MIND Technology, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Mind Technologies first quarter fiscal 2022 conference call. At this time, all participants will be in 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. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Ken Denard. Thank you, Ken. You may now begin.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the MIND Technology Fiscal 2022 First Quarter Conference Call. We appreciate all of you joining us today. Your hosts are Rob Capps, Co-Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, and Guy Mauldin, Co-Chief Executive Officer and Executive Vice President of Marine Systems. Before I turn the call over to management of the normal housekeeping details to run through, If you'd like to listen to the replay of today's call, it'll be available for 90 days via webcast by going to the investor relations section of the company's website, and that's at mine-technology.com, or there'll be a recorded instant replay feature until June 10th. Information on how to access the replay features was provided in yesterday's earnings release. Also, information reported on this call speaks only as of today, Thursday, June 3, 2021, and therefore you're advised that time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the time of any replay listening or transcript reading. Before we begin, let me remind you that certain statements made by management during this call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and include known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, many of which the company is unable to predict or control that may cause the company's actual future results or performance to materially differ from any future results or performance expressed or implied by these statements. These risks and uncertainties include the risk factors disclosed by the company from time to time in its filings with the SEC, including its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended January 31, 2021. Furthermore, as we start this call, please refer to the statement regarding forward-looking statements incorporated in the press release issued yesterday. And please note that the contents of our conference call this morning are covered by these statements. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Guy Malden. Guy?

Thanks, Ken, and good morning, everyone. We would like to thank you for joining us today for our fiscal 2022 first quarter conference call. I'll begin by making some general comments about the first quarter. Then I will hand the call over to Rob to discuss our financial results and address our general market outlook. The first quarter of fiscal 2022 was marked by some turbulence as both we and our customers began to experience some supply chain disruptions. Despite the rapidly improving COVID-19 situation in the United States, some parts of the world, particularly Asia, continue to experience associated disruptions and difficulties. While the recovering global economy is clearly supportive of our long-term goals for the company, we can expect some bumps along the road. For instance, the global supply chain challenges I just mentioned can and have had an effect on our customer spending plans. We all have experienced increasing lead times and shipping times for some components and subsystems which have, in turn, caused some delays in orders and deliveries. When we were planning our production schedule for the current year, we were able to get the pipeline flowing for certain key items, such as PCBs and various other components. However, with so much activity getting underway simultaneously around the world, we are seeing some disruption to our supply chain. We think these situations are temporary, but they do insert an element of risk to our business, particularly with regard to the specific timing of activity. Another macro factor that has continued to weigh on our business is the lingering impact of COVID overseas. Specifically, some countries, particularly in the Asia Pacific region, are still dealing with restrictions on business activity and access to outsiders. This has had an impact on our operations in Singapore and Malaysia. Like the global supply chain disruption, we believe this issue will also mitigate over time as vaccinations increase worldwide, but it does present a near-term challenge for us. Nonetheless, we saw some activity shift to the right during the quarter due to these issues and a variety of other reasons. Looking at our first quarter results, revenues were up on a year-over-year basis with consolidated revenues up by nearly 32%. On a sequential basis, consolidated revenues were down 35%. Our backlog remained strong at $11.1 million although down from the record 14.2 million we had at the end of Q4. That said, as mentioned in our press release, we are expecting to add a couple of fairly significant orders in the coming weeks. But overall, the supply chain and component shortages, combined with some orders being delayed to later this year, have temporarily hampered our visibility into near-term conditions. Despite challenging conditions, our long-term objectives remain intact. That is, we will capitalize on the explosive growth of the USV and AUV markets by offering comprehensive sensor payloads for these applications. We will address the growing market demand for higher resolution underwater images using synthetic aperture sonar, and we will meet the need for cost-effective anti-submarine warfare and maritime security solutions. By successfully addressing these needs, We believe we will attain our long-term goal of achieving annual revenues of $140 million in the next five years with an EBITDA margin in excess of 20%. With that, let me now turn the call over to Rob.