SPAR Group, Inc.

and welcome to the SPAR Group First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on a touch-tone phone. to withdraw your question. Please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sandy Martin with three-part advisors. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for SPAR Group Inc.' 's conference call to review its first quarter 2026 results. Joining me on the call today are SPAR's Chief Executive Officer, William Lanais, and the company's Chief Financial Officer, Stephen Hennin. This call is also being webcast and can be accessed through the audio link on the events and presentations page of the investor relations section at investors.sparring.com. The information recorded on this call speaks only as of today. So please be advised that any time sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the date of any replay or transcript reading. I would also like to remind you that the statements made in today's discussion that are not historical facts, including statements, expectations, future events, or future financial performance or forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements, by their nature, are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. Please refer to today's earnings press release for our disclosures on forward-looking statements. These factors and other risks and uncertainties are described in detail in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Management may also refer to non-GAAP financial measures, and reconciliations to the nearest GAAP measures can be found at the end of our earnings release. Spar Group assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements publicly. Finally, the earnings press release we issued earlier is posted on the investor relations section of our website at sparinc.com. A release copy was also included in an A case submitted to the SEC. Now I would like to turn the call over to the company's CEO, William Lenane.

Thank you, Sandy, and good morning. And thank you for your interest in Spar Group and for joining us today. After our prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. Before turning to our strategy and results, I want to address an important development. Earlier this month, we reached a settlement agreement with Bob Brown, one of the original co-founders and former CEO of Spar. This resolution formally closes a chapter in the company's history and allows us to move forward with full alignment, constructive engagement, and a singular focus on creating shareholder value. We appreciate Bob's decision to support Spar's current direction and to move beyond legacy matters that do not reflect the progress of today's company. With this behind us, the entire organization is solely focused on execution, client success, and long-term value creation for shareholders. Spar today is a fundamentally different company than it was just a few years ago. We are a North American-focused, best-in-class retail service platform with deep expertise in core merchandising and on-demand execution. We serve leading retailers and consumer packaged goods companies across the United States and Canada. And our differentiated model combines highly skilled people with technology-driven tools to deliver real-time, measurable outcomes. Importantly, we are not constrained by legacy labor-hour-based models. We are outcome-focused, data-informed, and built to move at the speed of today's retail. The work our team completed in 2025 laid the foundation for Renewed Spar, a leaner, more disciplined, margin-focused organization designed to scale with operating leverage. Turning to our first quarter results, we delivered several important milestones. We returned to positive EBITDA, We achieved gross margins of 22.3%, reflecting the strength of our evolving business model. This margin performance demonstrates the benefits of a shift towards higher margin recurring merchandise revenue supported by our technology-enabled workforce. Notwithstanding a 10% revenue decline in the quarter, this represents an inflection point driven by our deliberate reduction of lower margin project-based remodel work. We continue to see progress in our core merchandising business with US merchandising revenue up 5% and Canada returning to growth with a 3% increase. SG&A was delivered at 1.9 million below the normalized average quarter of 2025, demonstrating the significant restructuring benefit of the work done in the second half of 2025. We remain focused on achieving our medium-term target of approximately 25% gross margins over the next 18 to 24 months. Our financial strategy is clear. Drive up gross margins, control SG&A, and grow to top line via recurring revenue streams, all by relentlessly focusing on our core merchandising business. This aligns our business and financial strategic objectives. Based on current trends, we expect the second quarter to be substantially stronger on a sequential basis as momentum continues to build. Our growth strategy is deliberate and focused. We are prioritizing higher margin core merchandising programs while simultaneously expanding new service offerings that leverage the infrastructure we already have in place. Each incremental client's scope of work or agreement improves the economics of our fixed cost base, supporting margin expansion over time. This is a model designed for profitable growth, not growth for growth's sake. In March, we announced a partnership with Repositrak, which underscores our belief that the future of retail execution is not technology alone, nor labor alone. It is the intelligent combination of both. Our partnership combines proprietary technology with our flexible workforce platform to enhance inventory accuracy, reduce out-of-stocks, and improve on-shelf sales. AI and advanced analytics can identify problems, but people still need to execute solutions at the shelf edge in real time across thousands of locations. This is where SPAR excels. Retailers and brands do not need more dashboards. They need issues resolved, standards maintained, and sales protected. Our platform identifies exactly where action is needed, and SPAR's national on-demand workforce takes the action. We help keep shelves full, stores organized, and products visually merchandised without adding incremental store labor costs. At a time when retailers are under intense pressure to protect revenue and reduce operational complexity, this capability matters more than ever. After Steve covers our detailed financial results, I will share additional thoughts. Steve?