The Eastern Company

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Eastern Company fourth quarter fiscal year 2024 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. If anyone should require operator assistance during this conference, please press star zero on your phone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Marianne Barr, Treasurer of the Eastern Company. Ma'am, the floor is yours.

Good morning, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning for a review of the Eastern Company's results for the fourth quarter and full year 2024. With me on the call are Ryan Schroeder, Chief Executive Officer, and Nicholas Vallejos, Chief Financial Officer. The company issued an earnings press release yesterday after the market closed. If anyone has not yet seen the release, please visit the investor section of the company's website www.easterncompany.com, where you will find the release under Financial News. Please note that some of the information you will hear during today's call will consist of forward-looking statements about the company's future financial performance and business prospects, including, without limitation, statements regarding revenue, gross margin, operating expenses, other income and expenses, taxes, and business outlook. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or trends to differ significantly from those projected in these forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to review or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the call. For more information regarding these risks and uncertainties, please refer to risk factors discussed in our SEC filings, including Form 10-K filed with the SEC on March 11, 2025 for the fiscal year 2024. In addition, during today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures that we believe are useful as supplemental measures of Eastern's performance. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or in isolation from GAAP results. A reconciliation of each of the non-GAAP measures discussed during today's call to the most directly comparable GAAP measure can be found in the earnings press release. With that introduction, I'll turn the call over to Ryan.

Thank you, Marianne, and good morning to those of you that are joining by phone as well as those participating via the web. It is truly a pleasure to be here today. I'd like to begin my first call as Eastern CEO by briefly introducing myself to our shareholders and the investment community. As many of you know, I joined Eastern in November of 2024 with a 25-year track record of industrial manufacturing. My experience includes leadership positions at Plastilite, a global leader in acrylic and polycarbonate sheet products. IMI Norgren, a leading manufacturer of motion and control products. and Parker Hannafin, a world leader in motion control products. Most recently at Plastoid, as CEO, my responsibilities encompassed more than 120 product lines and 2,000 employees worldwide. I'd like to share a few early observations that I've seen at the Eastern Company. When I joined Eastern, I visited its facilities and held a series of in-depth conversations with both customers and employees. Based on those interactions, I saw a promising a promising company with many talented and committed employees in its three core businesses. I was also impressed with the strong brands and first-class products each business has, which clearly resonated with customers. In addition, I saw a company that overall, while making progress and improving operating efficiencies, reducing costs, and strengthening its gross margins, there's still a ways to go. At the same time, I saw a compelling opportunity to strengthen Eastern's business model, drive revenue, and take the company to a higher level. Simply put, my mandate is to grow faster and harder. I strongly believe that by creating a leadership team that combines a strong entrepreneurial spirit with an action-oriented approach and a laser focus on real-time results, we'll be able to improve Eastern's results dramatically. I'll share the initial steps in my playbook for optimizing results. operations, achieving long-term growth and increasing shareholder value with you after Nick reviews Eastern's most recent financial results. Nick, over to you.