Willdan Group, Inc.

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

Thank you, Jenny. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Wildan Group's third quarter 2021 earnings call. Joining our call today are Tom Brisbane, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of 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 stock information section of our website, willdan.com. Management will review prepared remarks, and then we will 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 and 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 filed for the year ended January 1st, 2021. The company cautions investors not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements made during the course of this conference call, willed and 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 measures include net revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EPS. Tom, I'll turn the call over to you.

Thanks, 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 Q3 financial results. Our third quarter results were ahead of expectation. LADWP start date was June 21st. Then we had three months of ramp-up in our results. We also received a notice to proceed on all our California IOU, that's the investor-owned utility contracts, with the largest being Southern California Edison on September 15th. We're in the process of ramping or starting all of our California utility contracts. We have no contracts that have any COVID-19 restrictions other than state and local health and safety requirements. All are fully authorized to proceed and funding is in place. We expect meaningful revenue from the California IOU contracts in Q1 of next year as we continue the ramp-ups through the fourth quarter. Our engineering and consulting segment continues to deliver steady performance and growing demand. We have grown organically at 5% in 2021 in part due to the collaboration efforts with our energy segment. Our software business at Interval Analytics sold two new small licenses in Q3. Software revenue is still small overall at about $10 million in 2021, but it has become a meaningful profit contributor to Wildang. Additionally, in Q3, we successfully launched our internally developed software platforms. Viewpoint. Viewpoint contains the best of Wildan's proprietary technology on a single platform to manage utility programs. Approximately 10% of our workforce is now software programmers, and this will further add to Wildan's technology differentiation in the market. We have a big challenge before us, delivering these massive California IOU programs. We know we can do it. We are confident based on our nationwide experience, lessons learned, over the past 15 years, data management capability, exceptional people, experienced incumbent teaming partners, and the desire to be the best firm in the nation. We expect less than $10 million in the fourth quarter as we get started with the new California IOU program. Turning to the LADWP program, the team delivered strong financial results. I'm happy to report that as of last week, one month into the fourth quarter, operations at LADWP have returned to our pre-pandemic run rate. As we discussed last quarter, LADWP did not spend a budget for energy efficiency services for approximately 15 months. We continue to advance discussions with our clients on how to invest these unused program dollars over the near term, which would be additional to our base program. Thank you to all the staff who have been instrumental in the restart and the team that has developed our Viewpoint online platform to expedite work and to improve efficiency, as well as lower our overall costs related to this program. We expect the LADWP team to meet the challenges of a rapidly growing program. We are encouraged by our growing list of opportunities, the diversity of our capabilities, and the cross-selling collaboration has provided a contract capacity for double-digit organic growth over the next three years. Expanding markets such as electrification as facilities attempt to reduce fossil fuels or grid modernization as utilities tackle the problems of distributed energy resources and resiliency as the load grows because of the transportation fleet going to EV. As we have said, nuclear and fossil fuels are going away. The electric load is widely expected to reverse course and increase. This disruption is creating opportunities for . Today, our pipeline and backlog are at record highs. I want to share some of the new business wins. We expect to issue a press release for the majority of these awards after the client approves the details, and we can then share with the marketplace. But following our example, a $90 million three-year design-build contract to reduce infrastructure-related greenhouse gases in New York City. This new first-of-its-kind program introduces innovative electrification measures to specifically lower the carbon footprint and improve infrastructure at public housing facilities. Will Dan's technical approach was selected competitively above all others and has application across the United States. Another one here. is a new five-year, $24 million energy efficiency program for a large mid-Atlantic investor-owned utility. We beat a major competitor to grow into this new geographic territory. We have also been awarded additional work with multi-family housing in New York City. This work, again, is challenging, but it is substantial and addresses equity as we move forward. We're working on a decarbonization plan for New York City buildings. to meet their near and long-term climate goals. As a result, we'll be working on a long-term energy plan for the entire city. We have been working on a climate plan for New York State. The point we are making is the leaders in climate action, that being California, New York, and Massachusetts, are entrusting will then with their transition to a clean energy economy. In summary, we are emerging a stronger, post-pandemic company. We did not lose any capabilities or contract value. We actually gained substantial market share. Now we must deliver and get back to the growth rate that our shareholders expect. Thank you to our employees and our shareholders for their continued support. I will now turn the call over to Kim to discuss our financial results. Kim?