Nortech Systems Incorporated

Greetings. Welcome to Nortec's first quarter 2023 earnings 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. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Chris Jones, Chief Financial Officer at Nortec. You may begin.

All right. Thanks, Paul. And I'd also like to welcome everyone to today's conference call. Jay is going to begin today's call with a review of our business, current trends, and our strategic planning process. Then I'll review Nortec's Q1 2023 financial results before turning it back over to Jay for his closing comments. And then we will open it up to all of you for questions. Before we continue, please note that statements made during this call and Q&A sessions may be forward-looking regarding expected revenue, earnings, future plans, opportunities, and other company expectations. These estimates, plans, and other forward-looking statements involve unknown and known risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in this call. These risks, including those that are detailed in our most recent Form 10-Q, may be amended or supplemented. The statements made during this conference call are based upon information known by NORTEC as of the date and time of this call, and we assume no obligation to update the information in today's call. You can find NORTEC's complete safe harbor statements in our SEC filings. And with that, I will turn it over to Jay for his opening comments.

Thank you, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us. We're very pleased with our first quarter financial results, including strong year-over-year growth. In fact, for the past eight quarters, Nortec has posted year-over-year quarterly growth in four key metrics, sales, gross profit, gross margin, and EBITDA. Chris will go into more financial details later in the call. During our last quarterly call back in March, I talked in some detail about Nortec's value proposition. For any new listeners today, I'll just touch on a few of the key points. We manufacture low-volume, high-mix electromechanical systems, including complex cable assemblies, printed circuit boards, also known as PCBs, and other components inside boxes or housings. Our solutions provide critical connections with our customers' products, transmitting power and data, and oftentimes both. And in some cases, we manufacture the whole product. We serve a wide range of medical, industrial, and defense firms from Fortune 100 multinationals and OEMs to smaller regional U.S. manufacturers and startups. Geographically, we have successfully expanded our own global footprint over the years to now include the U.S., Mexico, and China. This three-tier cost structure coupled with lean manufacturing principles help keep us cost competitive and responsive to customers around the world. Nortec is a high-touch business. Our skilled team members provide hands-on expertise while also leveraging sophisticated equipment in production and testing. Our people are a key element to Nortec's competitive advantage, and they deserve our deep gratitude and admiration, particularly for their efforts during the pandemic and supply chain disruptions. One of the privileges of being Nortec's President and CEO is the opportunity to meet our people at our locations around the world. Whenever and wherever I talk to Nortec team members, I'm impressed by their strong desire to provide excellence to our customers. Our people are justifiably proud of their efforts and results, and I am very proud of them. Next, I'd like to reiterate the key goals of Nortec's strategic plan, developed and regularly refined by our management team and overseen by our board. Taking care of our people is foundational for all the reasons I mentioned earlier. this care involves ongoing training support recognition and professional development we also want nortec to be a positive influence and contribute in the communities where we operate second we must take care of our customers consistently providing the high quality complex solutions they and in turn their customers rely on we strive for world-class performance levels following well-established quality management systems like ISO 1345 and AS9100, for example. Third, Nortec is carefully investing in strategic innovation, engineering new technologies and products that can uniquely differentiate us to our customers, including advanced fiber optic and the Internet of Things, also known as IoT, solutions. We are in the early phases of Nortec's environmental, social, and governance, or ESG, journey. guided by industry best practices, outside experts, and our board of directors. Our leadership team and board of directors believes executing against select ESG goals will deliver business benefits well beyond compliance and proactively position Nortec for sustained growth with the help and support of our employees, customers, and suppliers. More on that later. The fourth pillar of our strategic plan focuses on our financial results and driving shareholder value. For example, we are pleased that our 16.5% revenue increase during fiscal 2022 exceeded the 9.5% average revenue growth among the world's 50 largest EMS firms, as published last month by Manufacturing Market Insider. For a more in-depth financial discussion, I'll now turn it back over to Chris. Chris?