Good afternoon, and welcome to the Noble Capital Markets Virtual Equity Conference. I am Joe Gomes, Managing Director and Senior Analyst at Noble Capital. Today, I have the pleasure of introducing Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation. Following the presentation, we'll have some time for Q&A. Great Lakes is the largest provider of dredging services in the United States and has a long history of performing significant international projects. The company owns and operates the largest and most diverse fleet in the U.S. dredging industry, comprising approximately 200 specialized vessels. In 2021, Great Lakes formed the offshore wind sector, a strategic growth area for the company. With us today from Great Lakes is Scott Kornblau, CFO. With that, I'm going to turn it over to the company. The floor is yours, Scott. Great. Thank you, Joe. Appreciate you having us. I'm excited to be here and share a lot of the positive developments we've seen so far this year. I'll first be going over a company overview of Great Lakes, who we are and what we do, and then I'll be giving a financial overview. This last year, we've had a lot of extremely positive things that have happened, including a record backlog and very strong project performance. I'll touch on a number of these highlights throughout the presentation. As Joe mentioned, Great Lakes is the largest dredging company in the United States, and we have been doing this for well over a 134 years. Our largest client is the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, but we also work for other government agencies and private companies, including LNG producers, and we are entering the U.S. offshore wind industry as a first mover in the United States. We've had three extremely successful quarters in a row, and the outlook is that this will continue for the foreseeable future. So what do we do? We work on projects that improve and protect our nation's coastlines. There are three main different type of projects that we work on. The first is capital, which is the deepening and widening of ports. These projects tend to be complex and therefore typically come with higher margins. Coastal protection is another type of work that we do, and it is the creation and rebuilding of beaches, and like capital projects, they can have very nice margins. We mostly focus on capital and coastal protection work. The third type of work is maintenance dredging, which is the maintaining of the depths of the waterways from sediment that naturally builds up. This type of work is more competitive and typically comes with lower margins than capital and coastal protection, and Great Lakes looks to this work to fill gaps between the larger projects. Last year, we had an equal mix of revenue from the three type of projects. This has changed in 2024, as we are very heavy on capital and coastal protection projects. We have in the past worked internationally, but with the robust U.S. dredging market, we are currently 100% domestic. There are three major type of dredges, and Great Lakes has a strong fleet in all three of them. Hopper dredges are capable in operating in very rough waters and are highly mobile ships, and they are very efficient. Mechanical dredges are able to work in tight areas, and hydraulic dredges can get through very challenging soils. Having capable dredges in all three categories allows us to be very efficient on project execution, as we can bring various dredges onto a project to do specific scopes of work. Not only are we the largest dredger in the United States by number of vessels, it is also by market share. We historically have between 33% and 40% market share in any given year. This is going to grow this year, as we have won a lot of work, which I will talk about in the upcoming slides. This major growth has been driven by another record budget from our largest customer, the Army Corps of Engineers. The 2024 budget is the fifth or sixth year in a row that we have seen a record budget, and this year has gotten off to an extremely strong bid market. So far, through August, we have seen over $2.2 billion of projects bid, which already exceeds last year's bid market, excluding the private LNG work, and last year was also a very strong market. In addition to the record budget, in 2023, there was an additional $1.48 billion approved under a disaster relief appropriation fund to help clean up the beaches that were impacted by hurricanes and other natural disasters. We have started to see that work come out as well, and we have won a large number of those so far this year. Early indications for the 2025 budget is that it will be another record budget, so the momentum should continue. One other thing worth noting on this slide is, in 2022, the Water Resources Development Act was passed for the fifth year. This is important, as this is what sets up the studying of upcoming projects, and in the 2022 WRDA, they have started studying the New York and New Jersey deepening project, which is estimated to be about $6 billion, starting in the second half of this decade, going into next. So it appears that the dredging market is going to be strong for many, many years to come. As I mentioned earlier, we entered this year with a record backlog of just over $1 billion. The momentum has continued so far this year. We entered this quarter, the third quarter, with just over $800 million of projects. What's very important, though, is not just the amount of backlog, but the construct of that backlog. I mentioned that capital projects are the complex projects that yield higher margins. Of our over $800 million of backlog entering this quarter, 85% of those were in the capital projects. And so far this quarter, 2.5 months in, we were low bidder on over $640 million of additional projects, split pretty evenly between capital projects and coastal protection project. So our pipeline right now looks extremely strong. The reason this year has gotten off to such, such a