Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the fourth quarter 2024 HII earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. During the presentation, you can register to ask a question by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you need further assistance, please press star followed by zero. I would now like to hand you the call over to the Vice President of Investor Relations, Christy Thomas. Mr. Thomas, Mrs. Thomas, please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning. I'd like to welcome everyone to the HII first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Joining me today on the call are Chris Kastner, our President and CEO, and Tom Seeley, Executive Vice President and CFO. As a reminder, statements made today that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our actual results to be materially different from future results expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Please see our SEC filings for important factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from expected results. Also in their remarks today, Chris and Tom will refer to certain non-GAAP measures. For reconciliations of these metrics to the comparable GAAP measures, please see the slides that accompany this webcast, which are available on our website's Investor Relations page at ir.hii.com. With that, I would like to turn the call over to our President and CEO, Chris Kastner. Chris?

Thanks, Christy, and good morning, everyone. Today, we released quarterly results that were characterized by steady performance in shipbuilding and strong growth of mission technologies. We saw record first quarter revenues reflecting the continued strong demand from our customers for our products. As we discussed at our investor day in March, we remain focused on delivering the advantage to all our stakeholders, our customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers, and communities. Now let's turn to our results. Record first quarter revenue was $2.8 billion and diluted earnings per share was $3.87 for the quarter, up from $3.23 in the first quarter of 2023. New contract awards during the quarter were $3.1 billion. which resulted in backlog of $48.4 billion at the end of the quarter, of which $27 billion is currently funded. Turning to an update on our shipbuilding milestones, in the first quarter at Ingalls, we completed builders and acceptance trials on LPD-29, Richard M. McCool, Jr., which led to delivery of the ship last month. At Newport News, we delivered the first Columbia-class stern, floated off SSN 798 Massachusetts, and completed acceptance trials for SSN 796, New Jersey, which also delivered in April. We were also awarded the Advanced Planning Contract for CVN 75, USS Harry S. Truman's RCOH, and undocked CVN 74, USS John C. Stennis, as part of its RCOH in April. In addition, last month we announced the first integration of an Australian company into the Newport News Shipbuilding supply chain with the purchase of steel from Australian manufacturer Bisselloy Steel. The steel will be used for training and testing to enable us to begin the qualification process for the incremental steel volume required for AUKUS. This is a critical first step toward an integrated U.S., U.K., Australian supply chain under AUKUS. At Mission Technologies, we saw record first quarter revenue with sales of $750 million, 20% over the first quarter of 2023. In addition to very strong sales growth, Mission Technologies won strategic competitions in the quarter, including a $305 million contract to protect U.S. regional interests in the Republic of Korea, a $74 million contract to research, analyze, and develop enhanced capabilities for vertical launching systems onboard US Navy surface ships and in order to build a Remus 620 unmanned underwater vehicle for an international customer. Now, shifting to activities in Washington for a moment, we were pleased that the fiscal year 2024 budget cycle ultimately concluded in March. We saw continued bipartisan support for our programs reflected in the final Defense Appropriations Act, including funding for two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, two Virginia-class attack submarines, and one Columbia-class ballistic submarine. Additionally, the appropriations measure provided $500 million for advanced procurement funding for LPD-33. The final appropriations bill also provided funding for the submarine industrial base and large surface combatant shipyard infrastructure and authorized the Navy to enter into a multi-year procurement contract for Virginia-class submarines. Also in March, the President submitted the fiscal year 2025 budget request, now under consideration by Congress. The proposed budget reflects continued investment in our shipbuilding programs, requesting funding for two Arleigh Burke-class surface combatants, one San Antonio-class amphibious warship, and a lead Block VI Virginia-class submarine. Additionally, the budget request funds the first year of the three-year refueling and complex overhaul of CBN 75 USS Harry S. Truman. The budget request also continues funding for investment in the submarine industrial base and research and development efforts for the next generation large surface combatants, DDGX, and nuclear submarines, SSNX. From an operational standpoint, the access to skilled manufacturing labor coupled with our supply chain experiencing the same labor challenges continue to impact our programs. In that regard, we hired over 1,700 craft personnel in the first quarter, which puts us on track to achieve our full-year plan of approximately 6,000. Also in the first quarter, both of our shipyards held apprentice graduations, celebrating over 230 graduates across HII who are and will become the leaders in their crafts. We continue to maintain our focus on workforce retention and development and are working closely with our customers and state and local governments to solve this challenging issue. We continue to use overtime, contract labor, and outsourcing to mitigate risk and strengthen the opportunity for progress and schedule stabilization. In summary, we remain focused on meeting our commitments to our customers and will continue to invest in our people and our facilities to ensure we meet the demand we forecast for our products and services. And now I will turn the call over to Tom for some remarks on our financial results. Tom?