity." Karin Badt from The Huffington Post criticized 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, but noted, "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)".

Public reception

In his review of the Landmark Forum, New York Times reporter Henry Alford wrote that he "resented the pressure" placed on him during a session, but also noted that "two months after the Forum, I'd rate my success at 84 percent." 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."

A series of investigative articles in the Swedish national daily Dagens Nyheter reported serious complaints about Landmark practices, including a report of one person who suffered from acute psychosis after taking a Landmark course. The chairman of Föreningen Rädda individen, a support organization for those affected by cults and destructive movements, told Dagens Nyheter that Landmark is one of the most dangerous sects in Sweden.

Pièces à Conviction

In 2004, France 3 aired a television documentary on Landmark in their investigative series Pièces à Conviction. The episode, called "Voyage Au Pays des Nouveaux Gourous" ("Journey to the land of the new gurus") aired during prime time, a first for the show, and was highly critical of its subject.

Shot in large part with a hidden camera, the episode was an expose of sorts and had filmmaker Laurent Richard attend a Landmark course and visit their offices. In addition, the program included interviews with former course participants, anti-cultists, and commentators including the then vice-president of the Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France, Jean-Pierre Brard, as well as Catherine Picard, Jean-Pierre Jougla, Jean-Marie Abgrall and Gilles Bottine, the secretary general of MIVILUDES. Landmark left France following the airing of the episode and a subsequent site visit by labor inspectors that noted the activities of volunteers, and sued Jean-Pierre Brard in 2004 following his appearance on the show.

The Pièces à Conviction episode was uploaded to a variety of websites, and in October 2006 Landmark issued subpoenas pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to Google Video, YouTube, and the Internet Archive demanding details of the identity of the person(s) who had uploaded those copies. These organizations challenged the subpoenas and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) became involved, planning to file a motion to quash Landmark's DMCA subpoena to Google Video. Landmark eventually withdrew its subpoenas.

References

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