strong start is because of the projects that we won last year. An extremely strong market, aided by two large LNG projects, which Great Lakes was successful in winning. With those projects and some other ones that we won, we ended up with 44% of the market, had the three largest projects and four of the five largest projects that were put out last year. We are executing on all of those projects today. We are currently in the late innings of a new build program that kicked off a little over four years ago. Earlier this year, we took delivery of our newest hopper dredge, the Galveston Island, which is performing extremely well, and in about a year, we expect to take delivery of the Amelia Island, which is a sister to the Galveston. We have also invested in new support equipment, which is focused on improving efficiencies and safety. Once we take delivery of the Amelia Island next year, we have no plans for the foreseeable future for building additional dredges, but instead, we'll likely undergo modest upgrades focused on efficiencies over the next few years. The final vessel in our new build program is the Acadia, which will be the first and only Jones Act-compliant subsea rock installation vessel in the world to service the offshore wind space. So let's talk about offshore wind. Being a first mover in the United States and having the only Jones Act vessel, we have been able to secure two U.S. offshore wind contracts well before delivery of the vessel. We will first be executing Equinor's Empire Wind I contract off of Long Island at the end of 2025, after we take delivery of the Acadia. We will then, in 2026, execute Sunrise Wind project for Ørsted in the United States. We continue to bid on a number of other projects for offshore wind, not only in the United States, but internationally. Despite the negative headlines that we saw in 2023 related to U.S. offshore wind, 2024 has gotten off to a great start. There are a couple of projects that have completed installation and are delivering power in the United States. Also, in 2024, there were a number of power purchase agreements that were awarded and some very successful offshore wind auctions that will be powering millions of homes in the United States. Bloomberg recently came out with a study, and they predict that by 2040, the United States will be tied with the U.K. as the second-largest provider of offshore wind in the world. As you can see from the map on the right, there are a number of named projects along the northeast coast of the United States, and we have tendered on a large number of those already. In addition to tendering on these U.S. projects, there are a number of projects in Europe that we are also participating in, that we see clear visibility and utilization for this vessel for the remainder of 2026, 2027, and beyond. Last year, in the Philly Shipyard, where we are building the Acadia, we were honored to have President Biden attend our steel-cutting ceremony, and earlier this year, we laid first keel on the Acadia. We are very excited about the growth prospects this new line of business can bring to Great Lakes. Let me now give a financial overview of Great Lakes' business. After a difficult 2022, 2023 started the the road to recovery, and 2024 is playing out to be a very strong year in both the top and bottom lines and margin. Our new build program has just under $150 million remaining to complete, which we will finish in the second half of next year. Our balance sheet is in great shape, with over $300 million in liquidity, no debt maturities until 2029, and a weighted average interest rate of under 7%, and an undrawn revolver that doesn't mature until 2027. The improved results and liquidity caused S&P to upgrade our corporate credit rating earlier this month. Let's look at the first half of this year. As you can see, we've had an $80 million improvement in revenue year over year. We have more than doubled our gross profit and our EBITDA, and margins are extremely strong. We expect this growth to continue into the second half of next year, and 2024, we predict, will be an extremely strong year, and the future beyond 2024 also looks extremely strong with the backlog and mix of work that we have. The $800 million that we entered the quarter in, in addition to the $640 million of projects that we just won, our 2025 schedule is almost full, and 2026 is also extremely full right now, so the utilization for our dredging fleet looks extremely strong over the next handful of years, and with that, Joe, I'll conclude my prepared remarks, and I'm happy to take any questions that you have. Thank you, Scott. Nice, overview and presentation there. So yeah, let's turn to some questions. You mentioned a positive dredging environment, very strong. We're coming, however, to the end of the government fiscal year. How concerned are you that we go into a Continuing Resolution budget, and what impact could that have on the current positive dredging environment? Yeah, I think the one thing that is almost certain is that there will be a Continuing Resolution. It has happened 16 of the last 17 years. That is not unusual for this business. The real question is, how long will the Continuing Resolution last? We did see, however, this year, while the government was operating under Continuing Resolution, it did not stop the pattern of bidding. The first quarter bidding was very, very strong. We saw a large number of capital projects come out while we were under Continuing Resolution. So the impact may not be severe, even if there is a pause in some bidding earlier, next year. Because Continuing Resolution with our well over a $1 billion backlog and our pipeline almost full for 2025, the impact to Great Lakes should be, nonexistent. We mentioned the Army Corps is your largest client. Couple years ago, they had some challenges, let's say, in letting out contracts. How satisfied or confident are you that the Army Corps is able to handle the volume of contracts