2026 Rising Stars in Banking: Sam Androli

Young Minnesota banker returns to hometown, helps area’s farmersHow does a small, rural bank grow organically by $26 million in just two years? Hard work explains part of it, and recent college graduate Sam Androli has brought a lot of that to a Minnesota ag bank located halfway between the Twin Cities and Rochester..Androli is a 2023 ag business graduate of the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. In February 2024, he joined the staff of Security State Bank of Wanamingo, Minn., as agriculture relationship manager. At year-end 2023, before Androli joined the bank, it had assets of about $87 million. At the end of first quarter 2026, the bank had grown by an astounding 30 percent to $113 million.Scott Peterson, bank president and CEO, said some of that growth is attributable to Androli. “Sam has been working very hard to bring in younger customers and integrate the bank into ongoing farm succession plans by fostering relationships with the next generation of farm ownership,” Peterson said. “He has targeted customers of various sizes up to $4.5 million and secured customer relationships the bank has been targeting over the course of two-to-three years.”Despite his short tenure, Androli has already been promoted to vice president of ag lending. Androli’s ability to build relationships and his determination to help clients find efficiencies are a couple of the reasons he is being recognized as a BankBeat magazine 2026 “Rising Star.”Androli grew up in a quintessential Midwest community of about 1,100 people in southeastern Minnesota on the family farm that raised crops and livestock. Not surprisingly, his first bank account was with a community bank, and when he graduated high school, he received three scholarships from community organizations, including his bank, Security State Bank of Wanamingo.Even then, the bank was playing the long game with Androli. “The bank kind of watched him develop and grow. They saw a path forward with him,” Peterson said. While they wanted him as an employee, they waited to see whether he would come back to Goodhue County after college. While the bank never made an overt offer of employment, the bank took a softer approach and told him that he would make a great loan officer.Peterson said the community needs people like Androli, whom he described as a “rock” with “good foundations and values.” As a younger person who saw a bit of the world before coming back home, Androli and others like him “can hold others together” and help keep people in the community. “In a rural area, that’s very important,” Peterson said. “Sam can really bring that back to us. For the community to continue or grow, that’s the bedrock of the next generation coming.”As for Androli, he said moving back home was always part of the plan to continue helping on the farm with his dad and brother. The scholarships and support he received from the community “helped sway my decision,” he said. “Moving back home was also a little bit easier, knowing where you came from; it’s a pretty strong community, willing to help each other out.”Androli said he was proud to take on the role of ag relationship manager to work with people and help where he can. But he did add it has been a bit of a learning curve.“At a smaller bank, there’s not just one job—you kind of do a little of everything and help out the best you can,” he said, although the biggest lessons have been around underwriting and loan structuring to “help out farmers the best we can without [farmers] getting over-extended.”Peterson highlighted Androli’s willingness to gain specialized knowledge across diverse ag segments. “He works a lot of our dairy farms [which is] vastly different from just a rotational crop farm,” he said. He “has really [taken] the reins on some of our dairy customers” to “help those clients gain efficiencies in their operation.”“He is extremely intuitive on what it takes to farm,” Peterson said. He is “able to help some farmers with their profitability, alternative practices, alternative cropping. His personality, his demeanor—he can go cold call on a prospect and have a conversation. He just has that knack to talk and carry a conversation anywhere with anyone.”As for Androli, he enjoys being out of the office visiting and learning. “Everybody farms just a little bit differently,” he said. No two farms are alike, which gives him the opportunity to see different methods and tools he may be able to work into solutions later.One challenge to being so young is that he spends a lot more time listening than talking at industry conferences, which he hastened to add “is not a bad thing,” but does give him opportunity to learn from others’ years of experience. He also said there are upsides to his age. “The thing I always try to tell people, I may be a little bit younger than most bankers are—[but I have] more energy to go a little bit further to help [clients] out.”Peterson emphasized the value of someone like Androli, who is young and tenacious, not only to the bank but also to the community. “The bank is a pillar—doesn’t matter if it’s us or another bank in another community. [We] need folks like Sam to support both sides—the bank and the community. ... Find those rocks and get them to come on board.”