Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Air Products first quarter earnings release conference call. Today's call is being recorded at the request of Air Products. Please note that the presentation and the comments made on behalf of Air Products are subject to copyright by Air Products and all rights are reserved. Beginning today's call is Mr. Eric Guder. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Lisa. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Air Products first quarter 2025 earnings results teleconference. This is Eric Guter, Vice President of Investor Relations. I am pleased to be joined today by Melissa Schaefer, our Chief Financial Officer, and Sean Major, our Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary. On today's call, I'm also pleased to welcome Air Products Chairman of the Board, Wayne Smith, and Eduardo Menendez, Air Products' new CEO, effective tomorrow, February 7, 2025. Please turn to slide number two, and let me now turn the call over to Wayne for a few brief remarks.

Thank you, Eric. Good morning and welcome, everyone. Air Products' annual meeting of shareholders was held exactly two weeks ago, and five new directors were elected to our board. The reconstituted board met immediately, quickly coalesced, worked intensively, and made several key leadership decisions. First, I'm honored to have been elected as chairman of the board of Air Products, where I've served as a director since 2021, following my career in the chemicals industry, which included 11 years in industrial gases. Second, I'm honored to be working with our new vice chairman, Dennis Riley. Dennis had a tremendous career in the industrial gas industry, leading Praxair as CEO. Prior to that, Dennis held executive roles at DuPont and Conoco in industries which are significant consumers of industrial gases. Finally, and most significantly, I'm very pleased to introduce our new CEO, Eduardo Menezes, who is on the call today. Eduardo brings more than three and a half decades of international experience in all key sectors of industrial gases. At his last position, he was EVP of Linde for Europe, Middle East, and Africa, with responsibility for operations in more than 40 countries, over $8 billion in sales, and more than 18,000 employees. He's lived and worked around the world. We all look forward to working with him, taking air products forward, and maximizing value for shareholders. Let me now turn over the call to Eduardo to briefly introduce himself.