All right. Good morning, everyone. We're gonna keep rolling this morning on the second day of the 44th Annual Canaccord Growth Conference. I'm Joe Vafi, equity research analyst here, focused on digital transformation and fintech, and we are quite pleased to have, again, with us this year, the management team from ICF International, CEO John Wasson and EVP Anne Choate, who heads up a few of ICF's key practice areas, including energy, environment, and infrastructure. Excuse me. ICF is unique in professional services and is one of the most diverse portfolios of businesses relative to publicly traded comparables, with strong capabilities in energy, public policy, health, environment, sustainability, IT modernization. These capabilities span different vertical markets, including federal, state, and local, as well as private sector, and both domestically and internationally. I've followed ICF as an analyst since its IPO back in 2006, and it's been a great ride, for sure. And not only is the company much larger now, I don't think there's a time when all the business units were doing better at the same time as they are now. So, and we continue to see nice organic growth and guidance out of ICF quarter after quarter. So with that, welcome, John and Anne. Well, thank you. Yeah. It's great to be here, Joe. Great. So, you know, the business seems to be doing really well right now. Maybe you kinda just introduce the, you know, ICF to everybody who may be new, just at a high level in a few words, and then we'll kinda dig in on things. Sure. So ICF, as Joe said, professional services, consulting technology services firm, about $2 billion in revenue, publicly traded on the NASDAQ for the last 15-16 years. We operate in two broad verticals. About 45% of our revenues are in energy, environment, infrastructure, and disaster recovery. Another 40%-45% is in public health and social programs, where we work across a variety of public health agencies and education and other social programs. So we serve a balanced roster of clients. About half our business is with the U.S. federal government, about 25% is commercial, and the balance is state and local and international. So that's a very high level overview, Joe. In terms of the second quarter, we had a very strong second quarter. I would say the key highlight there is our commercial energy business continues to really drive growth for us. It's been growing north of 25%, for the last 2 quarters. That business is a very high-margin business, and so with that, we did up our guidance by $0.35 for the year in the second quarter, which is about a 5% increase, so we were quite pleased with that performance. I also think when we look at the forward-looking metrics, in terms of the future potential for the business, we had record sales in the second quarter, about $840 million of sales, about, I think it was an 83% increase from the prior year. A quarter, our trailing twelve-month book-to-bill ratio is 1.4, which is quite high for us. Our pipeline stands at about $10.5 billion, which is a record, and so those forward-looking metrics are also very, very positive and give us, I think, confidence in the future growth for ICF over the next several years. Great. Thanks, John. So yeah, sounds like there's some good business momentum continuing. Seems like it's always continuing for ICF, but nice to see it again in the second quarter. So Anne's with us today, and I know, John, you just mentioned your energy business doing well. I mean, it's a, it's been a business ICF's been in for quite a while now. But it does seem like there's some extra demand and extra growth out there right now. So maybe we could kinda go into what's driving that growth and demand in your business. Is it a larger set of solutions for your customers, or is it just, like, a hot product right now? So yeah. So thanks, Joe. The energy business that we have is sort of rooted in many years of delivering energy efficiency programs to utilities. The difference is that the utilities are now facing sort of a once-in-a-generation set of a slew of issues that they really need help to address. And so having served them in supporting these energy efficiency programs over all this time, we have the relationships, we have trust, and we've added to our solutions. And so the utilities are facing increased pressure to decarbonize, to deliver reliable, resilient energy to customers in an affordable way. And you know, energy justice is also a big issue right now. And then they have this increase in demand that's unprecedented compared to what they've seen in the past. And so energy efficiency remains an important component to that, but there's also things like figuring out how to deal with distributed resources on the grid, feeding, you know, and deliver the electricity to the customers in a reliable way, which is increasingly harder to do. Dealing with resilience when you have more intense, you know, increased and extreme storms and extreme weather events. You've seen extreme temperatures impacting the delivery of electricity. So those are the kinds of challenges they're facing, and the fact