MIND Technology, Inc.

Greetings. Welcome to the Mind Technology first quarter 2024 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A 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, Mr. Ken Denard. Mr. Denard, you may begin.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning and welcome to the MIND Technology Fiscal 2024 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. We appreciate all of you joining us today. With me are Rob Capps, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mark Cox, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before I turn the call over to Rob, I have a few items to cover. If you'd like to listen to a 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 at mind-technology.com, or you can listen via recorded instant replay by phone until June 21st. 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, Wednesday, June 14th, 2023, and therefore you're advised The 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 DSCC, including in its annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended January 31st, 2023, 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. So now, without further ado, I'd like to turn the call over to Rob Capps. Rob.

Okay. Thanks, Ken. And as we did last quarter, we've prepared an updated presentation covering our discussion this morning, and we've posted it to our website. I invite you to refer to that at your leisure. Today, I'll begin by discussing our first quarter 2024 results, as well as our current view of market conditions. Mark will then provide a more detailed update on the financials. I'll then wrap things up with some remarks about our outlook. We were very pleased with the first quarter results and the start of our fiscal 2024, which we believe demonstrate our ability to capitalize on mine's favorable market position to continue delivering sustainable, top-line improvement. Our financial and operational performance remains strong in the quarters. as expected, resulting in much improved financial metrics across the board when compared to the year-ago period. Revenues were up 39% year-over-year, and despite our robust fourth quarter results, we also grew our revenue sequentially. Additionally, we achieved a much improved gross profit margin of 43% during the quarter. Most importantly, though, we produced positive operating income. Once again, we also produced positive adjusted EBITDA, The fourth quarter was the first time since we transformed the company that we achieved this, and we're proud to continue that trend in the first quarter. As anticipated, we executed our backlog, which resulted in significant top line revenue of $12.6 million. Although we generated substantial revenue in the quarter, we maintained and even grew our backlog. As of April 30, our backlog of firm orders stood at $22.6 million, compared to $13.4 million at the same time a year ago, and 20.7 million at the end of last quarter. We believe this trend is indicative of the favorable market conditions and the differentiation of our product lines, and we're confident that this momentum will carry throughout the remainder of fiscal 2024. We're pursuing a number of other orders and are poised to be successful on many. We hope to be in a position to announce some of these in coming weeks. We remain encouraged by the favorable macroeconomic trends coupled with strong customer engagement and order activity. We believe that the current market environment is advantageous for MIND. We continue to see substantial tailwinds in each of our three key markets, exploration, defense, and survey, and our team continues to find innovative ways to adapt our products to meet the evolving needs of our customers. Currently, we're seeing the biggest order growth in our CMAP segment, which is benefiting from the favorable fundamentals within the exploration and alternative energy markets. This growth is supported by the 19% sequential increase in CMAP revenue that we generated during the first quarter. We expect to build on this momentum going forward. We intend to leverage the sustained customer demand and interest that we're seeing in all of our key markets to drive further growth in our book of business in the coming quarters. As announced in early April, we elected to defer the payment of our preferred stock dividend for the first quarter of fiscal 2024. I know that our liquidity position has been a concern for many of you. Although we've seen improved liquidity as a result of the higher revenue levels throughout the last couple of quarters, we believe it was prudent to retain the cash flow from these activities at this time to complete upcoming and other expected orders. While there are more stringent working capital demands that come with increases in business, I believe we've made progress with respect to liquidity, but it remains an area of focus for us. We also are aware of the continued listing standards notice that was sent to us by NASDAQ. We're working through and analyzing options to regain our compliance. With that, now I'll let Mark walk you through our first quarter financial results in a bit more detail.