Charah Solutions, Inc.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Charisolution, Inc.' 's fourth quarter 2020 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After today's presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will be given at that time if you would like to ask a question. I would now like to hand the conference over to Steve Brim, Vice President of Legal Affairs and Corporate Secretary for Charisolutions. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We appreciate your participation in our fourth quarter 2020 earnings call, and we look forward to sharing our prepared remarks and answering your questions. We hope that you have had a chance to review the press release we issued yesterday after the market closed. If not, you can find the press release as well as a supplemental investor presentation you may follow during our prepared remarks on the investor section of our website at www.shara.com or ir.shara.com. Joining me today on our call are Scott Sewell, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Roger Shannon, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. Following their prepared remarks, we will conduct the customary question and answer session. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that our remarks regarding Shara Solutions include statements that are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from those disclosed in our earnings press release and conference calls. Those risks include, among others, matters that we have described in our earnings press release as well as in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and our annual reports on Form 10-K. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. During this conference call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. We provide reconciliation to the nearest applicable GAAP measure in our earnings press release and supplemental presentation. Again, thank you for joining us today. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Scott Sewell, our President and CEO. Scott?

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. It's great to have you join us for our earnings call today. I'm happy to be speaking with you again and providing an update on our year-end performance. This morning, I'll briefly review our 2020 accomplishments, provide an update on current business developments, and update you on our pipeline of opportunities. I'll then transition the call to Roger to review our financial performance during the year and an update on our 2021 guidance. As highlighted in our press release, we had a record year in 2020 with $715 million of new awards. Our new awards for 2020 were up approximately 66% from the $430 million of awards booked in 2019, our previous record year. We saw new business award activity pick up significantly during the fourth quarter of 2020, and that momentum has accelerated as we begin 2021. From the fourth quarter through today, we have converted just over $1 billion of our pending bids pipeline into new long-term awards, including $433 million of new business awarded in the fourth quarter of 2020, underpinned by the Dominion Energy Beneficial Use Project. During the first three months of this year, we have received additional awards totaling more than $500 million. including two long-term remediation projects for a large southeastern utility. These new business awards will position Charo Solutions for strong growth in revenue, earnings, and cash flow in 2021 and beyond. We continue to believe that the increasing emphasis at the federal and state levels on environmental remediation and the growing demand for fly ash and concrete will continue to create opportunities for Charo Solutions' one-stop platform for remediation and compliance services, byproduct sales, fossil services, and environmental risk transfer services for years to come. I hope you have seen our inaugural Environmental, Social, and Governance report that was issued last week. As a sustainability leader in our utility services for over 30 years, we are very pleased to be able to showcase the full story of Charter Solutions' outstanding environmental stewardship. We believe Shara Solutions is truly one of America's best examples of resource conservation and recovery through the beneficial recycling of coal ash, ash impoundment closure services, and the remediation and redevelopment of land for community and commercial use. Sustainability is a Shara Solutions core value, and our focus is on developing innovative solutions to complex environmental issues for the betterment of the planet. We believe that reporting on sustainability is critical for our stakeholders' growing need for information, and we are pleased to begin this vital initiative. Together, Charlotte Solutions Management and employees are united in our firm commitment to environmental, social, and governance responsibilities, and we demonstrate that commitment daily. We also see increasing opportunities to provide creative solutions to utilities' environmental remediation and compliance challenges by expanding our ERT services. We continue to perform very well on our first ERT project with a utility in the Upper Midwest. We also recently announced the acquisition of the Texas Municipal Power Agency's Gibbons Creek Steam Electric Station and Reservoir in Grimes County, Texas. and that we intend to begin remediation and redevelopment of the property immediately. Leveraging our innovative ERT services, we will be responsible for the shutdown and decommissioning of the coal power plant and performing all environmental remediation work for the site landfills and ash ponds. We plan to redevelop the property in an environmentally conscious manner that will expand economic activity and benefit surrounding communities through job creation, promotion of industry, support of the tax base, as well as restoring the property to a state that will enable it to be put to its best potential use. We believe our ERT offerings deliver turnkey environmental solutions to utilities while providing attractive growth opportunities and returns to SHARA solutions. In keeping with our objective to expand our byproduct sales opportunities and our commitment to improving the land and air through environmentally responsible recycling of fossil power generation byproducts, we are happy to announce that we have rebranded our innovative MP618 ash beneficiation technology as EnviroSource ash beneficiation technology. Through our remediation and compliance work and using our EnviroSource technology, we are able to recover and recycle ash in an environmentally sustainable way to produce concrete to help satisfy the growing infrastructure demands. Ash recycling preserves natural resources while dramatically reducing the need for landfill space. Our EnviroSource technology improves fly ash quality so that significantly more tons of ash can be recycled and marketed for use. This technology notably reduces the environmental carbon footprint created by Portland cement that would otherwise be emitted into the atmosphere and provides a superior product at lower costs. Substituting recycled ash to make green concrete also makes it a stronger product for use in bridges, highways, and buildings. We remain optimistic about our byproduct sales opportunities driven by expectations for greater infrastructure spending. And we are excited about our ability to leverage the EnviroSource ash beneficiation technology to expand the reach of our multi-source materials network and add new customers. As we have discussed on previous calls, states are becoming more prescriptive regarding the means and methods of ash pond remediation. In addition, we believe that the Environmental Protection Agency under the new administration will accelerate its efforts on its regulatory requirements, beneficiation guidelines, and ash pond impoundment closure deadlines. We continue to see these movements as positive for SHARO solutions. As the partner of choice for solving customers' most complex environmental challenges and as an industry leader in quality, safety, and compliance, we are ideally situated to help power producers deliver on their impoundment closure requirements and needs. Our ability to continue to add new customers and new awards with our power generation partners during these uncertain times speaks to our team's resiliency and the essential nature of our services. The longer term nature of our new awards establishes a more predictable revenue stream for years to come. We are working hard to convert future opportunities into more wins that will further add to a predictable revenue stream and earnings growth. We are building on the successes announced over the past year. The future remains bright for our business and we expect to continue announcing more new awards in 2021. Following our 2020 and year-to-date 2021 wins, we still have over $3 billion of pending proposals. We are in contract negotiations on several projects and we expect to make additional official award announcements soon. We also have visibility into an additional $7 billion of opportunities that we intend to submit proposals on between now and the end of 2022. I'm very proud of the way we have partnered with our customers to maintain service continuity safely. And I want to thank, again, our dedicated Shara Solutions employees who are working every day to help our customers address their environmental and recycling needs. we remain committed to keeping our people safe, supporting our customers, and growing the business. With that, I'll turn it over to Roger, who will discuss our fourth quarter and 2020 financial results and our outlook for 2021.