Clearfield, Inc.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Clearfield Fiscal First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. All participants will be in a 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 zero on your telephone keypad. Please also note, today's event is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the floor over to Gregory McNiff, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Joining me on today's call are Sherry Baranek, Clearfield's President and CEO, and Dan Herzog, Clearfield's CFO. As a reminder, Clearfield publishes a quarterly shareholder letter, which provides an overview of the company's financial results, operational highlights, and future outlook. You can find both the shareholder letter and the earnings release on Clearfield's Investor Relations website. After brief prepared remarks, we will open the floor for a question and answer session. Please note that during this call, management will be making remarks regarding future events and the future financial performance of the company. These remarks constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements. It is important to also note that the company undertakes no obligation to update such statements except as required by law. The company cautions you to consider risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements contained in today's press release, shareholder letter, and on this conference call. The risk factor section in Clearfield's most recent Form 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission and its subsequent filings on Form 10-Q provide a description of these risks. Additionally, as announced on November 12, 2025, Clearfield sold its Nestor Cables business. Following the divestiture of Nestor, we are reporting only on the Clearfield segment. Clearfield is reflected as continuing operations, with Nestor classified as discontinued operations and assets and liabilities held for sale for first fiscal quarter of 2026. and all prior periods on our financials. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Clearfield's President and CEO, Sherry Baranek. Sherry?

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss Clearfield's results for the first quarter of fiscal 2026. I'll begin with an overview of the quarter and our strategic priorities, and then I'll turn the call over to Dan to review the financial details and outlook. During the quarter, we saw signs of stabilization and an early rebound in community broadband demand, reinforcing confidence in our long-term outlook. Clearfield continues to operate as the leading provider of fiber management solutions for the community broadband market, guided by a disciplined strategy anchored in our three-pillar framework to deliver better broadband and beyond. This framework remains focused on protecting and strengthening our core business, expanding market share, and selectively extending our technology into adjacent markets. Turning to results, first quarter net sales from continuing operations were $34.3 million, exceeding our guidance range of $30 to $33 million. That outperformance reflected a favorable seasonal product mix and a solid demand across key customer segments. Net loss per share from continuing operations was $0.02. As a reminder, in November we completed the sale of our Nestor Cables business. With this transaction behind us, our focus and portfolio are now fully centered on the Clearfield business and the execution of our core strategy. Following the end of the quarter, we introduced the NOVA platform, a modular, high-density fiber system designed to make building and expanding modern networks simpler. The NOVA platform takes the cassette-based modular design approach that has long defined our success in broadband, and it extends it into new environments, including AI, data center, and edge compute networks. in which we expect our broadband service provider customers to play a key role in future build-outs. This product launch represents an important step in the execution of our Better Broadband and Beyond strategy As networks continue to grow in size and complexity, customers are looking for solutions that reduce installation time and cost, improve day-to-day operations, and scale efficiently as capacity needs increase. While we expect near-term revenue contribution from NOVA to be modest, the platform is strategically important as we focus on early customer adoption and validation. Over time, we expect the NOVA platform to support new applications and customer opportunities particularly as demand for higher density fiber solutions expands across regional data centers, edge facilities, and enterprise environments. Alongside this product momentum, execution across our core business, our core broadband markets, remains steady. Community broadband remains a foundational element of our business. supported by long-standing customer relationships and a portfolio-based approach that emphasizes selling multiple Clearfield solutions across customer deployments. Large regional service providers and MSOs also remain important growth drivers and reflect the flexibility of our platform. In addition, recent acquisition approvals involving large regional customers create a favorable backdrop for continued opportunity. As broadband providers look ahead to their next phase of investment, the BEAD program remains a major area of focus across the industry. We are encouraged by the progress that the NTIA has made in advancing the BEAD program and are pleased with the level of planning and network design activity we are seeing from both current and prospective customers. While we continue to expect BEAD-related revenue contribution in fiscal 2026 to be modest, Service providers are actively preparing for deployment. Customers are working through planning, network design, and vendor decisions, and Clearfield is staying closely engaged to ensure we are ready when funding is released. To support this effort, we are taking a structured and proactive approach with expected bead recipients, focusing on where customers are in their planning process and how we can best support them as these projects take shape. This allows us to allocate resources thoughtfully and to remain aligned with customers as programs move forward. We believe community broadband providers are likely to move more quickly than Tier 1 operators once funding approvals occur. which aligns well with Clearfield's focus and customer mix. However, supply chain constraints of US-made optical fiber that is required under the BABA, the Build America Buy American Act, could restrain near-term deployment. We are working alongside others in the industry to address the issue. Beyond fiscal 2026, we expect V to become a positive contributor with timing dependent entirely on federal funding releases and supply chain constraints. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Dan to review our financials and our outlook in more detail.