that we have all these extensive relationships, we've not only been able to continue to grow the energy efficiency work and do it in a way where they also have workforce, you know, expansion in you know local economies and things like that. But also that we've been able to add things like distributed energy resource management, flexible load management, helping them to think about how to balance increased demand from electrification and fleet electrification, whether fleets or buildings. How does that affect how the utility prices the electricity and how they optimally deploy that electricity? So those kinds of strategic and technical questions are getting more complicated, and we're really the best positioned, and I don't mean that in a braggy sort of way, but we are the best- Yeah to support them in that. Right. So that, that's all very important, but then it also covers over into this discussion of decarbonization and resilience as relates- Mm-hmm -to climate change. And so again, we're there to help them think about that. And our environment and planning business actually benefits as well, because as these utilities think about infrastructure and especially replacing aging infrastructure, the kinds of work that we do from a standpoint of alternatives analysis, you know, monitoring and compliance during infrastructure projects, that's all also in demand, and so we get- Right to support that. There's a little bit of a services flywheel in there. Yeah -right? You asked if we'd added components, and I'd give... About a year and a half ago, we added some engineering capabilities- Mm-hmm that were beyond what we had done before. So that's also been helpful to expand Right the service offering. Maybe we'll just stay on energy for just a bit more. I mean... No, don't! Yeah, yeah. We've been talking energy, like, all day yesterday with, some of our other companies, like procuring gigawatts of power. So, but if we rewind the clock, like 7 or 8 years ago, your energy efficiency was probably not as a big of a solution as it is today, right? You were helping utilities reach out to, you know, retail customers and how they could use less electricity. Right. Right? Right. I'm sure clearly that's still, you know, a core part of the playbook- Right ... but it seems to be, like, a lot broader now. And it seems like since it's more complex, theoretically, then your TAM or your go-to-market's bigger because probably some utilities were doing what you used to do themselves- Yep ... but now the solution set's bigger that it attracts outside, you know, consulting help. Is that- Yeah, absolutely -true? So things like, for instance, all the marketing that we do around these programs, we didn't use to provide those kinds of services. So, you know, to serve as an agency of record, for instance, for a large utility, that's something, that was an opportunity for us to grow. We also obviously are providing all these electrification programs, so that was, you know, that's something that was sort of nascent and in the pilot phases when we were having our investor days last couple times. But now we have these electrification programs across the country. Mm-hmm. Same with flexible load management. Those kinds of opportunities have also grown. And then understanding... I mean, the utilities' relationship with the customer has changed, and so to the extent that ICF can be the utilities partner in working to build those and maintain those customer relationships, either through marketing, or we have a lot of behavioral analysis that helps you figure out how the customer's gonna behave and how you can best reach the customer, that's something that has also differentiated us. Great. Yeah. I mean, how, how big is this market? I mean, you've been in it for a while. You touch a lot. You're a leading player, right? But are all... I mean, what percent of utilities are using service providers like you to do this kind of stuff? And how, you know, how much bigger could it theoretically be? I'm terrible at things like that. I mean, there are, you know, we work now for 75- Okay or more utilities, more than 75 utilities, and I would say that those utilities, you know, are definitely committed to- Mm-hmm -using our services. Then how, how much bigger, how many more utilities will sign on? You know, I- Okay ... I don't know the answer. Fair enough. Yeah, another way to come at it, Joe, is, you know, we've had this core energy efficiency business. It's a $300 million business. We're supporting 75 utilities around the country at scale. I think to Anne's point, as we move to this distributed energy future, we are seeing new types of programs. Mm-hmm. Utilities are trying to implement, like, energy efficiency, but different- Yeah ... flexible load management, electrification. You know, with people having, you know, solar or rooftop solar, you're looking at batteries behind the meter. And so those are all pilot programs we're running for utilities in addition to energy efficiency. I think the utilities hope that those pilots will lead to successful programs that can then be scaled- Yeah in their territories