Core Molding Technologies Inc

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Core Molding Technologies Fiscal 2026 First Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist for pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. As a reminder, this event is being recorded. I now turn the conference over to Sandy Martin, three parts advisors. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the Core Molding Technologies conference call to review our fiscal 2026 first quarter results. Joining me on the call are the company's COO and incoming president and CEO, Eric Palamacki, and CFO, Alex Panda. Dave Duvall, current CEO, will also be on the call for the Q&A session, and this call is being recorded. This call will also be webcast and can be accessed through coremt.com via an audio link on the investor relations events and presentations page. Please be advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the date of any replay or transcript reading. Statements made in today's discussion that are not historical facts, including statements or expectations or future events or future financial performance are forward-looking statements and are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are uncertain and outside the company's control. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied, and today's earnings release includes our forward-looking disclosures. Risk factors and other uncertainties are described in detail in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Core molding technologies assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements publicly. Management will refer to non-GAAP measures, including adjusted EPS, adjusted EBITDA, the debt-to-trailing 12-month EBITDA ratio, free cash flow, and return on capital employed. Reconciliations to the nearest gap measures are available at the end of our earnings release, which has been submitted to the SEC on Form 8K. Now I would like to turn the call over to Eric Palamacki. Eric?

Thank you, Sandy, and good morning, everyone. Our first quarter of 2026 was a busy one. While product revenue was lighter, our team was hard at work executing our growth strategy, delivering $17 million in additional new wins relocating five of nine presses into our new facility in the Monterey, and posting our best gross margin quarter in over a decade. The must-win battle focus on our Mexico expansion is on track, and we continue to execute our flawless launch playbook across 50 already-won projects. As this is Dave's last earnings call as CEO, I want to take a moment to recognize and thank him for his tremendous impact on Core Molding Technologies. Working alongside Dave has been a privilege. He has been instrumental in shaping our company culture and in my growth as a leader. His leadership, integrity, and steady hand help set the direction of this company, and his mentorship through challenges, milestones, and countless everyday conversations has left a lasting impression. Dave, thank you for your trust, your support, and for setting an example of excellence. As I fully transition into the CEO role this month, We have taken deliberate steps to reinforce operational leadership and continuity, backfilling my COO responsibilities. We have split the COO role into two positions, underscoring our commitment to promoting from within and ensuring organizational readiness. Arnold Alaniz now leads our Mexico operations, and Mike Gayford oversees the U.S. and Canada operations. Both leaders exemplify CORE's four values, being a learning organization, having the courage to challenge, showing mutual respect, and operating with transparency. Speaking about operations, I want to once again recognize our teams for their disciplined execution and exceptional service to customers. In the quarter, we achieved 99.1% on-time delivery and a quality performance of 52 parts per million. In our business of making large, complex composite assemblies, our ability to be trusted with major product launches is a key value proposition and a major reason why Core wins repeat business or why Core is able to grow our wallet share. These results demonstrate our focus on standard work, consistency, and operational excellence. With Arnold and Mike leading our operations, I'm able to spend more time with our commercial and financial leaders, or as we like to say, our two Alexes, Alex Vance, Core's Chief Commercial Officer, and Alex Panda, our Chief Financial Officer. If you're looking for me, chances are I'm with one of the Alexes focusing on growing the company. Turning to a first-quarter performance, we are very pleased with the continued momentum of our Invest for Growth initiatives, which generated $17 million in new business wins. We are also pleased to report gross margins exceeding 20%. While this performance reflects strong execution, Alex will provide more color on our full-year margin outlook in a few moments. The $17 million in new business awards included a significant multi-year battery energy storage system project. These battery energy storage systems are becoming more widely used for reducing power loads, coupling with renewable power generation, and adjusting for grid load changes or disruptions. Within transportation, we continue to support specialty electric truck platforms, serving route-based fleets such as postal vehicles, trash trucks, and electric buses, many of which are owned by municipalities. Some of the newest battery enclosure opportunities we are currently working on are tied to grid reliability applications, including grid hardening and load shedding. While battery adoption has moderated in consumer EVs, demand is expanding rapidly in grid infrastructure, and we're engaged with customers and industry partners to capture that growth. To support our sales pipeline, we've added one business development manager during the first quarter and are planning two additional hires this quarter. As part of the power sports market, we continue to expand our proprietary skid plate technology, which we developed approximately two years ago and launched in the third quarter of 2025. New wins this quarter include a prominent OEM traditionally known for agricultural and farm equipment, further broadening the application of this technology. As previously discussed, we are seeing meaningful signs of industry recovery, with major OEMs launching new product features that include additional core molding components across watercraft, skid plates, and cargo boxes. The first quarter marked the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth in our power sports market, with a year-over-year growth of 46%. We remain focused on scaling the adoption of Core's SMC offerings and top coat capabilities, which enable us to serve as a preferred supplier of structural molding compound, as well as deliver finished, installation-ready systems. These value-added capabilities allow us to participate more broadly across the supply chain, supporting applications in construction equipment, agricultural machinery, aerial lifts, and other industrial markets. Our top coat paint capability differentiates CORE by enabling installation-ready systems that reduce total cost and improve manufacturing efficiency for our OEM customers. Together, these investments expand our technical capabilities deepen customer integration, and support durable, higher-value revenue streams that align our long-term growth and margin objectives. All of Core's proprietary compounds and SMC materials remain on track and are expected to be in production during the second half of 2026. As we previously discussed, we invested $6.5 million in 2025 to expand our operations in Mexico, including a greenfield facility, and we plan to invest an additional $19 million this year. These projects are ahead of schedule, but all work in Monterey is expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter. We view Monterey region as a long-term secular growth market strategically positioned closer to key customers. Our expansion in Matamoros includes the installation of ultra-large 4,500-ton compression molding presses in Matamoros, continuing through the second half of 2026. That is 9 million pounds of pressing force per press, or 18 million pounds that will be operational by year-end. We hope you're able to join us in September for our Investor Day, where we'll be able to get up close and see how these massive composite molding systems create 100-plus pound parts for sleeper roof assemblies. Looking ahead, we expect truck market volumes to begin recovering in the second half of 2026, and when combined with the $63 million in new wins secured in 2025, which will launch throughout 26 and early 27, we maintain visibility into total product revenue that could exceed $300 million in 2027. As a sole supplier on long-term OEM programs, we benefit from long-term customer relationships that provide strong forecasting visibility while recognizing that macro conditions can influence time. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Alex to review financials in more detail.