Fulfilment in service
DAVID Donohue loves puzzles, likes people and seeing things change.
It’s his passion about those three things that brought David, a fourth generation Townsvillian, back to the city of his birth after a few years of travelling.
“My son lives in a house that’s been in his mother’s family for five generations,” David said.
“I’ve worked all around the world but was led back here.”
After his schooling, David took up a cadetship at the Townsville Bulletin before heading to Rockhampton to study journalism and public re- lations at Central Queensland University.
“It was 1980 and everyone fled then,” he said.
“Townsville was an ugly, brown, industrial town then.
“But you come back and it’s a lot more green and a lot more liveable.”
David was lured into the world of public relations after being offered a job at the ad- vertising agency across road from the Bully office.
“I thought it was going to be a lavish lifestyle of long lunches but it wasn’t quite, though it was great fun,” he said.
He moved into the public service and worked for the Australian Institute of Marine Science, and what is now known as Ergon.
After travelling around, he the decided Townsville was the place he wanted to settle with his wife Megan. They have a 12- year- old son, Alexander.
David is the managing director of a stakeholder relations and issues management company QCCN that specialises in supporting major government projects.
But he said that was his second passion now he was a little older.
“At some point I realised I had to give back,” David said.
“In that vein, I serve as a member of Regional Development Australia ( Townsville and North West Queensland), have led advocacy for the In- land Queensland roads action plan, am on a number of advisory boards for your neighbours at CQU, and chair the board of directors at The Good Shepherd Nursing Home.”
David said it had been a difficult few years for the city but that he was hopeful the economy was turning a corner.
“The current Federal Government has taken a proper look at the North with the North Australia Policy and people like Matt Canavan are coming up here to try to process NAIF.”
David believes if you want to be a leader in life, you need to be serving others.