around the country. And if that were to occur, like energy efficiency, you know, I think we could have additional- Sure 100 million, north of $100 million dollar businesses in some of these other program areas over time. And really, what we've learned and why we're a market leader is what we do on energy efficiency, it is the marketing and the customer acquisition- Mm-hmm and how to reach customers. For utilities, that's a new thing for them. You know, in a distributed world, they need to do that a lot better. Yep. That's our secret sauce, and I think that- Got it ... you know, gives us visibility. Yeah, it's a dynamic market, and it's- Oh, yeah Changing pretty fast. One more add is that it's not just the utilities now that are trying to think about these programs. So now state and local agencies are receiving, state energy offices in particular, are receiving funding so that they can run similar programs. Mm-hmm. So we have an opportunity to work instead of with, with the utility, with the state, and so that's new. Great. Those states weren't running- Great programs like this before. Maybe we'll stick with you a little longer, Anne. You know, there's these two huge stimulus bills that were passed, the IIJA and the IRA, a couple years ago, and I think ICF is, you know, clearly, you know, potentially a nice recipient of funds on the trillions of dollars coming off those plans over time. So maybe just kind of give us an update on where we are and, you know, task orders and spending coming off of those initiatives and, you know, what you're seeing in the pipeline or in deals that have actually already been, you know? So we won about $140 million that we can specifically tag to IIJA and IRA, and then we have about $250 million that's in the pipeline that we've specifically tagged. I say that because it's very clear when it's a federal or some of the state, and even some of the commercial programs, it's, some of them are clear. Others, it's wrapped in with other things- Mm-hmm. -and it's a little bit harder to tag, and we're trying not to over, Sure. Overstate. But with that said, you know, the infrastructure build, IIJA, which is bipartisan, you know, there's a lot in there that you might have said will be done anyway, but it sort of got wrapped into that big bundle. And so what we've seen is that it's given us an opportunity to sort of, you know, to make sure that that funding is flowing through, and then obviously we could sort of latch on. For instance, when we bought Blanton a couple of years ago, we knew infrastructure funding was flowing to Texas. We wanted to make sure we had bolstered our position in Texas. Mm-hmm. And so it made it easier to sort of follow the money to Texas. Yeah. Just using that as an example. But, but with IRA, the, you know, the vast majority of that is tax incentives, and so the, and the tax incentives that are going to, to, you know, developers, for instance, that drives a demand for our work, and so we continue to see, that sort of activity, and we continue to support that. On the federal side, we've also been able to support, like, the Grid Deployment Office or some of these GRIP grants, the, Grid Resilience, Improvement Program, or the BRIC, which is Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities programs. So we basically, we will help, an applicant to design their application they submit for the funding, and then if they receive the funding, which we've been successful in, in doing, those, those clients then have an opportunity to implement that funding, and we are there to support them in that. So it's, it's almost like business development from the standpoint- Mm-hmm ... that you help them to get, to do the application, and if they receive the grant, then you can help them to implement the grant. Right. John, maybe we'll talk about your IT modernization initiative. So a few years ago, you really weren't in the IT business in a large way. Through a few acquisitions, you've... I mean, if you put all the acquisitions together, I'd call it a transformative, you know, endeavor, right? And so now you're a big player in IT modernization in the civilian part of the federal government. Can you give us an update on trends, dynamics? I think it's a great business. It seems like IT's always got a lot of dollars to spend, wherein, you know, you know, in, you know, on the commercial side, everyone's moving to the cloud. Federal government's maybe a couple of years behind, but still moving in that direction, so it seems like there's a lot of work out there. Well, sure, Joe, and I think, certainly IT modernization is a significant growth driver for us, and I think we think that will continue for the next 5 to 10 years. I would say at a high level, you know, the U.S. federal government, I would say, is in the third or fourth inning of modernizing their backbone IT systems. The government is still running many legacy systems on COBOL and Fortran and 30-, 40-year-old systems that are in dire need of being modernized. And so there's been a real effort over the last, you know, 5 to 10 years to begin to make that investment and