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Meet Jon Schaeffer of Genesis Precision in Central – Metro area

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Jon Schaeffer.

Jon, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
At 20 years old and looking in the paper for a job, someone asked if I had thought about being a machinist. I said, “what’s a machinist?” They said, “kinda like a woodworker (knowing I had some experience in that) but you cut metal instead”. This guy being the manager of a machine shop told me to come down and apply. I went down and filled out an application and was hired at his tool and die shop. It turns out I had a knack for precision grinding and a passion for metalworking.

With the opportunity I had at this shop to learn design and tool-making, I developed such a love and passion for the trade and it manifested in the quality of my work.

Over the course of the next 30 years, a handful of different employers and several CAD/CAM classes, I pushed the envelope to fine-tune my skills and constantly looked for better and faster ways to design, program, run production CNC for the commercial product industry, mold-making and fixture design.

With the knowledge I had and my desire to deliver perfect parts using the most efficient machining methods, I felt the logical move was to be a shop owner and be able to control all aspects of the manufacturing process which is not possible working for someone.

Enter my beautiful wife, my encourager. She trusted my abilities and allowed me the opportunity to step out, take a risk and go for it. With just the 2 of us (and some amazing mentors in our life) entering a whole new world as a business owners (while still having other day jobs we won’t mention!), we set out on this adventure not quite knowing where it may lead us or what God has in store for us.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely not smooth. There were so many things we had little knowledge of from marketing and bookkeeping to quoting and keeping track of job schedules

And really long days, I would get up at 3:30 am. Be at the day job at 5 am. Off at 3:30 and head straight to the shop and be there until 10, 11 or 12 am some days. Some days, I just slept at the shop for a couple hours before heading back for another 10-hour shift at the day job and never even made it home.

These hours left little time for networking and face-to-face selling which is important to help get our name out there. Business was very slow the first few months so it was very scary. Not to mention the family time I missed regularly.

Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Genesis Precision – what should we know?
I don’t think we’ve really found our niche just yet. However, what we are good at is making perfect parts every time. Quality is guaranteed. We inspect every part to ensure it matches the model and blueprints. We can also sit down with the customer to come up with a design and engineer part(s) that will best meet their needs while considering manufacturability to also ensure the best price.

Right now we can accommodate solid modeling, blueprinting, mill and bead blasting work.

We also partner with Titans of CNC as part of their Academy which provides free training to those wanting to learn the trade. We host a small group each week (Mondays 6-9pm) where we teach every aspect of machining (based on Titan Gilroy’s video tutorials) and the students actually get to make their own parts in our machine. The goal of this is to help rise up the next generation of machinists to be more than just button-pushers to really learn the skill set needed to bring manufacturing back to the United States.

We are a patriotic, America and Christ-loving family/business!

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I was born here and my wife grew up here. I don’t think we’d ever lived anywhere else. Our family is here. Phoenix is our home! We absolutely love our Fall through Spring weather to enjoy the outdoors in this beautiful desert.

The hot summers do seem to get a little more difficult to take as we get older.

Maricopa County has a considerable pet over-population and one of the highest euthanasia rates in the country. My wife is a big pet advocate and fosters for some local rescue(s). We generally have a house full of animals at any given time and occasionally they show up at the shop.

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