Joseph Anthony Dwyer

Sir Joseph Anthony Dwyer (20 June 1939 – 16 October 2021) was a British civil engineer and businessman. He joined George Wimpey in 1955 and spent 44 years with the firm, becoming chief executive officer and chairman.

Dwyer was responsible for repositioning Wimpey as a housebuilder by swapping its contracting arm for Tarmac's housing division. Wimpey subsequently saw a 30-fold increase in pre-tax profits. Dwyer served as chairman of the British part of TransManche Link, which built the Channel Tunnel and, after his 1999 retirement from Wimpey, served as president of the Institution of Civil Engineers.

In the early 2000s he was chairman of the Liverpool Vision urban regeneration company and oversaw £2 billion of capital investment in regeneration projects including refurbishments of Lime Street station and King's Dock and construction of Liverpool Arena. Dwyer was appointed a deputy lieutenant of Merseyside in 2008 and a non-executive director of Crossrail in the same year.

Career with Wimpey Joeseph Dwyer was born in Liverpool in 1939. He joined the construction firm of George Wimpey in 1955 at the age of 16.

During the 1980s Dwyer survived a helicopter accident whilst travelling to one of the firm's open-cast coal mining operations. For a time he was feared dead as his accident was confused with another on the same day that killed a family travelling to Alton Towers. He clashed occasionally with Alastair Morton, chairman of client Eurotunnel, but later denied there was any animosity between the two.

Dwyer was also involved in several professional societies and served as president of the Chartered Institute of Building.