that are needed to be let on a timely basis? Yeah, I mean, I think it was proven out last year and again this year. These projects do not go anywhere, and the projects that were supposed to come out in 2022 got accelerated into 2023, and the projects that were supposed to come out in 2023 also came out in 2023 and 2024. So the total volume of projects, in our opinion, did not change. It was just the cadence of it. And because of now the scarcity of availability across the dredging fleet, it is causing margins to increase because not just is Great Lakes full, a lot of our competitors are becoming full as well. So it does appear whatever hiccups the Army Corps did have in 2022 are resolved. We did not see any major delays on any of the large projects that they had said were gonna come out this year, impact our bidding pattern at all. So you kinda answered part of my next question. I was gonna ask about the competitive market and how that looks like today, but let's add a little bit to that. You know, you have a shipbuilding program underway. What about the competition? I mean, how much more new vessels out there are being built today, and, you know, when do you see them coming online? And is that, you know, kind of... You know, historically, when new ones came on, old ones were taken out of service. You know, what's the view on that today? Yeah. So in addition to us building the two hopper dredges, the Galveston Island, which we've already delivered, and the Amelia Island, which we'll deliver next year, there are a couple of other dredges that have recently entered the market or will enter the market either later this year or earlier next year. But you hit the nail on the head. We are also seeing this come with retirements. We did retire a hopper dredge about a year and a half ago, the Terrapin Island. The Galveston Island have replaced that capacity. We also have two older hopper dredges that are booked and working and doing very, very well, but there will come a time in the near future when we will likely take those out, and that could be not long after we take delivery of the Amelia Island. We'll let the market dictate if there's ample room for those two to work, and if not, we'll do like we did with the other one, and we'll retire them. It's very important, and we've seen our competitors doing the same thing. When you get rid of a vessel, you either need to scrap it or sell it into the international market and drop the U.S. flag to keep the dredging supply in the U.S. static. Okay, thanks for that. And kind of a follow-up, I think in 2023, you had cold stacked some vessels. There wasn't enough work for them. At least one of them, I think you've now brought back on. You know, what does your situation look like today in terms of cold stacked vessels, and are any of those that are currently cold stacked? Would you see them coming back online? Yeah, so earlier this year, we did scrap one of the cold stack mechanical vessels that we had. It's a vessel that's been on our rationalization plan for some time, and we finally took her out of service. Currently, we have one vessel that is cold stacked. It is also an older mechanical. A year ago, I would've told you, I think it's very likely that she does also get scrapped soon. With this increased demand that we're seeing, we are working through, does it make sense to reactivate her to take advantage of extremely robust market? Okay. And you talked about your active build program, you know, the Acadia, Amelia Island, both will be delivered in 2025. In terms of the Acadia and the offshore wind market here domestically, you mentioned about, you know, the significant growth potential there. Would there be any thoughts to potentially building another Acadia-type vessel to service that market? Yeah, we've been very public that we did not build the Acadia to be a one-vessel offshore wind organization. However, we're in no hurry to build this platform. We do believe this is a long-term growth strategy for Great Lakes, and we're gonna be very methodical in when we decide to build vessel two, and what vessel two may look like. A copy of the Acadia is possible. A non-Jones Act vessel could be possible. It's an extremely robust market internationally as well, or we may build another support vessel that can service the offshore wind industry. So we're running the analysis on all of that right now. There won't be any decision made, you know, in the next couple of quarters on that. Let's switch gears for a second from the building program to, you mentioned, you know, the strong margin returns, and, you know, you've got the capital projects works, the coastal, the maintenance work. Can you kind of just give us, you know, relative margins for between those three, and how that is positively impacting the overall margin currently? Yeah, and I'm gonna talk in generalities, 'cause as you can imagine, every project has its own unique attributes, and the timing of it matter. But as a general rule, a capital project margins can be in the high 20s, and in a number of cases, can go beyond that, especially during some of the environmental windows. When there is scarcity, we can sometimes push margin. We're also, you know, finding, Joe, in this market that we're seeing today, we are able to push margins higher than we have historically, because we are very comfortable that if we don't win the project we bid on today, there are a number of other projects coming up in the pipeline. And as you know, most of these bids that we do are public information, and it appears, for the most part, our competitors see this market the same way. So there's definitely been a push on margins. So those are the highest margins. Because of the damage that we saw along the East Coast from a number of storms, the coastal protection margins are getting very close, in certain circumstances, to the capital projects. So those have been very lucrative projects for us. So again, those can also be in the high 