Orrin Hatch, Utah’s long-serving Republican senator, died Saturday in Salt Lake City at the age of 88, according to the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation.

Hatch, who retired in January 2019 at the conclusion of his final term, served in the Senate for 42 years, making him the Republican senator with the longest tenure.

According to the foundation, he died surrounded by his family. The manner of death has not been disclosed.

Senator Orrin Hatch embodied the American Dream, according to Matt Sandgren, executive director of the Hatch Foundation. “Born into poverty as the son of a carpenter and plaster lather, he rose to become a United States Senator.”

Hatch was also the state’s longest-serving senator. He was elected for the first time in 1976 and retired in January 2018.

He made reference to his amateur boxing days in making the announcement, saying in a video: “Every seasoned fighter understands when to put down the gloves. And that time is rapidly approaching for me.”

Hatch was born in 1934 in Homestead Park, Pennsylvania.

Hatch was raised in what he refers to as a “ramshackle house” during the Great Depression and went on to chair three different Senate committees, stamping major pieces of legislation across the policy spectrum with his signature.

Hatch earned a bachelor’s degree in history from Brigham Young University in 1959 and a law degree from the University of Pittsburgh in 1962. In 1969, he relocated to Utah.

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