Wabash National Corporation

Thank you for standing by. My name is Kate and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Wabash fourth quarter 2024 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed with the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Ryan Reed, VP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us on this call. With me today are Brent Yeagy, President and Chief Executive Officer, Pat Caslin, Chief Financial Officer, and Mike Pettis, Chief Growth Officer. A couple of items before we get started. First, please note that this call is being recorded. I'd also like to point out that our earnings release, the slide presentation supplementing today's call, and any non-GAAP reconciliations are available at ir.lunwabash.com. Please refer to slide two on our earnings deck for this company's safe harbor disclosure addressing forward-looking statements. I'd also like to mention that you should see a Q&A tab on the lower right-hand corner of your screen. We'd like to encourage investors to submit questions, and we'll do our best to provide answers during Q&A section of our call. I'll now hand it off to Brent.

Thanks, Ryan. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. As we reflect on 2024, it's clear that this has been a pivotal year for Wabash. Building on the record-setting financial and strategic accomplishments of 2023, we continue to demonstrate the improved resilience of our business portfolio during an industry down cycle, and more importantly, We've continued to innovate and invest in a manner that's unprecedented relative to the market conditions. Our ability to maintain a strong balance sheet and stay focused on long-term value creation while navigating short-term challenges has positioned us exceptionally well for 2025 and beyond. We've seen the benefits of a more diversified portfolio of first-to-final-mile solutions, which has been instrumental in stabilizing performance during a challenging market environment. While demand for dry vans has been impacted by freight market weakness, the stability of our truck buying business has bolstered our broader portfolio. This diversity ensures that Wabash is less exposed to cyclical swings and better positioned to continue executing our strategy across a broad range of market conditions. In 2024, we made significant strides in laying out the strategic groundwork to grow our more recurring parts and services revenue streams. A key part of this has been the ongoing development of our Wabash Parts Joint Venture with HDI, our Wabash Marketplace Joint Venture with Turnway Group, and the continued broadening of our ecosystem, which includes customers, suppliers, dealers, and technology partners. As these initiatives mature, they will allow us to better balance the cyclicality profile of our business portfolio, and they will also transform how we deliver value to our customers, from our trailers as a service offering to the seamless digital integration of parts and services. Together, these initiatives form a foundation for scalable growth as we move toward an exciting future for Wabash. The growth of collaboration across our ecosystem has been a key theme in 2024. By leveraging our ecosystem to navigate shifts and seize emerging opportunities, we're in the early innings of using our competencies as an integrator to develop innovative solutions to industry challenges. As we think about notable examples, I would like to highlight our Trailers as a Service partnership with Kodiak, which is redefining the role of trailer solutions in autonomous logistics. This specific example goes well beyond Wabash to bring together dealer service capabilities and our managed care network to ensure uptime for this differentiated technology partner to focus on making advancements in autonomous trucking. Strategic relationships with key suppliers have secured an access to critical components for high demand periods and positions Wabash as a leader in supply reliability and operational excellence. Additionally, Wabash is working with Purdue University on an initiative called Smart Crossroads, which is our joint effort to bring transparency to a fragmented logistics ecosystem and rethink how technology and collaboration across their ecosystem can drive systemic improvements. By creating a forum of diverse stakeholders to share insights and drive innovation, Smart Crossroads is working to address challenges ranging from data connectivity to operational inefficiencies. As we rethink how business gets done, this initiative lays the foundation for the kind of bold solutions the industry needs. Our goal across these ecosystem partnerships is to move beyond transactional relationships to enable networks of stakeholders to co-create innovations larger than any one organization could achieve alone. But just as important as having the right strategy is ensuring that our employees are engaged and understand how their role supports our strategic focus. We believe that a culture based on respect for people is the foundation of sustained success, and we've taken meaningful steps to empower our team to drive a spirit of innovation throughout the organization. This commitment is reflected in key personnel appointments, such as moving Mike Pettit to Chief Growth Officer and internally filling that role by promoting Pat Kessel on the CFO. I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank our outgoing Chief Commercial Officer, Kevin Page, for his meaningful contributions to leadership and strategic vision during this time with Wabash as he moves on to retirement. Specifically, Kevin's passion for building process that prioritizes greater levels of customer engagement and ease of doing business will lead a lasting impact on our organization. Again, we're fortunate to have built a deep bench of leadership talent over the years, and we have been able to promote Drew Schwarzkopf, To succeed Kevin as Chief Commercial Officer, Drew brings exceptional transportation industry expertise from his time in senior roles at C.H. Robinson. Additionally, we have promoted Donald Winston as Chief Operating Officer. Donald brings more than 25 years of manufacturing leadership experience to the role. These are both exceptional leaders who enhance our strategic perspective and strengthen our overall operational expertise and continuous improvement mindset. While these leadership changes will be critical to realizing our strategic path forward, This cannot be achieved without the efforts of every one of our employees doing a part of something bigger by being connected to a sense of unity and strategic purpose to merge digital and physical technologies to serve our customers through a connected ecosystem of partners. The path forward is not about small incremental product improvements. It's about rethinking how logistics ecosystems can work together to transform a fragmented, inefficient system into a responsive, sustainable, and interconnected global network. With that, I'll turn it over to Mike for his comments.