Orbital Energy Group, Inc.

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Orbital Energy Group's third quarter 2021 conference call. At this time, participants are in listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow management's remarks. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, John Beisler, Investor Relations.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Orbital Energy Group's third quarter 2021 conference call. Earlier this morning, the company issued a press release for its third quarter 2021 earnings results. A copy of this release and a company PowerPoint presentation are available for download on the events and presentations page of the investor relations section of the Orbital Energy Group website. Speaking on today's call are Jim O'Neill, Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Dan Ford, Chief Financial Officer. Also on the call today is Dick Greisnapp. Today, management will review the highlights of financial results for the third quarter, as well as recent developments. Following the formal remarks, management will answer questions. I would also like to remind everyone that today's call will contain certain forward-looking statements made under the Securities Act of 1933 and Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to vary materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. The company may experience significant fluctuations in future operating results due to a number of economic, competitive, and other factors, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, including, among other things, the company's reliance on third-party manufacturers, supplies, and service providers, government agency, budgetary, and political constraints, new increased competition, changes in the market demand, and the performance or liability of its products, integrated solutions, and services. These factors and others could cause operating results to vary significantly from those in prior periods and to those projected in forward-looking statements. Additional information with respect to these and other factors which could materially affect the company and its operations are included in certain forms the company has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements are based on information available to Orbital Energy Group as of today, and the company assumes no obligation to update statements as circumstances change. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Jim O'Neill, Vice Chairman and CEO of Orbital Energy. Jim, please go ahead.

Thank you, John, and thank you to everyone for joining us this morning. Before we begin, as announced this past Friday, Nick Gronstaff has joined Orbital Energy Group as Chief Financial Officer effective tomorrow, November the 16th. Nick brings over 20 years of experience in the infrastructure services industry, and I'm very pleased to have him join the OEG team. Dan Ford will help transition Nick well into next year. Dan has done a tremendous job for me as CFO. We have been a great team and become greater friends. He is very competent in his job, has a tremendous work ethic, and I couldn't have asked for anything more out of him. He was also very loyal to his employees and all within OEG. As OEG continues to increase in scope, size, and complexity, it is strategically important for the C-suite to reside in one location. which is Houston. Dan will remain in Portland, where he has a strong foundation of friends and family, and I wish him much success in his future endeavors. With that, our third quarter results reflect our continued progress in transforming into a completely focused infrastructure services platform. Our acquisition of Gibson Technical Services, or GTS, as OEG's telecommunication platform, is producing immediate results with a pair of major project awards from Charter Communications and one from TEC, a Mississippi-based provider of broadband services. In the quarter, we also expanded GTS's scope of offerings through the acquisition of EMCO, a full-service telecom engineering and network design company, and Orbital Solar Services was awarded its second utility-scale solar project, which will move to construction early next year. In our orbital power services sector, Orbital Power Inc., or OPI, experienced a 138% increase in revenue quarter over quarter due to the continued demand by investor-owned utilities and electric cooperatives for our electric distribution services. We are rapidly establishing a presence in the electric utility infrastructure market as a Tier 1 quality contractor by safely providing services that meet or exceed our customers' expectations. Additionally, OPI were among the first responders to the Hurricane Ida disaster that hit southern Louisiana over the Labor Day weekend. Approximately seven electric distribution crews were deployed with no access to food, water, or shelter and worked under adverse conditions for several days. We are very proud of the ability for our crews to accomplish a significant amount of work restoring power to affected areas without any safety incidents. A heartfelt thank you from me and the OEG leadership team for your efforts and fortitude to carry out your job responsibilities safely in the aftermath of a major hurricane event. Eclipse Foundation Group, a provider of Drill Peer Foundation's primarily for electric transmission structures and substations, mobilized its third foundation crew in the quarter, and the outlook for continued growth is encouraging as its project opportunities expand and the company builds its brand in the electric utility service market. OEG's telecommunication platform, Gibson Technical Services, revenues increased 22% in the quarter, primarily due to the increase in 5G upgrade activity. providing services to rebuild existing telecommunications facilities by adding additional fiber and installing 5G radios to increase the capacity and speed of cellular services. We are largely providing this service to customers in indoor environments, predominantly large venues, while continuing to construct 5G facilities in outdoor environments on a lesser scale. During the quarter, GCS began to mobilize on our previously announced RDOF program awards from Charter and TEC in four states, Louisiana, Alabama, North Carolina, and Mississippi. These multi-year contracts required upfront costs to secure property, to stage equipment, offices, and the hiring of staff and contractors to begin construction. In Virginia, we conducted the walkout of the existing telecommunication infrastructure necessary to facilitate design of their state-funded rural broadband program. These mobilization costs, coupled with the delays in RDOF project construction start dates due to multiple supply chain issues, including local jurisdictions being overwhelmed with required permitting and utility locate requests, coupled with the lack of construction materials, resulted in a shortage in margins for the quarter. Additionally, the aftermath of Hurricane Ida caused project delays in Mississippi and Louisiana as resources were utilized to restore services due to damaged infrastructure. However, the positive news is that supply chain issues are beginning to abate in the fourth quarter. And as we enter 2022, we expect Ardolf project construction to be at full throttle with little or no delays. The EMCO tuck-in acquisition into GTS has resulted in immediate synergies, resulting in a significant increase in engineering, design, and drafting of cable television and RDOF programs. As a result, in the quarter, EMCO added more than 200 additional workstations and 200 new employees, increasing to 400 new employees by year-end. In 2022, EMCO will expand to provide wireless and utility-scale solar engineering and and design services, which will further enhance both synergies and increasing profitability for OEG and its shareholders. Overall, revenues for the third quarter more than doubled sequentially. We recorded a quarterly gross profit for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2020 and increased our backlog by $115 million to $411 million, which is a leading indicator towards our path to profitability. I will cover our segments in more detail, but first, I would like to turn this call over to Dan Ford, who will review our financial results for the quarter.