Weston Trenner
Dec. 18, 2023
Weston Trenner is an Agribusiness Economics & Management (ABEM) Fall 2023 graduate. Weston has completed his Bachelor’s degree along with a semester-long internship with local Arizona Feeds. The internship allowed Weston to develop new transferrable skills and explore new avenues of career possibilities. Weston shares his “in-depth look at the livestock feed industry” and his new interests that were not possible without this inside experience. Read here about Weston’s practice of many business aspects, from customer service to procurement, to inventory and warehouse management for a Tucson family-owned agribusiness.
Weston’s semester-long internship as a warehouse staff involved varied day-to-day duties such as loading feed for buying customers, presenting and explaining feeds for purchase, operating equipment, loading/unloading semi-trailers, building orders to send for delivery, and organizing the workspace. Weston shared that he had background knowledge of different feeds available for cattle due to his family’s history of having cattle, but he was soon to learn that the agriculture and livestock industry entails so much more.
He went on to explain, “The biggest eye-opening experience for me was working with customers. Every job I had before this internship was in the cattle business, so having customers to work with was a very new concept for me.” Weston found that becoming patient with the customer, listening to the problem, and maintaining the thought that most of the feed store customers knew what they wanted and what they were doing helped him build customer service skills most. He mentioned, “There is certainly a reason why it is called customer service and my interpretation of that would be, that I accept the employment of a job that serves a customer and their needs, so at the end of the day, I need to make sure it is the best experience for that person. Interacting with new personalities and people grew my professionalism, especially with communication.”
He then went on to discover that the Arizona Feed store Tucson location was predominately a warehouse for other stores that stretch around the state. That is where Weston improved and applied his agribusiness management skillset regarding how to build orders to supply other feed store locations, receive orders, operate equipment properly, and manage warehouse space. Weston said, “I learned how to properly build pallets of feed, count quantities efficiently, and align the correct paperwork.”
Meanwhile completing all of the day-to-day duties and tasks, Weston was also able to attend small seminars given by feed sales reps from Nutrena, Cargill, Purina, Nutrisource, and Victor, which supported him in becoming well-versed in the products and any future customer needs. Additionally, Weston applied skills learned in his AREC courses, for example, procurement and inventory management.
Weston summed up his experience with Arizona Feed with, “I was able to show up every day excited with an open mind to learn and gain transferrable skills that will allow me to be a more well-rounded employee for whoever may be my future employer.”
Now at the end of his undergraduate career with AREC, Weston has a good outlook for his future in the agriculture and livestock industry, “My knowledge of livestock feed and supplements has grown greatly and is something I am immediately able to incorporate into my life, as my family runs a cow/calf operation in California. This internship has allowed me to grow and gain confidence in my knowledge, which excites me for my future endeavors.”