Werner Hans Erhard (born John Paul Rosenberg; September 5, 1935)[1]: 7 is an American lecturer known for founding est (offered from 1971 to 1984).[1]: 14[2] In 1985, he replaced the est Training with a newly designed program, the Forum.[3] Since 1991, the Forum has been kept up to date and offered by Landmark Education.[4] Erhard has written, lectured, and taught on self-improvement.
In 1977, Erhard co-founded The Hunger Project,[5] an NGO. In 1991, he retired from business and sold his existing intellectual property to his employees, who then adopted the name Landmark Education, renamed Landmark Worldwide in 2013.
^Erhard, Werner. "Curriculum Vitae". Werner Erhard. Archived from the original on September 23, 2018. Retrieved February 2, 2017. These companies were: Erhard Seminars Training Inc. (1971–1975); est, an educational corporation (1975–1981), and Werner Erhard and Associates (1981–1991).
^Hyde, Bruce; Kopp, Drew (2019). Speaking being: Werner Erhard, Martin Heidegger, and a new possibility of being human. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley. ISBN978-1-119-54990-1."The Forum replaced the est Training in 1985 and, indeed, it may be argued that this encounter was crucial in this development of Erhard's work, which development continues to this day in Landmark Worldwide and in his new work with speaking the Being of leadership."
^Sobel, Eliezer (February 1, 2008). The 99th Monkey: A Spiritual Journalist's Misadventures with Gurus, Messiahs, Sex, Psychedelics, and Other Consciousness-Raising Experiments (1st ed.). Santa Monica Press. ISBN978-1-59580-028-2."Several years later, est had evolved into "The Forum," which continues to flourish around the world today under the auspices of Landmark Education."