NEW YORK, United States, March 03, 2020/ Big PRwire/ — Jack Welch, who led General Electric through two decades, growing its market value from $12 billion to $410 billion, has died. He was 84.

Welch died late Sunday at home, surrounded by his wife, Suzy, and family, and his beloved dogs nearby. The cause of death was renal failure, his wife said Monday.

President Donald Trump tweeted his condolences, saying “there was no corporate leader like ‘neutron’ Jack.”

Fortune magazine dubbed him “manager of the century” in 1999. “Though he acted with what seemed at the time like blitzkrieg aggressiveness, he regretted in later years that he hadn’t moved even faster,” Fortune editorial director Geoffrey Colvin wrote in explaining the title. “Having been handed one of the treasures of American enterprise, he said, he was ‘afraid of breaking it.’ Not only did Welch not break it, but he transformed it as well and multiplied its value beyond anyone’s expectations.”

Jack Welch was born on Nov. 19, 1935, in Peabody, Massachusetts, to Irish American parents. His father was a conductor for the Boston & Maine Railroad and his mother was a homemaker. Welch studied chemical engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1960.

Welch joined GE in 1960 as a chemical engineer in its plastics division in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He became vice president in 1972 and vice chairman seven years later. In April 1981, at age 45, he succeeded Reginald H. Jones as chairman and chief executive officer. He retired from GE in September 2001.