J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc.

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After this speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 in your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations, Mr. Brad Delco. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Before I introduce the speakers, I would like to take some time to provide some disclosures regarding forward-looking statements. This call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as expects, anticipates, intends, estimates, or similar expressions are are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on J.B. Hunt's current plans and expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause future activities and results to be materially different from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. For more information regarding risk factors, please refer to J.B. Hunt's annual report on Form 10-K and other reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now I would like to introduce speakers on today's call. This afternoon, I'm joined by our CEO, John Roberts, our CFO, John Kulo, Shelly Simpson, Chief Commercial Officer and EVP of People and Human Resources, Nick Hobbs, Chief Operating Officer and President of Contract Services, Darren Field, President of Intermodal, and Brad Hicks, President of Highway Services. At this time, I'd like to turn the call to our CEO, Mr. John Roberts, for some opening comments. John?

Thank you, Brad, and good afternoon. Thank you for joining our call today. We all thought 2020 was a remarkable year in our history, but I'll consider 2021 as a good contender for being equally challenging. And in the midst of perpetual challenge, we have continued to see our collective resiliency and strength carry us during these unique times. Our teams have adjusted and adapted to multiple scenario changes impacting our customers' ability to thrive. In 2021, our leaders made bold calls to increase investments in our people, our technologies, and in expanding our fleets across our asset base. We have long been committed to following a disciplined approach for all capital allocations and believe these investments are good for our customers in the long term. I can't say enough about the way every one of our team members has risen to the opportunities presented in this current environment. Accordingly, we have done exhaustive research on where we stand regarding being competitive in total compensation for our people as we move into 2022. Our team leaders have unilaterally approved comprehensive changes to our base wages, incentive compensation, and benefits. Increasing our awareness for how we approach attracting and retaining the best talent is critical to our mission of creating the most efficient transportation network in North America. The overall growth we experienced in 2021 is unprecedented, once again revealing the necessity of our services and confirming the approach our people take in solving our customers' challenges. We added 1,778 tractors to DCS, 6,284 containers of intermodal with 531 net tractor ads, and 2,605 trailers for our 360 box program and highway. We continue to work strategically with our equipment providers on build and delivery plans as we head into 2022. With the growth coming out of 21, we anticipate ongoing demand for all types of power and trailer equipment. We also look forward to working with our rail service providers to find improvements across all aspects of intermodal service, capacity management, and utilizations. Lastly, I will comment on our efforts relating to sustainability. Over the past several years, we have worked to better understand, communicate, and advance our positioning in this important area. While we have seen good progress and have been recognized by many third parties for our efforts, we also believe we have important work to do. We are committed to our mission to create the most efficient transportation network in North America, and we are also committed to being transparent on the progress of our sustainability journey. This concludes my remarks. Our executives will provide more specific information, so I would like to turn the call over to our CFO, John Kulo.