Gerardus Jozef Dusseldorp AO (2 December 1918 – 22 April 2000) was a Dutch water engineer and the founder of Civil & Civic, the financing arm of which later emerged as Lendlease, one of Australia's largest companies.
Born in Utrecht in the Netherlands in December 1918,[1] Gerardus Dusseldorp was known as Dik as a child, the anglicised version of which stuck with him for the rest of his life.
He established Civil & Civic, as a subsidiary of Bredero's, the success of which was based on the principle that the designer should be employed by the contractor rather than the other way round.
[6][7] In 1957 he secured the contract to build the podium for the Sydney Opera House and, having established his reputation, built the business into an international concern.
His driving vision for the Forum was that it become a creator of "lighthouse" initiatives that would influence government policy for the benefit of young people, particularly those at the margin who were there through no fault of their own.