DLH Holdings Corp.

Good day and welcome to the fiscal 2021 first quarter earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on a touchstone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chris Witte, Investor Relations Advisor. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. On the call with me today is Zach Parker, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Kathryn JohnBull, Chief Financial Officer. The company's earnings release and PowerPoint presentation are available on our website under the Investor page. I would now like to provide a brief safe harbor statement which is also shown on slide two of the presentation. This call may include forward-looking statements that relate to the company's outlook for fiscal 2021 and beyond. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from these statements. Please refer to the risk factors contained in the company's annual report on Form 10-K and in our other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements. On today's call, we will be referencing both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of our non-GAAP results to our reported GAAP results is included in our earnings release and in the investor presentation on DLH's website. President and CEO Zach Parker will speak next, followed by CFO Kathryn JohnBull, after which we'll open it up for questions. With that, I now like to turn the call over to Zach. Please go ahead, Zach.

Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter conference call. Let me begin with the recognition of the excellent and courageous work done by our DLH employees worldwide in executing the mission of our customers. Many of our employees attend a largely attended workplace on a daily basis, braving the challenges imposed by the pandemic. And we're truly indebted to the service of our folks. As well as the close control and safety provisions provided by our customers for those working at our customer sites and then by our leadership team and our COVID-19 task force for those of our employees that work in our existing facilities. We began fiscal 21 with solid results, and I do, as I indicated last time, remain very optimistic about the year ahead. Starting with slide three, I'll first provide a high-level overview of our financial performance and some color on the outlook for the balance of fiscal 2021. As I indicated, the year started off strong, and I'm pleased to say with revenue of $57.9 million, and operating margins of 6.3%. The company's top line benefited from almost $7 million in contribution from IBA, as Kathryn will review in a moment, while overall profitability increased even as some of the pandemic-related headwinds continued. Due to ongoing travel restrictions, as noted in the past, Certain programs saw less activity and, of course, subsequent billings, but we believe that such challenges should lessen in the quarters to come. We posted net income of $1.8 million, or 13 cents per share, and our backlog was $665 million at the end of the quarter, providing strong revenue visibility. Most importantly, we're seeing a very active proposal bid environment, and as I'll describe more in a moment, we're pleased with the wide array of opportunities that have been open to us this fiscal year. Overall, I think the company performed well in Q1 and that we're on a path towards a sustained solid performance throughout the fiscal year. A quick brief note also that as we ended the quarter, We have satisfied the majority of our transition and integration requirements associated with the IBA acquisition that started on day one of the quarter. And it's gone really quite well. Now turning to slide four, I'd like to update our investors on DLH's business outlook following the recent political changes in Washington. As we said last quarter, the outcome of the election was not expected to materially impact the overall stability of our end markets or demand for the services we provide. We continue to maintain strong alliances with a customer set that is supported very strongly on both sides of the aisle, as well as the White House. However, at this juncture, we anticipate that the new administration's spending priorities may result in even greater opportunities for us to grow long-term due to the ongoing focus on improving technology associated with healthcare solutions. These include the Department of Defense, the Defense Health Agency, the Veterans Administration, and several agencies within the Health and Human Services agencies. What's different is that our company can now provide an even broader and deeper range of services than ever before. As we continue to integrate our acquisitions, develop unique value propositions, leveraging tools and technologies to differentiate us as we look to grow our opportunities organically. We continue to drive key technology enhancements and modernizations and to support the fight against COVID-19. We've been using this depth of our credentials and expertise to continue to address a large number of opportunities associated with the pandemic and bringing together core service offerings in a way that transcends anything that we've been able to do in the past. Furthermore, the federal government, including the key agencies that we serve, continue to increase their focus on digital transformation Artificial Intelligence, and the move to a secure cloud environment. The pace of bidding activity has clearly picked up. We think in part due to the fact that we actually had a budget signed at the end of the calendar year, as opposed to continuing to operate on CRs or continuing resolutions. We also believe that this solidly positions us to have access to pursue more contracts over the course of the next 12 to 18 months. including the majority of which will be new business opportunities. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to offer opportunities for us to pursue largely in our public health and life sciences arena, but we also find opportunities within our DOD and veteran arena as well. These opportunities should help us continue our track record of growing the top line and most importantly supporting the nation's fight against this virus. Some of our recent awards in this arena are already positively impacting the outlook for fiscal 21 and we anticipate pursuing additional contracts dealing with both the vaccine rollout, therapeutics, telehealth applications and of course clinical trials for the safety and efficacy of investigational therapeutics. All in all, I remain upbeat about the coming year and the performance of DLH during these challenging and uncertain times. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Kathryn JohnBull. Kathryn.