GE’s Hiner to Head Owens-Corning Fiberglas

Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. on Monday named Glen Hiner, an executive at General Electric Co., to succeed Max Weber as chairman and chief executive of the fiberglass and resin maker.

Weber, a 37-year veteran at the Toledo, Ohio-based company, is retiring because he is being treated for cancer.

The appointment of Hiner, a 57-year-old senior vice president at Fairfield, Conn.-based GE, is effective Jan. 23. Since 1978, Hiner has headed GE Plastics, which he helped build into a $5-billion global business.

In a telephone interview, Hiner, who has spent more than 30 years at GE, said he expects Owens-Corning’s problems with asbestos litigation to be behind it by the mid-1990s.

Asbestos, an industrial fiber formerly used in fireproofing, causes chronic lung inflammation and has been linked to cancer and other diseases.

Most major producers, including Owens-Corning, stopped making asbestos products years ago, in part because of the flood of product-liability lawsuits against them dating to the 1970s and ‘80s.

“I think the company has an excellent understanding of the issue, and management has a plan that’s appropriate to the risk,” said Hiner, who has been briefed on the asbestos issue at Owens-Corning. “The mid-’90s will see that behind us.”