make that transition, and it was a priority for Obama, it was, actually a priority in the Trump administration, it's a priority in the Biden administration. And, as I say, I think we're in, we're in the third or fourth inning. The government's spending $50 billion-$100 billion a year to modernize these systems. And so as Joe said, over the last five years, you know, we saw these opportunities with our core civilian clients, where we're doing all of their program, programmatic, and policy work. And so we recognized the opportunity around IT modernization, so we, we did these acquisitions. We have a $500 million business today, and we're seeing tremendous opportunities. The budgets in this area are up high single-digit to low double-digit, and I think that will continue for the next five to 10 years. And so we have a full set of capabilities to serve this market. So we have low-code, no-code capabilities, Salesforce, Appian, ServiceNow. About half the government is shifting to those platforms. The other half is open source, and we've acquired those capabilities, and so we have a full service capability and are now in a position where we're competing with the Accenture and the Deloitte and the Booz Allen, in the IT modernization market. And we can really differentiate ourselves on the civilian side because we have a long history- Mm-hmm ... you know, 40, 50 years working with these civilian agencies. We understand the programs they're trying to solve. We have deep domain expertise in areas, which we can combine with the technology, and that really allows us to differentiate ourselves from the pure technology players who can't bring that domain expertise and that long history with these clients. Sure. That's great. And then maybe we'll just touch on one more area, or maybe two. HHS, I think, Department of Health and Human Services, is... I think it's still your biggest customer? It is, yeah. And so maybe kinda give a, I mean, it's a, you know, it's a huge, big government agency, right? Right, yeah. You touch a lot of pieces of it, but, you know, kinda what's the update in HHS, kind of at a high level? Yeah, so sure. So, you know, public health is another significant, a business for ICF, supporting public health agencies. As Joe said, about 27% or 28% of our revenues are now with the Department of Health and Human Services, and we really do focus on public health, and it's in five or six key agencies, the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Mental Health, SAMHSA, FDA, Food and Drug Administration, USAID. And in those agencies, we have a long history, again, of doing both kind of the front-end advisory work, domain-oriented work for those clients, and then also, we can now help them update their IT, do the IT modernization, and we do public health communication, so we run communication campaigns to prevent vaping, anti-smoking, prevent opioid abuse. So we have deep digital engagement and public health communication capabilities, and we do research, we do health informatics, we do training and technical assistance, and so a very broad array of work and... The thing about public health is historically it's been very bipartisan, and so the budgets hold up nicely as from administration to administration. HHS usually does better than the average across the government in terms of budget increases. And so, you know, with that, we've seen, continue to see significant growth opportunities. And again, I think we're finding we, we have a relatively small market share- Mm-hmm For these clients. And so we're finding that we are taking share from competitors. And, you know, I think it's, it's been a significant growth area for us, and I think as we look forward, we think it will continue to be, Great. Maybe one more update on business unit, 'cause you guys have a few business units, right? Right. Just your sustainment and disaster- Disaster recovery. Disaster recovery? Yeah, disaster recovery and sustainment. Maybe have we talk about that a little bit. I think you're talking about the mitigation funding, too. Yeah. So, the disaster recovery work is obviously driven largely by events. So, you know, you have these large storms- Mm And there'll be a massive recovery effort. It's usually a couple of years after the storm happens. And I think a few years ago, we made a concerted effort, not just because we saw changes in the way the funding was flowing, but also for the sake of the stability of the business, to really focus on mitigation as well. So there's the recovery that happens after the storm, but there's also this mitigation funding, where the government realized, well, it's actually a lot cheaper to pay to make this place a little more... a little less vulnerable, a little more resilient in advance of the storm, and we sort of know where these storms are gonna happen. And so, I mean, we collectively. And so as a result, the federal government started putting money towards mitigation, both through the housing side and also through the infrastructure side, so through HUD and through FEMA. And we made a concerted effort then to try to go after that mitigation