SALISBURY — John Struzick says that when he first moved to Salisbury in 2009, the city “instantly felt like home.”

“You don’t run into that often, and I’ve moved around quite a bit,” Struzick said.

As a manufacturing finance professional, Struzick has held various jobs in a number of cities. He said relocating is usually stressful, but that he and his wife, Agnes, were “relieved and pleased” that Salisbury felt like a good fit when they arrived.

“And then, as time has gone on, we’ve had two or three different (City Council) administrations, (and) the positive energy that made this feel like somewhere you wanted to be, it was waning,” Struzick said.

Struzick said he is running for a seat on the Salisbury City Council because he believes he can bring back that positive energy and be a “focused” leader.

“With everything that we’re facing, we’ve got to have an elected body that’s focused on getting things resolved,” he said. “I hear a lot of talk about problems (and) not enough about the solutions.”

One of Struzick’s solutions, should he be elected, would be to treat Fibrant like a business and market it as such.

“Trying to say it’s a utility … it has major competition. Like, with water, where is (someone) going to go and get water? You’re going to buy your water from the city, get trash picked up from city. Fibrant has all kinds of competition,” Struzick said. “We’re not marketing it the way we should.”

Struzick also said that regardless of the issue the council is facing, a can-do attitude can help solve it.

“I had an associate who said, ‘You’re more of a doer than a talker,’ ” Struzick said. “So we’ll get something done. I’m fully on board with the idea (that) there’s no problem we can’t solve if we just roll up our shirt sleeves and get to it.”

Struzick, 70, is the manufacturing financial manager for Innospec Performance Chemicals.

Contact Jessica Coates at 704-797-4222.