A championship mindset on and in the field

What do US football and agriculture have in common? On the surface, the link may be a bit unclear. However, when peeling back the layers, there’s a definite similarity between the two when it comes to work ethic, dedication, and passion.

Recently, there’s been even more crossover between football, as well as other professional sports, and agriculture, with players such as Joe Burrow, investing their National Football League (NFL) paychecks into farmland in the Midwestern US.

Further strengthening the connection between agriculture and football is newly drafted Grey Zabel, a 23-year-old Offensive Lineman out of North Dakota State University (NDSU). As the eighteenth pick in the first round of the NFL draft, Grey will be joining the Seattle Seahawks on Lumen Field next football season. Grey comes from a farming background, growing up in Pierre, South Dakota, where his father ran a farming operation in the nearby town of Selby. Did we mention that Grey spent two of his summers in college interning with Nutrien Ag Solutions?

More about Grey and his time at Nutrien

During his time at NDSU, Grey and his teammates won two NCAA Division | FCS National Championships in 2021 and 2024. In the classroom, Grey pursued a major in agribusiness and minors in economics and precision agriculture. In the summer of 2023, Grey was ready to take his education to the next level with an internship and reached out to Nutrien Ag Solutions about available opportunities at the Mapleton, North Dakota location.

“Grey had heard about our summer internship roles through a teammate of his that had an internship role with us in years prior. It can be tough as a college student to find an internship that matches your schedule, especially as a student athlete,” says Aaron Steidl, Sales Representative for the North Dakota Division. “Our team is proud of the culture that we’ve created in meeting our interns where they’re at and accommodating the needs of their schedule. We realize that they’re students first and the commitment to their education is the priority.”

During his first year of interning with Nutrien Ag Solutions, Grey was able to experience a variety of learning opportunities and try his hand at different tasks. In the summer of 2024, Grey returned to Nutrien Ag Solutions for a second year in the summer internship role.

Building on his experience from the prior summer, Grey took on more agronomy-related responsibilities and was tasked with compiling a project about soil and plant nutrition in the North Dakota Division. As part of the project, he took all the information from trials in the division and evaluated the results to give recommendations on how to best communicate the benefits of soil tests to growers in their area. The presentation was a success with the division already adopting some of the recommendations from Grey's project.

As if gearing up for the fall football season with conditioning and two-a-day practices alongside his second-year internship with Nutrien Ag Solutions wasn’t enough, Grey rented his own plot of 250 acres to produce his own corn crop, separate from his father’s operation.

“In his second summer with our team, Grey really grew as a professional and his dedication to each commitment in his life was unmatched. He would leave work on Friday, drive back home to Pierre and farm on his own operation through the weekend, come back on Monday for practices and work, then do it all over again each week,” says Aaron. “While at work, Grey started to ask more questions about what to do on his own operation when it comes to fertility, weed control, and plant nutrition. He really fit well within our team because many of our sales folks are also farmers themselves and have their own operations, so it was interesting to see him morph from an intern into this next stage of his career.”

Even though Grey’s post-college career will include taking to the field instead of working in the field, he has quickly converted his Mapleton community into Seattle Seahawks fans.

“Grey is one-of-a-kind. He was eager and excited to take on tasks in his internship. He also had a lot of confidence and was comfortable with jumping into customer conversations with information about products he had just learned about. It was really fun to see him ask questions to tie together the lessons he learned growing up on his family’s farm, in the classroom at NDSU, and in his internships with us,” says Aaron. “He’s the kind of person that you can put in a truck with anyone and he’s going to fit in, keep the conversation flowing, and ask insightful questions. When we would ride in the truck together, Grey would ask very detailed and challenging questions, which helped me sharpen my own sales skills.”

A closer look at the North Dakota Division’s approach to internships

The Nutrien Ag Solutions North Dakota Division Warehouse is in a unique geographic position in Mapleton, ND. It’s closely situated to nearby agriculture communities but also falls within a 10-minute drive of the North Dakota State University Campus, making the warehouse an ideal location for college students looking to gain professional experiences while in town over the summer.

Grey is the latest in a line of NDSU students to fill one of the internship slots available over the summertime in the division. Since 2012, the Mapleton Nutrien Ag Solutions location has gained quite the reputation in offering a flexible workplace for interns that’s willing to adapt to their schedules, ideal for students balancing athletics or summer courses.

“On our team, we really made a shift in 2012 to focus on creating a winning culture. We wanted to attract people to our teams that shared our values of hard work, dedication, and coming together to succeed as a team. Our internship program became a major focus area as part of this mindset shift,” says Matthew Glessner, North Dakota Division Manager.

Other NDSU football players such as Brian Schaetz and Jake Kubas, who is now a Guard for the New York Giants, also completed summer internship roles with Nutrien Ag Solutions. Aaron Steidl also came to Nutrien Ag Solutions for a summer internship while playing football at NDSU. Following the internship, Aaron officially joined the Nutrien team in 2019.

“Aaron was a natural leader on the football field during his time at NDSU and he’s a natural leader here in his role at Nutrien Ag Solutions. The skills that he’s gained over the years have made him a clear mentor for our division’s interns and he’s been critical to the continued development of our internship program,” says Matthew.

As part of Aaron’s influence on the internship program, he focuses on curating an experience that meets students’ needs while also providing them with practical hands-on learning opportunities.

“Students are in a stage of life where they are starving to learn and they’re eager to gain practical experience. We’re providing them with an opportunity to get out in the field, participate in conversations with customers, take part in scouting, or ride along with other members of our team to see what a day in the life of this career path looks like,” says Aaron. “We’ve been lucky over the past few years, and we’ve had interns that are very engaged, asking great questions along the way, and just soaking up all the information available to them. It’s fascinating to see how much these students grow as professionals over the few months we have with them over the summer.”

Interested in exploring internships and early career opportunities?