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Ex-Glow employee gets probation for shipping hazmat

The Ohio-based company was fined earlier this year.

   A former warehouse manager for Glow Industries was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on June 4 to two years of probation, a $3,000 fine and a $100 special assessment fee for transporting hazardous materials without marking and labeling them.
   Charles Kaye had pleaded guilty to the charges in January.
   According to the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, an investigation showed that Glow employees conspired to ship hazmat via air transportation from a company warehouse in Riverside, Calif., to Anchorage, Alaska, and concealed any markings that identified the shipments as hazardous. 
   On July 30, 2012, UPS examined a shipment from Glow at its Anchorage airport facility because the exterior packaging was damaged. After inspecting the contents, UPS discovered six fiberboard boxes, each containing 12 320-milliliter cans of Vector butane gas, a hazmat. Closer examination showed the outer packaging originally had been marked in the same manner as the packages inside the box. However, the outer packaging had been reassembled inside out to conceal the hazmat markings on the exterior, the Office of Inspector General said.
   Glow reportedly admitted that it directed various managers and employees to conceal the hazardous nature of the package from its shippers. Kaye also admitted that he had allowed the employees to conceal hazmat markings and that on Aug. 6, 2012, he sent a letter to FAA stating that a Glow employee had inadvertently shipped undeclared hazardous materials from Riverside to Anchorage. In fact, the employee had done so knowingly, according to investigators. 
   In January, Glow was sentenced to five years of probation and fined $250,000. As part of its probation, the company was required to establish a rigorous compliance program, subject to review by third-party auditors.