Bridger Aerospace Group Holdings, Inc.

Good afternoon and welcome to the Bridger Aerospace third quarter 2023 conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Eric Jarrett, CFO. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today. Joining me on the call this afternoon is Chief Executive Officer, Founder, and Director, Tim Sheehy. 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, including expectations regarding financial results for 2023 and 2024. Management cannot control or predict many factors that 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 statement or to make any other forward-looking statement. Throughout this afternoon's earnings release and our call-in presentation today, we refer to non-GAAP financial measures, 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. Thank you for joining today's call to discuss our third quarter results and recent progress, including contract wins, fleet acquisition plans, and the expansion of our aerial firefighting services to new mission-critical areas and geographies. For our third quarter update, the earnings potential of our scooper fleet was on full display. In the third quarter, we experienced the highest level of utilization in the company's history. This drove our record results, including record quarterly revenue of over $50 million and record adjusted EBITDA of nearly $39 million. It was also a record quarter in terms of our territories covered as we flew from east to west coast of Canada and all the way down to Louisiana. This is a testament to the rapid adoption of our initial attack platform enabled by the SuperScooper's superior initial attack capabilities and our industry-leading surveillance technology. With one of the nation's largest aerial firefighting fleets and our longstanding customer relationships with federal and state agencies, we continue to be a beneficiary of the trend for government outsourcing of aerial firefighting services. This quarter, we were awarded a 10-year air attack contract for up to $166 million from the U.S. Forest Service to provide various fixed-wing missions for aerial supervision, incident awareness, fire detection, and reconnaissance. This contract is separate from the previously disclosed contract for the U.S. Department of Interior awarded in July 2023, which included two five-year exclusive use contracts worth up to $24 million each and one culminated contract worth up to $20 million for high-resolution surveillance and intelligence operations using a specialized air attack asset. The award was based in part on the architecture of Bridger's proprietary data platform. As a small business with leading-edge sensor and mapping capabilities and historic contract performance, we are well-positioned to support our federal and state and international alliance in the growing battle against wildfires. Speaking of our fire intelligence assets, in September, we completed the acquisition of Ignis Technologies to expand our wildland fire software offerings. We issued $3 million of restricted stock at the close, and there will be additional contingent earn-out consideration of up to $9 million, also to be paid in restricted shares. IGNIS delivers mission-critical intelligence and technology solutions and maximizes the value of our investments in fire intelligence SaaS assets. Through collaborative development with federal, state, and local fire organizations, IGNIS is developing a pioneering mobile and web platform that elevates firefighter situational awareness, creates an interoperable common operating picture across firefighting units, and produces real-time high-value data in conjunction with our proprietary fire track software. It presents the clearest path to executing on our shared mission to equip firefighters with the critical technology they need to reduce the number of lives, properties, and natural habitats lost to wildfire. We also continue to pursue opportunities to further expand our fleet, both in the U.S. and abroad. As we announced in September, we successfully bid via public tender process to purchase four Canada CL-215T amphibious aircraft from the Spanish ministry. We are working to complete the acquisition process, and we'll have an update soon. While we remain on good terms with Bighorn Airways, we have mutually agreed to terminate the existing purchase and sale agreement, which was announced in July. We remain hopeful that there will be opportunities to reengage in the future. While the wildfire season will always remain unpredictable, we see continued demand for our services and look forward to supporting the needs of our customers. We are also receiving an unprecedented influx of requests from multiple foreign governments for wildfire suppression services. This is due both to the global demand for super scoopers, fed by the limited supply of functional super scoopers, and the heightened awareness of the effectiveness of these purpose-built aircraft. Bridger is taking steps to strategically position its assets to serve these needs and to match multi-continent weather exposure to diversify Bridger's customer base and facilitate year-round firefighting operations. I'll now turn the call back over to Eric, who I'll tell you about our financial performance in the third quarter.