Waste Connections, Inc.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Waste Connections, Inc. Q1 2024 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star and then one on your touch-tone phones. To draw your questions, you may press star and two. Please also note today's event is being recorded. This time I'd like to turn the floor over to Ron Mittelstadt, President and CEO. Please go ahead.

Okay. Thank you, Operator, and good morning. I would like to welcome everyone to this conference call to discuss our first quarter results and to provide a detailed outlook for the second quarter. I'm joined this morning by Mary Ann Whitney, our CFO, and several other members of our senior management. We are extremely pleased by the strong start to the year, driving better than expected operating and financial results, which, along with recently completed acquisitions, positions us well for the remainder of 2024. Adjusted EBITDA margin expansion of 160 basis points to 31.4% in the seasonally weakest quarter of the year puts us on track to exceed our industry-leading full-year margin outlook of 32.7%, as continuing improvements in employee retention and safety trends, along with rising commodity values, provide momentum for continued performance. Before we get into much more detail, let me turn the call over to Mary Ann for our forward-looking disclaimer, as well as other housekeeping items.

Thank you, Ron, and good morning. The discussion during today's call includes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the Safe Harper provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including forward-looking information within the meeting of applicable Canadian securities laws. Actual results could differ materially from those made in such forward-looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ are discussed both in the cautionary statement included in our April 24th earnings release and in greater detail in Waste Connections' violence with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the securities commissions or similar regulatory authorities in Canada. We should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as there may be additional risks of which we are not presently aware or that we currently believe are immaterial, which could have an adverse impact on our business. We make no commitment to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may change after today's date. On the call, we will discuss non-GAAP measures such as adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income attributable to waste connections on both the dollar basis and per diluted share, and adjusted free cash flows. Please refer to our earnings releases for a reconciliation of such non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures. Management uses certain non-GAAP measures to evaluate and monitor the ongoing financial performance of our operations. Other companies may calculate these non-GAAP measures differently. I will now turn the call back over to Ron.