Jack Welch, who grew General Electric during the 1980s and 1990s into the most valuable public company in the United States, has died at age of 84, the conglomerate said on Monday.
Welch known as "Neutron Jack" for cutting thousands of jobs bought and sold scores of businesses, expanding the industrial giant into financial services and consulting. Under him, GE's market value grew from $12 billion to $410 billion, making Welch one of the most iconic chief executives of his era.
In December 1980, it was announced he would succeed CEO Reginald Jones and in April 1981 he took over as the company's eighth chairman and CEO. He served in that position until he retired in September 2001, succeeded by Jeff Immelt.
Through streamlining operations, acquiring new businesses and ensuring that each business under the GE umbrella was one of the best in its field, the company was able to expand dramatically from 1981 to 2001.
Born in 1935, Welch received his B.S. degree in chemical engineering from the University of Massachusetts, and his M.S.and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois in 1960.
In 1960, Welch joined GE as a chemical engineer at its plastics division in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He was elected the company's youngest vice president in 1972 and became vice chairman in 1979.
In 1980, the year before Welch became CEO, GE recorded revenues of roughly $26.8 billion; in 2000, the year before he left, they were nearly $130 billion. The company was one of the most valuable and the largest company in the world at the time of his retirement, up from America's tenth largest by market capin 1981.
Under Welch, GE became a training ground for business leaders who often carried his ideas to other corners of the economy. Welch put a premium on training leaders though a tough system that targeted advancement only for those who showed the best results.
He continued this work after retirement, briefly teaching a leadership course at MIT's Sloan School of Management and, later, founding an online MBA program called the Jack Welch Management Institute. That program is now part of Strayer University. ■