Not every career follows a straight line. In this episode, Jim talks with SendCutSend Machining Operations Director Phil Linscheid about his winding path from tinkering with RC cars and welding in college shops to working at Haas Automation and now leading SendCutSend’s new CNC machining venture. Phil shares how mentorship, grit, and embracing chaos shaped his career and why nonlinear paths often create the best leaders in manufacturing.
This episode of Just Gonna Send It features Jim Belosic in conversation with Phil Linscheid, Operations Director at SendCutSend and the leader of its new CNC machining venture. Phil’s career path is anything but linear, what began as a childhood obsession with taking things apart led him through welding classes, shop floors, internships at large manufacturers, and roles at Haas Automation, before eventually bringing him to SendCutSend. His story illustrates how curiosity, grit, and embracing chaos can create unexpected opportunities in manufacturing and leadership.
Phil was the kid who fixed the family VCR, wired up the TV, and read a Chilton manual for a Mustang before he even owned the car. While his parents didn’t come from a manufacturing background, his grandfather stepped in as a mentor, teaching him how to use and care for tools, introducing him to cars and airplanes, and encouraging his curiosity. Phil’s early projects, like tearing apart RC cars or modifying Lego builds, taught him to value tinkering and iteration over simply finishing something and leaving it alone.
Sports weren’t Phil’s main path, though he dabbled in water polo. Instead, his defining high school experience was restoring the family’s 1965 Mustang as his senior project after not making the team his final year. It wasn’t about showing the car at competitions, it was about function, learning, and persistence. This hands-on project cemented his interest in mechanical systems and laid the groundwork for his later pursuits.
After high school, Phil stumbled into community college welding classes and briefly considered a trade-union career before realizing it wasn’t the right fit. He transferred to Chico State’s mechatronics/manufacturing program, a small but intensive hands-on environment that combined machining, electronics, and robotics. The heavy lab work and tight-knit student cohort felt more like a guild than a traditional classroom, reinforcing Phil’s love of practical, project-based learning.
Throughout this period, Phil always worked jobs on the side, sweeping floors, sandblasting steel in the heat, drilling holes in tubing, and welding parts at small shops. These gritty experiences taught him the value of saying yes to any task, building trust through persistence, and learning from more experienced shop hands.
Phil pursued every opportunity he could find, including a co-op at NUMMI (the Toyota/GM joint venture that later became Tesla’s Fremont plant). There he worked in quality engineering on Tacoma and Corolla interiors, learning about supply chain challenges and precision requirements at scale.
He later joined a small Chico fabrication shop run by Jeff Lindsay, which he describes as one of the most impactful years of his life. The two-man operation took on projects for clients like Sierra Nevada Brewing, blending creativity, customer service, and craftsmanship. That mix of small-shop resourcefulness and large-company structure gave Phil a unique perspective on manufacturing’s spectrum.
Phil would go on to spend time at Haas Automation and the largest machine shop in Nevada, experiences that taught him how to think about production scale, efficiency, and the role of accessibility in technology. He later reframed his Haas experience: while not the “best” machines in the world, Haas democratized machining by giving thousands of people an affordable entry point, an impact he came to respect deeply.
At SendCutSend, Phil now leads the expansion into CNC machining. In just a few months, he and his team built operations from an empty building to full production. He and Jim reflect on how much of this progress comes not from strict five-year plans, but from an obsessive focus on solving the problem directly in front of them. For Phil, manufacturing is inherently chaotic, and the best operators build systems that keep the floor organized while staying agile enough to adapt when the unexpected happens.
Phil Linscheid didn’t follow a straight path into manufacturing, but each twist and turn gave him the tools to lead. From taking apart RC cars as a kid to restoring his family’s ’65 Mustang in high school, Phil’s curiosity turned into a career spanning small shops, internships, and major manufacturers like Haas. In this episode, Jim and Phil talk about the mentors who shaped him, why embracing chaos is at the heart of manufacturing, and how Phil’s journey ultimately led him to become Operations Director at SendCutSend, where he now heads up the company’s new CNC machining venture.
