Expert on Packaging, Distribution and Shipping

Specialties & Experience of this Expert Witness

Additional Information

Randy Phares is a retained expert witness in packaging, materials handling, and freight transportation, with more than 30 years of hands-on industry experience. He has been retained in more than 50 cases for both plaintiffs and defendants, has given eight depositions, and has testified twice at trial in state and federal courts; across that record, his qualifications, reports, and testimony have never been excluded or successfully challenged. His forensic casework centers on shipping, loading and unloading, forklift and pallet jack operation, loads falling inside and outside of trucks, handhold and packaging failures, and pallet, crate, and load-securement failures — including catastrophic-injury and fatality matters. He has handled box van, bobtail, and flatbed over-the-road freight as well as rail, and has worked select packaging-related intellectual property and trade-secret matters. Phares has held nearly every role in a packaging operation, from running the corrugated testing laboratory to managing entire plants. He has bought, sold, operated, supervised, installed, and removed packaging machinery, and has overseen multiple warehouses and a fleet of semi-trucks. He directed multiple manufacturing plants across the United States and Mexico for a Fortune 1000 corporation, implementing Lean Manufacturing and earning the 2009 Best Achievement of Organizational Business Improvement in Manufacturing Award from the Global Six Sigma and Business Improvement Awards for a plant turnaround. He also served as a Regional Safety Champion for a Fortune 500 manufacturer. Phares served on the technical voting team of ASTM International's Packaging Division, holds U.S. Patent No. 5,672,412 for a recyclable corrugated pallet, and authored A Paper-Based Packaging Design Guide. His work has appeared across the packaging trade press, including Packaging Digest, Converting Magazine, and Paperboard Packaging. Through USAID-funded programs, Phares set national corrugated packaging standards for the country of Georgia — creating its Box Manufacturers Certificate and helping strengthen the nation's economy and agricultural exports — and helped launch Afghanistan's corrugated, folding carton, paper, and tissue industries, training its leading box plants to meet international export standards. He earned Certified Quality Manager (CQM), Certified Quality Auditor (CQA), and Certified Quality Engineer (CQE) certifications from the American Society for Quality (ASQ), where he served as Vice Chair of the Customer-Supplier Division. His professional service includes the Advisory Board of Paperboard Packaging magazine, the Packaging Consulting Council of TAPPI, Vice Chair of the Packaging Consultants Council of the Institute of Packaging Professionals (IoPP), President of the South Texas Manufacturers Association, and founder and President of the Paperboard Packaging Group, an international community of more than 50,000 members. Keyword/areas line: Corrugated & folding carton packaging · Packaging, pallet & crate failure · Forensic failure analysis · Handhold & box failure · Loads falling from trucks & cargo loss · Forklift & pallet jack operation · Load securement & improper loading · Over-the-road & rail freight · Warehouse racking & materials handling · Packaging machinery · Packaging design & testing · Lean Manufacturing · ASTM packaging standards · Quality management (ASQ CQM/CQA/CQE) · Packaging IP & trade secrets