A Career Built on Relationships
“Relationships are everything. There is no business, especially in AgTrust’s role as an ag lender, without relationships.”
When Samuel Belt joined AgTrust as a lending and credit intern in the summer of 2024, the Texas A&M University agricultural communications student wasn’t necessarily looking for the career in agricultural finance. He was was looking for an opportunity to learn more about the industry.
What he found was an opportunity to see agriculture — and his own future — from a different perspective.
Some of Samuel’s most memorable experiences came outside the office, meeting borrowers and referral sources, and learning about their businesses firsthand. He saw how different plans, personalities, and ideas could all connect through agriculture. More importantly, he began to understand the role relationships play in helping those ideas become reality.
“Relationships are everything,” Samuel said. “There is no business, especially in AgTrust’s role as an ag lender, without relationships.”
Those relationships shaped Samuel’s own experience. As an intern, he felt like part of the AgTrust team from the beginning. Even with two years of college still ahead of him, he was already thinking about the possibility of returning after graduation.
And he did.
A few months before graduating, Samuel returned as a part-time credit analyst. The foundation he built during his internship — understanding lending terminology, studying loans, and learning alongside experienced lenders — helped make the transition a natural one.
Today, Samuel serves as a loan officer, helping farmers, ranchers, and rural landowners finance agricultural operations and pursue land ownership.
For Samuel, the internship opened more than a door to his first job. It introduced him to colleagues who became mentors, fellow interns who became lasting friends, and work he discovered he genuinely enjoys.
His advice to students considering an AgTrust internship is simple: Do it.
For students considering a summer internship in agriculture, finance, or agricultural lending, Samuel says the experience offers more than résumé building. It provides the opportunity to build professional relationships, learn how agricultural lending works, and explore career paths across the agricultural industry.
“My AgTrust internship was the start of a career I never knew I wanted but turned out better than I could’ve imagined.”
