Growing up in Shepparton

A country town: Shepparton, 1989

Adrian Campbell was born in 1989 in Shepparton, a farming and fruit-growing town in the Goulburn Valley of northern Victoria. Shepparton is orchard country, about two hours north of Melbourne, with the Goulburn and Broken rivers running through it. Its orchards and the SPC cannery shaped the town, and the people in it.

He grew up the way many country kids did: outside most of the day. Weekends meant motorbikes on dirt tracks, fishing on the Goulburn River, and camping trips out along the Murray. He played football, and he has been an Essendon supporter all his life. He still follows the Bombers from wherever he is in Asia.

What the town taught him

He says the town taught him two things he still relies on. The first is that people back you if you show up and do the work. The second is that you fix your own problems, because nobody is coming to fix them for you.

A trade, and a move north

After school he trained as a plumber. As a young tradesman he worked on commercial jobs, including a contract at Mount Tamborine Hospital in Queensland. In 2008, at 19, he started his first business, International Solar Solutions, on the Gold Coast.

The rest of the story, from the Gold Coast to Bali, Kinnara and Lombok, is in his full biography. Outside work, he still rides and fishes whenever he can; see Adrian Campbell outside work.