Bridger Aerospace Group Holdings, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to Bridger Aerospace fourth quarter and year end 2022 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Eric Jarrett, I apologize, Chief Financial Officer. Thank you, Mr. Jarrett. You may begin.

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us today. Joining me on the call this afternoon are Chief Executive Officer, Founder, and Director Tim Sheehy, and Chief Investment Officer and Director, Vikandra Rudisil. Before we begin, please note that certain statements contained in this conference call that do not describe historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Since forward-looking statements are based on various assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed include but are not limited to those discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, excluding expectations regarding, including expectations regarding financial results for 2023. Management cannot control or predict many factors but ultimately impact future results. Listeners should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which reflect management's views only as of today. We anticipate that subsequent events and developments will cause our assessments to change. However, we undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements or to make any other forward-looking statements. For those joining by webcast, you can follow along with today's presentations. For those listening by phone, you can access today's presentation on our website at www.bridgeraerospace.com under the Investor Relations tab. Throughout this afternoon's earnings release and our call and presentation today, we refer to non-GAAP financial measure adjusted EBITDA. The definition, calculation, and reconciliation to the financial statements of adjusted EBITDA can be found in Exhibit A of our earnings release, which is available on our website. We believe adjusted EBITDA is useful in evaluating our reported results as a supplement to and not a substitute for reported results under GAAP. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Tim.

Thank you, Eric. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome. Happy to be joining everyone today on our first earnings call as a public company. Bridge Aerospace began trading in the NASDAQ global market under the symbol BAER on January 25th. While Erica will discuss our 2022 results in more detail in a moment, since this is our first earnings call as a public company, I'd like to provide a brief overview of Bridger Aerospace and the market opportunity ahead. Prior to founding Bridger, I was a Navy SEAL officer leading operations overseas, coordinating close air support for my ground teams, and was wounded and subsequently discharged. Seeing how effective an air-to-ground task force was together on the battlefield, I looked to bring that same air intelligence capability to bear on public safety tasks in the U.S., We founded Bridger in 2014 with one surplus government plane and a basic sensor system we had developed to map wildfires. Over the first several years, we grew organically until 2018 when we took an investment from Blackstone to grow our business more substantially. Today, Bridger is one of the nation's largest aero firefighting companies. We have a fleet of over 20 aircraft, including six CL-415EAF Super Scoopers, which fight fires by scooping water from nearby lakes, rivers, reservoirs, or oceans and dropping it directly on the fire. As of today, it is the only purpose-built firefighting aircraft in the world. The CL-415 family of aircraft is the safest, most efficient, and most effective aerial firefighting platform in the world. We also have a fleet of surveillance aircraft that do fire mapping with immediate data transfer to enable awareness of what fires are doing in real time. We are well positioned to efficiently address and combat the growing economic and environmental damage caused by wildfires. The need for aerial firefighting services continues to grow as fire seasons are becoming longer and more aggressive, typically mid-April to mid-November. and because the wildland-urban interface is rapidly growing worldwide. At the same time, tanker modernization requirements instituted decades ago to bring aerial firefighting standards in line with 21st century aviation standards significantly reduced the U.S. supply of EU large air tanker aircraft from over 50 in the early 2000s to around 20 today. This has meant that demand is outstripping supply for aerial firefighting capabilities. Related directly to our business, our contracts are with the U.S. Forest Service Department of Interior as well as many state governments and oftentimes last between 5 and 10 years. Most of our contracts include provisions that cover operating costs such as fuel and airport fees, providing protection from commodity variability. This has created very attractive aircraft unit economics, and we are well positioned to drive incremental margins with the future fleet expansion. As we have reported previously, East Cooper can generate between $6 to $11 million in adjusted EBITDA annually. 2022 was a year of preparation for our public debut, as well as adding infrastructure and personnel to support our fleet expansion. Looking out to 2023, we will have six scoopers in operation, the most recent of which was delivered in February 2023, up from four for the majority of the 2022 fire season. As a result, we are well positioned to leverage the infrastructure we put in place in 2022 for significant growth this year. We expect this to lead to significant improvements to revenue, margins, and adjusted evens out, which McAndrew will discuss in more detail later in the call. With that, I will turn it over to Eric, who will talk about our financial performance in 2022.