The first program, we have found was
Mount Bachelor Academy. The shared marketingssites with the CEDU-schools and was founded around 1987. The early staff was most former CEDU-employees, but less cult like and more focused on making $. They worked a lot more with ED-cons and I have found court cases where the ed-con is suggested to be employed by MtBA by the school district.
When they found that they had a greater demand for wilderness places where they could put troublesome detainees, they created
Aspen Achievement Academy a couple of years later.
But unlike some of the other schools, they soon realized that they could earn more money by having a lot of different programs rather than running all programs in the same way as WWASP and CEDU.
So they abandoned their original strategy at
Swift River and kicked Rudy out. Still not a good program, but away with psyco-drama (LGAT) and some of the wilderness intro, which are costly if you look at the man-power needed. The rest of the programs they purchased until they had it all. Maybe Aspen Ranch is one they founded themselves. I have not been able to research how it was found and by who.
I think that they discovered that some of the programs they purchased were run by amateurs and they tried to kick the most abusive staff out, but some programs they could not save because the entire program was infected by abuse the whole way like like
Excel Academy.
If a program should enter Denmark at some point, I would fear Aspen and UHSINC way more than WWASP, because they are money people, can stand to loose teens and get away with it (There have been several deaths in their programs) and know how to use the media without looking as slave owners.