20s. And then maintenance, believe it or not, there are some very lucrative maintenance projects, and when we do go after maintenance, those are the ones that we go after. However, the ones that, you know, I would say are more of the just normal maintenance projects, they are very highly competitive, and we just typically don't go after those unless we have just a small window to fill between the big ones. But those, as a general rule, you know, might be high teens or low 20%. But again, there's a lot of variability, just depending on the circumstance. Okay. And back to the offshore wind market, you mentioned it has seen kind of some starts and stops recently here. Can you talk about the Acadia's, you know, book, kind of like near term in year 2025, 2026, and maybe even longer term in 2027, 2028, where you stand right now? Yeah. So as I mentioned, we do have two contracts, so that'll utilize the vessel for all of 2025, once we take delivery of the Acadia, and then we have a handful of months of work with Ørsted's Sunrise Wind. A number of the U.S. projects that we are eyeing are likely not going to start until the second half of 2027. That is why we have really focused on the European market for the second half of 2026 and the first half of 2027. We have a number of tenders outstanding right now. We do think that a couple of those could be awarded this year, and we'll see if we get one of them. One thing, though, Joe, that's really interesting, as we've really been out pounding the pavement in the European market. Again, we all know that the offshore wind European market is extremely robust. Another market, though, that we're finding that the Acadia has access to. The Acadia is just laying scour protection around monopiles on a wind farm and around the cables, and above the cables that connect the monopile, so it's a scour protection vessel. We are getting inbounds from oil and gas companies to do scour protection over their pipelines, and also carbon capture pipelines. We are also getting inbounds from telecommunication companies to do scour protection over their cables as well. So there are a lot of utilization for the Acadia. We are exploring all of those markets right now. The second half of 2027 and 2028 and beyond, it looks extremely strong in the United States, so much so that we are currently negotiating two reservation agreements right now with two wind developers in the United States that we currently don't have relationships with. So it's two new wind developers, because they see the scarcity of these vessels, and us having the only Jones Act vessel, they want to go exclusive with us. And again, we're negotiating reservation agreements, and we are hopeful that we could get one of these landed, you know, in the next three to six months- Okay ... if not both. Excellent. Now, you mentioned the Acadia is gonna be a Jones Act vessel, which gives you a competitive advantage domestically. You know, if you do move the vessel over to the international market, you know, how competitive can the vessel be versus the competition that's over there? Yeah, no, it's a great question, and the reason we built a Jones Act vessel is, longer term, we are gonna target the U.S. market. But if we do need to bring it internationally for a year or 18 months, as the U.S. market gets more mature towards the end of 2027, we can still be very, very competitive. The cost structure, whether we're over in Europe or in the United States, is very comparable. The only additional cost that we would have is that we would crew our marine crew with U.S. crew, so we can keep our U.S. flag. But that is a marginal difference, the way we estimate it, compared to how our European competitors would be pricing it. And then we would have a mob to get over there and a demob to come back. But the rock is the rock, fuel is fuel, and most of the costs are gonna be comparable for a U.S. vessel versus a European vessel. Excellent. Let's switch gears to the LNG project. You mentioned that some of the biggest awards, if not the biggest award, in the company's history. Can you just kind of give us a status update on those projects? Yeah, so dredging has started on both projects during the third quarter, so that's NextDecade's Rio Grande LNG and also Sempra's Port Arthur LNG. So dredging has completely started. We anticipate that the Port Arthur LNG will be busy on that project until the third or fourth quarter of next year, and NextDecade will be working on well into 2026. Both projects have gotten off to a very good start. Are there other opportunities in that LNG space that you are currently pursuing? So currently in our low bid pending, which is a number that we publish, which is in addition to backlog, those are either awards that we are low bidder, and it's just a formality. It takes another four to six weeks to actually get a contract award. The largest thing, though, that we have right now in our low bid pending is an LNG project that we won many, many years ago, and it's Driftwood LNG, but it was always subject to that project going to final investment decision, and that project has been on pause for some time. That was a project that was owned by Tellurian. You may have seen in the last couple of months that Tellurian has announced that they have come to an agreement to sell the company to Woodside. Woodside has purchased Tellurian specifically for this Driftwood asset. So we believe now that Driftwood LNG is gaining a lot of momentum, and the deal with Woodside is supposed to close by the end of this year, and we think it's possible that that project could go to final investment decision in the first half of next year. As I mentioned, that's a contract that is ours, just subject to them going to final investment decision. Great! Well, Scott, we've come to the end of our allotted time. We appreciate you taking the time to participate in our conference, and we wish you and the company the best in the future. Thanks again. Thank you, Joe.