The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“TRIBUTE TO WILL DWYER” mentioning the U.S. Dept of Labor was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H132 on Jan. 31, 2001.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
TRIBUTE TO WILL DWYER
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, this is kind of a sad occasion for me. Today I rise to pay tribute to Will Dwyer, who was my former communications director of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. He passed away earlier this month after a long battle with cancer.
He began his media career as a broadcast documentary producer in the 1950s, and then he moved to Washington to start a career in public service. He was a native of Rochester, New York; and he began his congressional career in the 88th Congress by working for Frank Horton of New York. He served as his administrative assistant for some time.
Then after his stint in public service, he left Washington for the private sector. He returned to Rochester where he held the post of Republican county chairman. During that time, he also founded a telecommunications privacy service.
Will knew that life was too valuable to let a day go by without enjoying everything that it had to offer. He was a man with an incredible thirst for new and different experiences, and he returned to school in mid-life and received his law degree while he was in his mid-
40s.
Earlier this decade, Will was called back into public service by the gentleman from California (Mr. Radanovich). It was on his reputation on Radanovich's staff that we hired him to be our communications director with the Committee on Government Reform.
Although I knew Will for only a short period of time, he was a very, very fine man, a man of impeccable integrity, really cared about this country, a very patriotic fellow. He lived his life knowing that every day was something to savor. It was his attitude that brings me to the floor today to pay tribute to this man whom we are all going to miss a great deal, my friend, Will Dwyer.
So God in heaven, I hope you are blessing Will because he was a man who should be blessed a great deal.
Mr. Speaker, I insert into the Record an article that appeared in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle about the life of my good friend, Will Dwyer, as follows:
William F. Dwyer II Dies of Cancer at 65
William F. Dwyer II is described as a dynamo, a restless man, an irrepressible force.
He worked in politics from Monroe County to Washington, D.C., and was a Rochester broadcaster. He got his law degree in his late 40s, spoke on behalf of the tobacco industry, even ran a modular home business in California.
But there was one constant theme in Mr. Dwyer's life--his limitless interest in people.
``He was such an egalitarian,'' said Mr. Dwyer's wife, Constance Drath. ``He talked to the grocery clerk, the mailman, the elected officials. He loved learning about everyone.''
Mr. Dwyer died of cancer last week in Washington. He was 65.
Mr. Dwyer was born in Rochester on March 30, 1935, and grew up in the city. He graduated from a military academy in New Jersey as the class valedictorian, Drath said.
He returned to Rochester in the mid-1950s and began a career in broadcasting at WHAM-AM (1180). Family and friends say that Mr. Dwyer--a tall man with a curly head of brown hair--had a deep, resonant voice that was perfect for the airwaves.
In 1962, Mr. Dwyer moved to the political arena, going to work for Frank Horton, a Penfield Republican just elected to Congress. He became Horton's administrative assistant, basically his right-hand man, and instituted weekly radio feeds that would be picked up by Rochester radio stations.
Mr. Dwyer also used a radio communications system that kept the Horton campaign in touch with him. ``This wasn't done back then,'' said Horton, who called Mr. Dwyer not just a valued employee but a good friend.
``I could tell him anything,'' Horton said. ``You can't say that about everybody.''
He left Horton's office in the late 1960s and started a public relations firm that often worked with political campaigns. He worked closely with the Republican Party and in 1970 was named Monroe County chairman of the party.
Richard Rosenbaum, himself a former county GOP chairman, said that Mr. Dwyer's style was ``benevolent aggressiveness.''
``He was a great PR man, who could make lemonade out of the most awful lemons,'' he said.
Mr. Dwyer left Rochester for Washington in 1972 and worked in the Nixon and Ford administrations, mainly as a Labor Department spokesman for new workplace safety and health standards.
In 1975, he became a spokesman for the now-defunct Tobacco Institute, which spoke on behalf of cigarette manufacturers.
In 1980, Mr. Dwyer moved to California with Drath. In two years, he obtained his law degree from Southwestern University of Law in Los Angeles. He and Drath opened a law firm in Beverly Hills, specializing in wrongful employment termination cases and immigration issues.
During the 1980s, he dabbled in other ventures, including a modular home company.
In 1994, politics came calling again, and Mr. Dwyer served as a press secretary for Rep. George Radanovich, R-Calif., then as communications director for the House Government Reform Committee.
Through all the changes in his life, Mr. Dwyer remained upbeat and eager for new challenges, Drath said.
``This was a man who knew the art of living in the moment,'' she said. ``He never looked back, never had any regrets.''
Along with his wife of Washington, Mr. Dwyer is survived by their two children Scott Dwyer and William Dwyer III of Washington; Elizabeth Sellers of Paris and Geoffrey Dwyer of Brockport, his children from his previous marriage to Eleanor Clarke, now Eleanor Lawton of Brighton; and two sisters, Carol Stearns of Washington, Conn., and Anne Colgan of East Rochester.
A memorial service will be held at Georgetown Presbyterian Church in Washington at noon Wednesday.
Memorial contributions can be made to the National Colorectal Cancer Research Institute at Entertainment Industry Foundation, 11132 Ventura Blvd., Studio City, CA 91604.
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