Willdan Group, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Wilden Group second quarter fiscal year 2021 conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Al Kashchok, VP Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Jenny. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Wilden Group's second quarter 2021 earnings call. Joining our call today are Tom Brisbane, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Kim Early, Chief Financial Officer, and Mike Beaver, president. The call today builds on our earnings release we issued after market closed today. You may find the earnings release and the Will Dan investor report that accompanies today's call in the investor section of our website, willdan.com. Management will review prepared remarks, and then we'll open the call up to your questions. Statements made in the course of today's conference call, including answers to your questions, which are not purely historical, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties, and it's important to note that the company's future results could differ materially from those in any such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially and other risk factors are listed from time to time in the company's SEC reports, including but not limited to the annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended January 1, 2021. The company cautions investors not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements made during the course of this conference call, which disclaims any obligation and does not undertake to update or revise any forward-looking statements made today. In addition to GAAP results, we'll then also provide non-GAAP financial measures that we believe enhance investors' ability to analyze the business trends and performance. Our non-GAAP EBITDA, and adjusted EPS. We believe net revenue, defined as contract revenue, net of subcontractor services and other direct costs, allows for an improved measure of the revenue derived from the work performed by our employees. Adjusted EPS and adjusted EBITDA are supplemental measures of operating performance, which removes the impact of certain expense items from our operating results. Gap reconciliation for each non-gap measure is included at the end of the earnings release we issue today. After Tom's prepared remarks, Kim will provide a review of our financial results. We will then take your questions. Tom, over to you.

Thanks a lot, Al, and good afternoon, everyone. During our call this afternoon, I will provide an update on the current operating environment, and Kim will review our second quarter financial results. Our second quarter results met our expectations, given we are still in transition from the pandemic. The restart of LADWP was June 21, 2021, our largest contract. We also have PUC approvals on all California IOU programs. Company-wide, we are not under any COVID restrictions that impair our ability to do work. Of course, the ramp-ups are challenging, but we are completely back to work. We have been pleasantly surprised by how well our engineering segment has done during the pandemic. We expected some effect, but we have seen steady performance, and currently there is growing demand. California construction is accelerating, and our municipal customers are trying to catch up. In our energy segment, we have resumed all programs and have approvals on the total $786 million California IOU program. The programs and status are PG&E, Pacific Gas and Electric. The new construction program valued at $98 million. It covers all new commercial facilities. We have PUC approval, a notice to proceed, and the duration is five years. For PG&E's public programs, the value is at $9 million. It covers K-12, all government facilities, federal, state, local. We have PUC approval, a notice to proceed, and the duration is four years. For San Diego Gas and Electric, the small commercial program, its value is $42 million. It's for all facilities under 20 KW. We have PUC approval, a notice to proceed, and the duration is three years. For SoCal Gas, we have the large commercial program valued at $12 million. We have PUC approval, the notice to proceed, and its duration is four years. For Southern California Edison, the one and the last one we've been waiting for, the large commercial program valued at $387 million, the industrial sector valued at $155 million, and the multifamily program valued at $82 million. We finally received PUC approval on all three programs. Utilities have committed to a notice to proceed by September 20th. The duration for all three programs is five years. So, we have a big challenge before us delivering these massive programs. We're confident based on our nationwide experience, lessons learned over the past 15 years, data management capabilities, exceptional people, experienced incumbent teaming partners, and the desire to be the best firm the confidence for excellent performance. We expect $50 million in additional revenue over the next 12 months and $10 million in the fourth quarter of the year. Turning to the LADWP program, we originally expected this program to resume in March. It is our largest program. We are excited to report that the small commercial direct install program finally resumed on June 28th of this year. The program is ramping quickly. Given the limitations in place related to the pandemic, over the past 15 months, LADWP did not spend budget for energy efficiency services. We are in discussions with our client to discuss how to spend these program dollars over the near term, which would be additional to our baseline program pre-COVID. In our first month of operations on LADWP, the month of July, we nearly met our pre-COVID run rate. This is an excellent startup. Thank you to all the staff that have been preparing for the restart and the staff that are returning from furlough. We expect this team to meet the challenges of a rapidly growing program. We are encouraged by the growing pipeline. GLODAN's diverse capabilities are driving more and more larger opportunities. Our pipelines and backlogs are at record highs, and the market is growing. In the last couple months, asset managers have announced a massive climate-related fundraising to invest in the energy transition. All things zero carbon, such as renewables, wind and solar, battery storage, EV charging, distributed energy resources, are the words of today. Brookfield just announced a $7 billion fund, TPG 5.4, Copenhagen and infrastructure partners 8.4 billion, BlackRock 4 billion. What's behind this? Expectation of returns in this space is growing. Development risks are better understood. The policy signals are aligning and we foresee a future where just about everyone as a net zero target on energy. So there's an awareness that there is a much greater total addressable market. It appears climate related investing has made a big step change up from just a specialty market. Wildan is well positioned for this future. We navigated well through the pandemic. We did not lose any key capabilities or contract value. Now we must deliver and get back to the growth rates that our shareholders expect. We are emerging a stronger post-pandemic company. Thank you to our shareholders and employees for their patience and understanding. We will now turn the call over to Kim to discuss our financial results. Kim?