History of the Leaders Institute ®
Our Leadership History is filled with years of dedication. Our goal is to provide each client of ours with a great event that builds their team.
1998
Doug Staneart begins teaching leadership classes in Dallas, Texas as D. M. Staneart and Associates, Inc. A big component of the leadership classes is public speaking training.
2000
D. M. Staneart and Associates, Inc. begins offering classes in Ft. Worth, Texas and moves the corporate office to Ft. Worth.
2001
The Fearless and Persuasive SpeakingTM class is offered for the first time. Leadership classes are offered in Austin and Houston.
2002
Leadership classes are offered in Chicago. D. M. Staneart and Associates, Inc. changes it’s name to The Leader’s Institute. Doug Staneart writes the book 28 Ways to Influence People.
2003
Doug Staneart writes the book Fearless Presentations®. The Fearless & Persuasive SpeakingTM class is retitled Fearless Presentations®.
2004
Classes are offered for the first time in Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, Tampa, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Seattle. The Leaders Institute ® conducts programs for 25 of the Fortune 500 this year.
2005
Classes are offered in over 40 cities around the world. The Leaders Institute ® works with over 125 Fortune 500 companies this year. The first Build-A-Bike® team building workshop is held in 2005.
2006
Classes are offered in over 60 cities around the world. The Leaders Institute ® works with over 325 Fortune 500 companies this year. The first Guys-N-Dolls workshop is conducted.
2007
The Camaraderie Quest is introduced. Annual growth continues to exceed 180% every year because of fantastic word-of-mouth advertising.
2008
Build-A-Bike ® takes off and over $500,000 worth of bicycles are donated to charities in the US and Canada. The Rescue Bear ® activity is created and donations are made to firehouses all over the US. The Leaders Institute ® becomes the fastest growing training company in the history of training companies. The number of client companies serviced each year exceeds over 1000 per year. The number of people attending a Leaders Institute ® team building program this year was just under 100,000 people. In addition, we also led over 300 Fearless Presentations public speaking classes were over 2000 participants eliminated public speaking fear.
2010
This was a rebuilding year after the 2009 recession. We introduced The Ace Race ® golf team building activity. During the recession of 2009 and the rebuilding of 2010, though, team building activities were still in high demand as a way to improve morale. As a result, over 2500 bicycles were donated to charities during this time period.
2012
By 2012, The Leaders Institute ® again joined the ranks of one of the fastest growing training companies in the world as well as one of the largest event companies in history! Donations to charities from team activities exceeds $2,000,000 since the charity team activities were invented. Over 400 of the Fortune 500 are clients of our company! Fearless Presentations ® is spun off as a separate company.
2014
Charity team building activities continue to grow in popularity spurred on by the success of the Build-A-Bike ® and Rescue Bear ® programs. This year, we invented an alternative to the original Build-A-Bike ® program for groups smaller than 20 people to make the program more cost effective. As a result, donations to charity almost doubled this year.
2016
Total donations to charities exceed $3,000,000. In addition, we created the Amazing Builders custom charity team activity this year. This allowed customers to choose the item donated to charity in the charity team building activities.
2019
Total donations to charities exceed $4,000,000. Growth continues build momentum. We also introduced The My Rich Uncle Team Escape Room. This activity, along with the original Camaraderie Quest are added to our charity team activities. Teams compete to win the activities, and the winning team gets to choose a charity to donate a cash donation to.
2020
The Covid-19 pandemic hits. All meetings and team activities shut down for almost a year. During this time, The Leaders Institute ® creates innovative virtual team building activities like the My Rich Uncle Virtual Escape Room. Toward the end of 2020, our brilliant instructors create a Virtual version of the original Build-A-Bike ® activity that takes the pandemic world by storm!
2021
In early 2021, we introduce additional virtual activities like the Virtual Rescue Bear ®, The Virtual Charade Murder Mystery, and Poseidon's Plunder Virtual Treasure Hunt. The end of 2021 is a fantastic rebound from the slowdown in 2020. Pent up demand for team activities make the last three months of 2021 the most active in the history of the company.
2022
So far, in 2022, The Leaders Institute ® has scheduled and delivered more charity team activities than any other year of our existence!
