ADDvantage Technologies Group, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Advantage Technologies Group fiscal 2023 second quarter financial results. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star and then zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Brian Siegel. Thank you, and you may proceed, sir.

Thank you, Claudia. Joining me today is Joe Hart, President and CEO, and Mike Rutledge, the company's Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin today's call, I'd like to remind you that this conference call may contain certain forward-looking statements which are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements regarding future events such as the ability to maintain strategic relationships and agreements with certain original equipment manufacturers and multiple system operators, as well as the future financial performance. These statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Participants are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are only predictions and may materially differ from actual future events or results due to a variety of factors. such as those contained in the most recent reports on Forms 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K on file with the SEC. Financial information presented on this conference call should be considered in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes, including the company's press release issued earlier today and included its most recent reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q. The guidance regarding anticipated future results on this call is based on limited information currently available to management, which is subject to change. Although any such guidance and factors influencing it may change, the company will not necessarily update the information, as it will only provide guidance at certain points during the year. Such information is valid only as of the date of this call. During this call, we may also present certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as non-GAAP net income and certain ratios that are used in these measures. In our press release and in the financial tables issued earlier today, which are located on our website at advantagetechnologies.com, you'll find a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures with the closest GAAP financials and a discussion about why we believe these non-GAAP financial measures are relevant. These financial measures are included for the benefit of investors and should be considered in addition to and not instead of GAAP measures. I would now like to turn the call over to Joe Hart, President and Chief Executive Officer of Advantage Technologies. Joe, please go ahead.

Thank you, Brian, and thank you to everyone joining us on the call today. We continue to navigate a challenging environment for both our telco and our wireless segments while laying the groundwork for better days in the future. Both segments of our business were impacted by macro headwinds during the quarter. The results we are reporting today are not what we envisioned, especially for our wireless business. As has been widely reported, several carriers have paused CapEx investments, slowing the deployment of 5G upgrades. We are responding by carefully managing expenses and broadening our offerings to address a wider range of projects. Our wireless segment was hit late in the second quarter by a sudden downturn in 5G-related build activity by a couple of large wireless customers and an overall slowdown in the industry by the national wireless carriers. Construction is expected to pick back up later this year and in 2024, as wireless data consumption and network demand continues to climb at an increasing rate. The wireless industry faces significant change. Several large construction services providers in the industry, companies that have served large carriers in many areas of the country, have failed over the last 12 months. Others are struggling. This has created greenfield opportunities for reliable partners, and we believe we are well-positioned to capture a meaningful share of the near-term CapEx spend in key geographies. Our efforts to expand our addressable market in the wireless segment are accelerating, and under the leadership of Brian Davidson, our new Chief Revenue Officer, We are optimistic that we can secure additional projects from wireless carriers over the next few quarters. Our recently announced strategic partnership with Walker Technical Solutions is making encouraging progress on a significant multi-year program in the wireless space. The program will aid in a carrier significantly increasing its diversity spend and create a new source of revenue to Fulton Technologies for many years to come. We have added key personnel with deep industry experience to lead this important initiative. We're also very encouraged by the federal government's funding of the Rural Broadband Program, BEAD, and the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, known as RDOF. Both programs will provide funding of a few hundred billion in fiber and fixed wireless network investment over the next several years. we are aggressively pursuing opportunities to design and build fiber networks across multiple regions. Compounding the challenging conditions in our wireless segment is continued depressed demand for refurbished solutions through our telco segment. As we discussed last quarter, the rapid normalization of the supply chain over the last few months has significantly slowed demand for our telco business. Companies no longer need to build inventory to account for supply chain challenges and chip shortages. And many customers have significant inventory in-house that they want to work off before resuming purchases. Orders for used and refurbished equipment in our telco segment have been drastically reduced due to the overstocking done in 2022 by our customers. and we have been forced to wait for the burn off of that access inventory by the optical network providers sometime later this year. Simultaneously, we have been methodically reducing our telco inventory levels in light of lower demand. We again lowered our SG&A expenses and we believe that as conditions improve, we can return to profitability as revenues normalize in the wireless division later this year and 2024 construction returns to normal. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Michael Rutledge, our CFO, to provide a more detailed review of our financial results. Michael, please go ahead.