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Hundreds of people will gather to remember Bob Bennett on Saturday as funeral services are held for the former senator.

Bennett died earlier this month at his home in Arlington, Virginia, from complications of pancreatic cancer and a recent stroke. He was 82.

Bennett's morning funeral will be held at a Mormon church in Salt Lake City, followed by a burial at the Salt Lake City Cemetery. A viewing and funeral service were also held in Virginia, where a bipartisan group of Washington power players remembered the former senator as someone who could get things done and work across the aisle.

The Republican served 18 years in the Senate before losing a re-election bid in 2010, becoming one of the first of a number of incumbents booted out by a rise in tea party-fueled anger.

Bennett was criticized for supporting a bailout for distressed banks and working with Democrats on his own health care bill that would require Americans to buy insurance.

He was first elected in 1992 and was seen as politically moderate, a stance that sometimes put him in conflict with members of his own party in the conservative state.

Bennett stayed on top of developing technologies and helped lead government Y2K preparations ahead of the new millennium amid fears that the transition from 1999 to 2000 would cause major computer glitches.

There were no significant problems, but officials say the preparations ensured no disastrous shutdown of computer systems, including those at the Department of Defense.

Bennett's interest in technology began in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when he served as chairman of American Computers Corp. and president of Microsonics Corp.

After leaving the Senate, Bennett ran a consulting business, worked as a Washington lobbyist and was a resident scholar at the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics. Bennett also became a vocal critic of the GOP's conservative flank, saying it was driving the party away from mainstream Americans.

As the son of four-term U.S. Senator Wallace Bennett, Bob Bennett caught the political bug early in life and won his first elected office as student body president at the University of Utah.

He was the grandson of Heber J. Grant, a president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Bennett is survived by his wife, Joyce, six children and 20 grandchildren.