Physiotherapist, chiropractor and acupuncture practitioner Dr. Bryan DiFrancesco's decision to come back to Stoney Creek to open up shop was an easy one.

"I've always felt Stoney Creek was my home," he said. "The people I've met along the way - the teachers, the part-time jobs I've had - they've all helped to shape me into the person I am and I feel because of that, I'm a better person and coming back to this area felt natural, it felt like the right thing to do."

Dr. DiFrancesco's education started at Cardinal Newman Catholic Secondary School, where he developed his natural athletic abilities through sport and achieved certification with the National Lifeguard Service of Canada. He also became aware of his own health and fitness and the need to always be attentive to conditioning, diet and good health practices.

"I was heavily involved in athletics and about 16, I started working out and learning about bones, joints and muscles and how they worked," he said. "I liked the body building and found it fascinating and thought, 'I'm going to do down this road and see what I can do.'"

After secondary school, Dr. DiFrancesco was selected for one of 40 seats in the four-year Physiotherapy program at Queen's University in Kingston and in 2000, became a member of both the Canadian and Ontario Physiotherapy Associations.

Dr. DiFrancesco practiced that branch of medicine throughout his four years of study at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College in Toronto and in 2005, graduated as a doctor of chiropractic, becoming one of a select few in attaining licensure in both the disciplines of physiotherapy and chiropractic in Ontario.

"I worked at a number of different clinics as a student in Toronto, doing part-time fill in," he said. "I worked about 10 to 15 clinics over four years and really fell in love with physiotherapy and chiropractic and what that was all about."

Armed with two professional health care degrees, Dr. DiFrancesco also attained certification in clinical acupuncture with the Acupuncture Foundation of Canada Institute and in orthotic prescription with the Orthotic Group.

After completing his education, Dr. DiFrancesco came back to Stoney Creek to begin the next chapter of his life.

"My wife and I started a family," he said. "We had our first daughter, she was one of the reasons for coming back here and you begin to appreciate what family's all about when you have your own; it was just them being there for us whenever we needed that sense of security. They were amazing and very supportive."

Dr. DiFrancesco was also ready to begin another chapter of his life.

"My wife and I took about three or four trips all over the Golden Horseshoe looking for a small town in which to set up a practice," he said. "Then I realized from working here part time at a local clinic that Stoney Creek is very much a small town. People just know each other and we really fell in love with that as well."

Dr. DiFrancesco started a home-based practice, so he could be close to his family.

"Then it got bigger and I needed to bring on other staff to service my client's needs," he said. "My family also got bigger and we needed extra space, so I had to find a new location."

Dr. DiFrancesco found that new location at 58 King St. W.

The location previously housed Stoney Creek Beauty Supply.

Dr. DiFrancesco bought the building on Dec. 1, 2007 and spent four-and-a-half months remodeling and renovating it.

"I looked at it almost from a health point of view: to make it better we needed to strip it down to its basics, right down to the bones and rebuild it from the ground up and that's what we did, from the inside out," he said. "That small town feel came through too, as I had so much great help, a lot of great trades locally that were very handy, a lot of the guys really impressed me with their craftsmanship and the way they did their work."

Active Body Clinic opened its doors on April 15.

The clinic specializes in physiotherapy, chiropractic, acupuncture, orthotics and braces.

Dr. DiFrancesco says ABC also offers massage therapy and one-on-one fitness training.

"It's a holistic rehabilitation centre," he said. "When I thought up a tag line for the clinic, I called it the Integrated Solution, meaning I take the best of all three worlds - physiotherapy, chiropractic and acupuncture - and try and do whatever I can to get the patients better."

ABC is a really unique clinic because its goal is to discharge people, says Dr. DiFrancesco.

"A lot of clinics don't do that, they want people to stay and be patients for a long time," he said. "We don't, we want to get people healthy, get them better, get them stronger, get them fit and get them successful, so they can do what they want to do."

Dr. DiFrancesco says opening such a clinic has always been a dream.

"Having started a practice from home was really the best route for me, because it allowed me to grow a clientele and get connected with the community," he said. "To date, I haven't advertised, it's just been word of mouth and my clinic is really busy, which I feel very blessed to have happen. Having that behind me gave me the confidence to move forward and say, 'If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right.'"

Dr. DiFrancesco says his reason for coming back to Stoney Creek is simple.

"I plan on being in one location, I hope, for the next 30 years or so, I would like to make it my home, which has always been Stoney Creek," he said. "I also feel that it's going to take re-investment on behalf of the community to bring this area up and to help give it a new face as we move forward."

People need to realize the value of Stoney Creek, adds Dr. DiFrancesco.

"That value truly is that it's a welcoming, small town. There's a lot of support that way in terms of networking and linkages," he said. "It's a very tight-knit community. Everybody knows each other and that's a real bonus to a small business when you can get established into that network because the opportunity for referral is really quite big and that's what helped my business to grow."

Dr. DiFrancesco says he hopes to lead by example.

"We have a lot of properties along King Street that are empty right now," he said. "I know there are plans in the works to get things going, so I just jumped in and said, 'We have to start at some point, why not now?'"

The future is very bright for Stoney Creek, says Dr. DiFrancesco.

"I have nothing but confidence in its future," he said. "We're very well situated and we still have that small, old-town charm and I feel very lucky to be a part of that. There's no place I would rather call home."