J. Peter Grace Jr., the former chairman of his family's conglomerate who crusaded against government waste as head of the Reagan-era Grace Commission, has died at 81.

The adviser to three presidents died Wednesday night from cancer.As chief executive officer of W.R. Grace & Co., the world's leading maker of specialty chemicals, the workaholic Grace was the longest-running head of a major U.S. company.

But he fell from power last month when major shareholders revolted, partly because of millions in company payments for his chef, nurses and other lavish perks. Earlier in March, chief executive J.P. Bolduc - who was streamlining the company - was forced out because of sexual harassment allegations.

The Grace empire was founded in Peru as a shipping concern by Grace's Irish immigrant grandfather and then moved to New York, where the trading company was led by three successive generations of Graces. Grace was chief executive from 1945-1992.

"He looked on the Grace company as his family corporation," said columnist Jack Anderson, who co-chairs an institute on government waste that Grace founded after the commission finished its work in 1984. "I guess he had some trouble understanding that it was owned by the shareholders."

Grace started in the company mailroom in 1936 after graduating from Yale University. By age 32 he had taken over the company, which had expanded into aviation, cotton, sugar and nitrate in Latin America.

Outside the business world, Grace won attention for leading the Grace Commission, a two-year Reagan administration effort starting in 1982 to root out government waste.

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