Career and Public Life

Prior to 1971: Werner Erhard's first job while in his teens was selling cars for Lee Iacocca. In his mid twenties he became Vice President of Parent's Magazine's Cultural Institute, a division of Grace & Co. then Division Manager at Grolier Society Inc. He then became an Instructor with Mind Dynamics

1971: Developed the est Training,(est) based on transformational models and applications. Director of Research and Development, public speaker and one of the founding employees for Erhard Seminars Training, Inc., an education and seminar company based on transformational models

1973: Founder, The est Foundation, (later renamed the Werner Erhard Foundation) - a charitable organization devoted to funding projects with the potential to improve the quality of human life. As well as supporting The Breakthrough Foundation, The Holiday Project, Youth At Risk, and The Mastery Foundation, the Werner Erhard Foundation sponsored public presentations that brought prominent philosophers, scientists, and theologians such as Buckminster Fuller, Douglas Harding, and the eminent leader of Tibetan Buddhism, His Holiness the XVI Gyalwa Karmapa to speak to audiences in the United States..

1977: Co-founder, The Hunger Project, a charitable organization dedicated to education and to empowering organizations that combat hunger and starvation

1979: Founder, The Breakthrough Foundation, a charitable organization devoted to youths at risk

1980: Founder, The Holiday Project, a charitable organization devoted to contributing to people in hospitals and other institutions during the holidays

1981: Founder, Werner Erhard & Associates, an education and seminar company based on transformational models

1983: Co-founder, The Education Network, a charitable organization dedicated to reducing the dropout rate and generating other breakthroughs in education

1983: Co-founder, Action Technologies, Inc., a business process management software company

1984: Created, along with Fr. Basil Pennington, the program Making A Difference: A Course For Those Who Minister, for the newly formed Mastery Foundation.

1984: Co-founder, Paradigm 3 Satellite Network, a satellite leasing company

1984: Founder, Transformational Technologies Inc., a management consulting technology company utilizing transformational models and applications

1990: Founder, Tekniko Inc., a management consulting technology company utilizing transformational models and applications

1991: Retired

1995: Fortune Magazine’s 40th Anniversary issue (May 15, 1995), in examining the major contributions to management thinking, recognized Werner Erhard’s creation of est as the major innovation of the 1970s in shaping modern management thinking toward empowering people. 

2007: Werner Erhard, his life and work, became the subject of a documentary titled, “Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard”.

2009: NeuroLeadership Institute, 2009 NeuroLeadership Summit Keynote Address: “How Language Shapes The World”.

2010: Harvard University, Harvard Business School, Professor Michael C. Jensen and Werner Erhard: “Being A Leader And The Effective Exercise Of Leadership: An Ontological Model", delivered at Harvard University, Harvard Business School, and at Mays School of Business, Texas A&M University

2010: United States Air Force Academy, Werner Erhard, Michael Jensen, Kari Granger and Joseph DiMaggio:  “Creating Leaders:  Mastering the Principles and Effective Delivery of the Ontological Access to Leadership” (a 5 day course for faculty). 

2010: Werner Erhard led a high level course for many of India's leading executives. This course was presented by the IC Centre for Governance in Panchgani, under the sponsorship of MW Corp

While retired from public life, Werner Erhard has continued to work to make a difference in organizations and companies throughout the world. 

Werner Erhard has been a guest lecturer at a wide variety of prestigious institutions and professional associations around the world, including Harvard Business School; Harvard Law School; Yale University Law School;  Center for Public Leadership, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; USC Marshall School of Business; the American Psychiatric Association; the Soviet Academy of Sciences; UNESC;, Oxford Union at Oxford University, Stanford University; MIT, and the University of Rochester Simon School of Business.