Carriage Services, Inc.

good day and thank you for standing by welcome to the carriage services second quarter 2023 earnings conference call at this time all participants are in a listen only mode after the speaker's presentation there will be a question and answer session to ask a question during the session you'll need to press star 1 1 on your telephone you will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised to withdraw your question please press star 1 1 again please be advised that today's conference is being recorded I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Steve Metger, President.

Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our second quarter results. In addition to myself, on the call this morning from management are Mel Payne, Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors, Carlos Quesada, Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors, and Kian Gramaya, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. On the Carriage Services website, you can find our earnings press release, which was issued yesterday after the market closed. Our press release is intended to supplement our remarks this morning and include supplemental financial information, including the reconciliation of differences between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Today's call will begin with formal remarks from Mel, Carlos, Kion, and me, and will be followed by a question and answer period. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during this call, we'll make some forward-looking statements, including comments about our business and plans, Forward-looking statements inherently involve risks and uncertainties and only reflect our views of today. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, factors identified in our earnings release as well as in our SEC filings, all of which can be found on our website. Thank you all for joining us this morning, and now I'd like to turn the call over to Mel.

Good morning, everyone. I'm excited to be with you this morning as we kick off our first earnings call since the announcement of our succession plan on June 22nd. As most of you know, we've been working on this CEO succession plan for more than two years, and the thoughtful investment of time and preparation is paying off, which is evidenced by the seamless transition that has occurred since our announcement. I have also been hard at work on my continued rehabilitation following my stroke and continue to be encouraged by my progress. I recently graduated at the top of my class, which is all about being the best, from an intense 12-week program that has me more motivated, energized, and passionate about what we are doing and where we're going than ever before. While I meet with our strategic vision and principles group leadership team regularly, I look forward to spending even more time with them and focusing on the job I enjoy the most, which is serving as a mentor to Carlos, Steve, and Kian. As a co-founder and largest shareholder of Carriage, I'm pleased to report that Carlos and Steve continue to exceed my exceedingly high expectations as they focus on their new roles. Together with Keon, this executive leadership dream team has been working closely together to lead the continued evolution and maturation of Carriage, which the three of them will talk more about in detail this morning. The alignment of this team together with their talent has never been stronger. and the execution of our clearly defined strategic vision has never been more compelling. We appreciate your interest and courage and for taking the time to listen this morning. I will now turn this call over to Carlos for more color on a really good quarter of performance.