NV5 Global, Inc.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss NV5's financial results for the second quarter 2021. Joining us today are Dickerson White, Chairman and CEO of NV5, Edward Kottispody, CFO of NV5, and Richard Tong, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of NV5. I would now like to turn the call over to Richard Tong.

Thank you, Operator. Welcome, everyone, to NV5's second quarter of 2021 earnings call. Before we proceed, I would like to remind everyone that today's discussion points contain forward-looking statements about the company's future business and financial performance. These are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements are included in today's presentation slides and our reports on file with the SEC. During this call, GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed. A reconciliation between the two is available in today's earnings release and on the company's website at www.nv5.com. Please note that unless otherwise stated, all references to second quarter 2021 comparisons are being made against the second quarter of 2020. In this presentation, MP5 has included certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined in Regulation G promulgated under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. The non-GAAP financial measures included in this presentation are adjusted earnings per share, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA margin. NV5 provides non-GAAP financial measures to supplement GAAP measures as they provide additional insight into NV5 financial results. However, non-GAAP measures have limitations as analytical tools and should not be considered in isolation and are not in accordance or a substitute for GAAP. In addition, other companies may define non-GAAP measures differently, which limits the ability of investors to compare non-GAAP measures of NV5 to those used by peer companies. A webcast replay of this call and its accompanying presentation are also available via the link provided in today's news release and on the Investors section of the company's website. We will begin the call with comments from Dickerson Wright, Chairman and CEO of NV5, before turning the call over to Edward Kodispody, Chief Financial Officer, for review of the second quarter 2021 results. Dickerson Wright will then provide closing comments before we open the call for your questions.

Dickerson, please go ahead. Thank you, Richard, and thank you to everyone who is joining us for NV5 second quarter 2021. 2021 conference call. Let's start by turning to slide five. We are pleased to announce a record performance in the second quarter, delivering the highest gross revenues, net income, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EPS since our inception. As a result of the NV5 business model, we generated 180 million in revenue, 34 million in adjusted EBITDA, and $1.34 of adjusted earnings per share for the quarter, exceeding analysts' expectations. GAAP earnings per share increased 153% from $0.36 per share in Q2 2020 to $0.91 per share in Q2 2021, an increased share count of approximately 15 million shares compared to 12.6 million shares in Q2 2020. Adherence to our business model resulted in margin improvement due to our focus on high growth, high margin businesses, and our continued scaling of the service platform. which we will further discuss in slide seven. Our cash position continues to strengthen with approximately 113 million in cash on hand. It goes without saying all of our employees contribute to these record results for NV5. Our backlog and pipeline of opportunities identified across all of our verticals, including business that were impacted by the COVID pandemic, such as industrial real estate transactions, We're strong, and we anticipate this continuing throughout the balance of the year. As is everyone, we are also monitoring developments in the Federal Infrastructure Bill, which would also provide tailwinds for our business. We strengthened our environmental health sciences vertical in Quarter 2 with the acquisition of PES Environmental. We also have multiple potential acquisitions currently in due diligence. We continue to maintain a robust M&A pipeline. Consistent with our acquisition strategy, we are targeting companies with high-growth, high-margin service offerings and firms that have a high barrier to entree. This will strengthen our platforms. ES was our fourth acquisition of 2021. Based upon the strength of the M&A pipeline, we anticipate additional acquisitions in the second half of 2021. As a result of our record performance in the second quarter and the momentum that we see entering the second half of the year, we are raising our guidance for 2021. We have raised our gross revenue guidance from between $695 million and $720 million to a low of $705 million to $727 million, increased our GAAP EPS guidance to between $2.45 a share and $2.84 per share, and increased our adjusted EPS guidance to between $4.20 a share and $4.55 per share. Please turn to slide six. NV5's positive adaptation to uncertain market conditions resulted in business acceleration, and we anticipate our strong performance to continue through the second half of the year. We saw increased volume in our northwest and southeast infrastructure businesses due in part to our ability to provide design work remotely in New York City and increased transportation infrastructure business in the southeast. Our testing and inspection and consulting vertical grew, and we expanded our traffic service group from just the southeast to a nationwide platform. Utility services continue to be one of our fastest-growing sectors as utilities expanded investments in LNG capacity, grid monetization, reliability, and fire mitigation. Our geospatial volume improved in Q2 2021, and we secured a number of awards in the commercial, state, and local government groups. That continued improvement in the federal government sector in the second half. Finally, we brought more of our work in data acquisition and analytics in-house, reducing the use of sub-consultants, resulting in lower gross revenues and increasing net revenues. Our energy efficiency and international businesses delivered excellent results in the quarter, with 93% total growth and 23% organic growth versus the second quarter of 2020. Our environmental vertical grew 71% when compared to the second quarter of 2020, And our environmental transactions business delivered the strongest quarter in its history, which reflected a 131% increase over quarter to 2020. The acquisition of PES Environmental strengthens our environmental compliance capabilities, particularly in water. We've seen improvements in the hospitality, education, industrial segments that our building businesses supports. and saw increases of 52% for sustainability service and 39% for commissioning services over quarter two last year. Our mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire protection design business improved despite supply chain disruptions. Going to slide seven, we have highlighted our business model, which is built upon four pillars that drive our growth and margins, which exceeded the industry averages. This unique business model allows NV5 to adapt to changing market conditions and continue our growth trajectory. The first pillar is our focus on high growth segments, targeting segments with