managed, nationwide peering and transit program focused on research applications. In 2008, a company named Darkstrand purchased capacity on NLR for commercial use. By the end of the year the Chicago-based company was having trouble raising funding due to the Great Recession. On May 24, 2012 the NLR network operations center services were transferred to the Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California. In October 2009 Glenn Ricart was named president and CEO. On September 7, 2010 Ricart announced his resignation. In November 2011 the control of NLR was purchased from its university membership by a billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong for $100M, who indicated his intention to upgrade NLR infrastructure and repurpose portions of it to support an ambitious healthcare project through NantHealth. The upgrade never took place. NLR ceased operations in March 2014. Member organizations Members of National LambdaRail are state or regional optical networks, which provide connectivity to the individual universities and laboratories using NLR. NLR has 13 members which enable more than 280 research universities and government laboratories to connect to NLR. The following is a list, from the official National LambdaRail web site , of LambdaRail member organizations. The Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California Florida LambdaRail Front Range GigaPop / University Corporation for Atmospheric Research Lonestar Education and Research Network (LEARN) North Carolina Light Rail Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Pacific Northwest Gigapop Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (University of Pittsburgh/Carnegie Mellon University) Southeastern Universities Research Association Southern Light Rail The Virginia Tech Foundation/Mid Atlantic Terascale Partnership University of New Mexico (on behalf of the State of New Mexico) References Academic computer network organizations Internet in the United States Science and technology in the United States