Now he is a shearing contractor with his own successful business and several shearing competition titles to his name.
He has represented New Zealand on the global shearing stage and is now on the New Zealand Shearing Contractors Association executive.
Most recently he competed in the New Zealand Merino Shearing championships in Alexandra, finishing second in the open event, and went on to represent New Zealand as part of the Shearing Sports New Zealand team competing against Australia in the transtasman test, which Australia won.''
I started work in the industry as a presser in 1974 in Gore during the summer, when I was 11 or 12,'' Mr Morrell said.''
I wanted to be in the industry even back then. It was the image of it.''
After he left school in 1978 he went to Australia with his father and roused for six months.''
For the last four or five weeks I was shearing with narrow gear, then came home and started shearing non-stop.''
During his career he had worked for a variety of people, including Peter Lyons, of Alexandra, for whom he worked for 20 years, he said.
''He was a fantastic employer.''
After about 25 years of shearing and a ''fair amount of wear and tear'', he bought a run from shearer Snow Quinn, of Earnscleugh, eight years ago.
Mr Morrell has been contracting in partnership with his wife, Gabriela Schmidt-Morrell, who also runs her own reflexology business in Alexandra.
They have three children, Jelena (4), Ursin (12) and Charis (8). More recently he bought another run in West Otago, which lengthened his workers' shearing season.
There was a huge difference between being an employer and an employee, he said.
''As an employee I had definite ideas of how contracting should be, but the reality is very different.
''I look back now and it is funny how we used to rate ourselves as workers and think we were so valuable.
''We didn't see the whole picture.
''I look back with a lot of humble pie these days and I even apologised to Pete [Lyons] at one time.
''You don't get it until you become an employer to see how difficult it is.
''On one hand, you have got the need ... to turn a profit, and farmers have their own requirements.
''It is a balancing act to get employees to buy into that.''
Mr Morrell has been on the New Zealand Shearing Contractors' Association executive for three years.
''I got involved to better understand my role and to understand the issues.
''It was a hell of a learning curve.''
He is involved in the association's ShearNZ best-practice and awareness programme, which was launched in 2012.
However, out of the 70 association members only 12 have signed up since then. Many contractors and sheep farmers were hesitant to sign up as many were struggling within the industry, Mr Morrell said.''
What they do has to make financial sense.''
However, we need to get buy-in for [the benefit of] our workers.''
While industry uptake had been expected to take some time, he believed it to be a valuable programme.
He thought acceptance within the industry would come after demand from the end users.
Another industry challenge was the number of the country's best shearing workers who were employed overseas because they could easily earn double the money they received at home and work for 12 months a year.''
I don't blame them, but it makes it pretty tough for us at home.''
''As farmers and contractors we are in direct competition with Australia for our own shearers,'' he said.