Townsville roots. Global training. Local heart.
Kelly was born and raised in Townsville, and grew up on Magnetic Island. He went to school at Townsville Grammar and studied at James Cook University. As a teenager he was already working alongside his father at Pet Sounds — the record shop that became a meeting place for generations of music lovers in North Queensland.
That early curiosity turned into a craft under two mentors. Ross Clark was an original RAAF technician who went on to lead The Byte Centre in Townsville before starting his own business, Data North. He took Kelly under his wing and taught him the foundations of real technical work. Kelly then trained with Andrew Fraser, Australia’s leading Apple technician, learning the art of Apple repair long before it was mainstream. He went on to run The Mac Shop for Roy Curry at JCU, becoming the person locals trusted when their Macs needed real expertise.
It was at The Mac Shop on the JCU campus that Kelly met Carisa. A small-town South Dakotan who had served in the United States Coast Guard and travelled to Australia to complete a Master’s in population genetics, she walked in looking for a printer and left having met the person she would marry. They got engaged overlooking Townsville from the top of Castle Hill, and chose a church in Manly with family history for their wedding. Townsville had already become home.
They moved to Brisbane in 2002, building MacDoctors into two thriving stores at a time when hardly anyone was qualified to repair iPhones, iPods and iPads. But Kelly and Carisa always knew they would come back. About 14 or 15 years ago they returned to Townsville to raise their family — and Wyatt, Freya and Emmett soon followed. Kelly also served in the Australian Army Reserves for a number of years.