rapid growth, such as utility services, infrastructure, and ESG, which result in NV5's increased market share taken from our competitors. The second pillar refers to our high margin service mix, High-margin offerings such as terrestrial and oceanographic geospatial technologies and subscription-based energy efficiency services complement our traditional engineering compliance services and drive margins that exceed those of other firms in our space. A third pillar of our business model is mergers and acquisitions. Mergers and acquisitions continue to play a vital role in our growth strategy, and the maturity of our platform allows us to be selective in the acquisition targets that we choose to pursue. We focus solely on those companies that will strengthen our platform and operate in higher barrier to entrees sectors. The fourth pillar is scale and synergy. The integration of our acquisitions allows us to fully extract synergies of newly acquired companies through cost efficiencies of our shared service model and commercially through a single NV5 brand. Cross-selling across verticals allows us to bring work in-house at higher margins than subcontracting. It enables communication across verticals to create a sense of inclusion across the organization. Technology also provides synergies. Our IT systems allow us to work remotely, limiting geographic restrictions. One result of this investment is the ability to offshore geospatial data analytics and MEP design to improve margins. Resources can also be shared across geographies, helping to maximize utilization and support continuity of operations by allowing us to adapt to changing market conditions. On slide 8, we have highlighted some of the macroeconomic factors that affect our business, including public sector funding. The $350 billion for state, local, tribal, and territorial governments in the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act is helping to replace public revenue lost during COVID. Grant applications opened in May for this stimulus funding and will help to shore up the budgets of many municipalities and state governments. As for the proposed infrastructure bill, we are monitoring the developments in positioning NV5 to benefit from a bill if it is signed in the coming months. would certainly be a tailwind for our business. And the major markets that we serve, including infrastructure and utilities, continue to be strong. Our municipal and state government clients have healthy budgets and should benefit from additional federal funding. Investments in aging infrastructure are not discretionary, and environmental concerns such as the fire mitigation continue to grow in importance for utilities and public sector clients. The federal government has made progress in moving forward with the backlog of contract awards that were delayed due to the change in administration. In particular, we expect federal geospatial awards to increase in the second half of the year. In the private sector, industrial real estate transaction services are performing at a record level, and we have also seen increase in activity in this segment for our buildings and testing, inspection, and consulting business. I will now highlight PES expansion of our environmental platform on slide 9. PES environmental engineers and environmental scientists provide site assessment, water resources, environmental permitting, and compliance and litigation support services. PES also brings additional capabilities in water resources, groundwater, and stormwater management. Water has become a growing part of our business, and we expect to continue growing our water capabilities in the core business and geospatial businesses. We believe that environmental sustainability growth opportunity for NV5. PES also strengthens our capabilities in ESG. On slide 10, I will touch on our dedicated focus on ESG. Environmental sustainability is a common thread that runs through all of our verticals. We have completed more than 300 sustainability-centered projects, from renewable energy and energy efficiency to sustainable infrastructure. NV5 has also been an active member of the Harvard Graduate School of Design Advisory Board for Sustainability and Infrastructure. We've been members for 10 years, and our employees maintain licensing and accreditation to stay ahead of the curve on sustainable solutions to serve our clients. From a social perspective, NV5 has a strong focus on undertaking projects that benefit the communities where we live and work. As an engineering and consulting business that supports the infrastructure that improves lives, one can say that all of our business is ESG related. However, our governance makes diversity, inclusion, and integrity fundamental to our values, and we believe in driving change through this action. Our code of business conduct and ethics drive the importance of ethical behavior throughout our organization. The focus on diversity and inclusion is driven by management. and our leaders drive initiatives to support our talented and diverse workforce. We are aligned. We also support a number of organizations, including the National Society of Black Engineers, to support students who aspire to enter the fields of engineering and technology. On slide 11, you will see we have built a strong backlog of 603 million. This backlog only reflects a rolling 12 months and it represents over 80% of our revenue guidance for our 2021 budget. This is a healthy backlog for the remainder of 2021 and entering 2022. We secured a number of significant awards in the second quarter, including utility services and infrastructure and geospatial and buildings and program management. And the pipeline is strong for additional large wins in the second half of the year. On slide 12, I will give an update on our cross-selling program. Year-to-date, we have completed 14.1 million in cross-sales between verticals, and we're on track to meet our 2021 goal of 31.2 million. We've seen an increase in our cross-selling of technology services, such as drone-based geospatial to support our surveying groups, and an increase in cross-sales between the core business and geospatial business. We also anticipate additional cross-selling opportunities from our newly acquired firms. On the right-hand side of the slide, I will highlight some of our recent key wins. Our LNG business continues to secure significant contracts. And last month, it won a $16 million contract to upgrade the liquefaction infrastructure at a Northeast Utilities liquefied natural gas facility. Our utility services protocol also secured a $9 million in surveying contract permitting and technical services to support the construction and maintenance of the California utilities' electric and gas infrastructure. Our geospatial group won a forestry contract in Alaska to provide imagery of two national forests, and the city of Fresno in California awarded NV5 a $6 million contract to provide a program management services for a major connector road and interchange in California's Central Valley. Our international business has performed very well in 2021. securing a $5 million contract by the Hong Kong Hospital Authority to provide engineering services for hospitals and outpatient centers in the Hong Kong Island West region. I will now hand the presentation over to our CFO, Ed Kodispody, to provide an overview of our Q221 performance.