funding because it not only builds trust and allows you to get in with these, these agencies who ultimately may receive recovery funding, but it also helps to stabilize sort of the trajectory of the, the revenues in that business, and, and also the staff. And so we've been real successful in doing that. You know, we've seen. So for instance, we had, I wanna make sure I get the numbers right, so I'm gonna look it. But we had, so regarding mitigation, in FEMA received a record-setting request of $58 billion in funding via something like 1,600 applications. And those, those applications are from states, local governments, tribes, et cetera. And that all comes through, I mentioned earlier, the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities Program. And then there's also the Flood Mitigation Assistance Program. And so just recently, so in July, FEMA awarded $1 billion in BRIC funding to 93 communities, including about $21 million to communities that we had supported in the application process. You know, so that, that's the kind of, that's an example of sort of how we, how we support that, that, those activities. There's also a huge prediction this year for storms- Mm-hmm in the Atlantic. Now, that it takes some time between when a storm happens and when the recovery program exists, but the, you know, bottom line, we don't see the storm stopping. You know, as you've all seen in the news, you know, this extreme weather is here to stay, and it's just getting worse. So the need for these services, I think is, you know, pretty sustainable. Right, and it feels like it's got good, pretty good bipartisan support as well. Yeah, and it hits red and- It does You know, red and blue state. For sure. Yep, everybody. I also think that the breadth of disasters covered under these programs is shifting. Mm-hmm. As Anne said, historically, it's been very focused on hurricanes and flooding. We're seeing, we just won a large contract for us in Oregon around wildfires and responding to wildfires. We're seeing more and more opportunity there. There's a discussion going on around whether heat events will lead to declarations of natural disasters, and will FEMA support communities that are undergoing extreme heat? Yeah. We're seeing a lot of that this summer. And so again, I think that, you know, the frequency and severity and the breadth of activities covered here is increasing. When you win this work, these are large, long-term contracts. We have contracts right now in Puerto Rico and Texas from the- That are ongoing. ... 2016 and 2017 storms- Yeah, right ... that, you know, we've won recon piece, they'll go another 5-10 years, and so- People forgot the name of the storm already. Yeah. Right. Right? Yeah, right. They're still going on- Still going on, recovery, right? So, yeah. And so, you know, I think the trends here, just in terms of extreme weather events and the frequency and severity is, you know, I think the data is pretty clear. The trend's pretty clear. Well, and I think another sort of important thing to understand is that as you rebuild, there's an opportunity to tie some of these areas of expertise or these service offerings that we have together. So recently, you know, we were successful in an award in California, where they're basically trying to rebuild post-fires, but they're rebuilding in a net zero sort of carbon, you know, reduced carbon sort of way. And, you know, we're right there at that intersection of decarbonized- Mm-hmm ... you know, and clean energy usage and, you know, energy-efficient homes and rebuilding after a storm. Right. And I think just for everyone's benefit, you are a leader in disaster recovery and mitigation, too. Yeah ... kind of. I mean, yeah, I mean, we just for historical history, I mean, we led the largest recovery effort in the history of the United States from Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. That was a billion-dollar contract. Right, when you were going public, I remember. Yeah, as we were going public. And so, you know, you know... And so yes, we're a market leader in these kinds of- Great. Yeah. We're gonna, like, kind of out of time, but just wanted to just one financial question. Sure. It does feel like you've got some good margin momentum. I know you raised your earnings, your bottom line guidance. You know, it does feel like, I think, the energy business is a little higher margin in general, right? Right, yeah, definitely. I would guess IT modernization's also maybe a little higher- Right, I- in federal, right? Absolutely. You know, I think the several of the key growth drivers we in our business, we've talked about, I mean, the energy business, commercial energy business is one of our highest margin business. IT modernization, public health, disaster recovery are all relatively high-margin business. And so the mix for us right now, given we're seeing significant growth in these areas, is driving the margins up. I think from 2020 to twenty... the last three or four years, four years, I guess, we've had 140 basis points improvement in our, you know, key profit met. Mm-hmm ... adjusted EBITDA to revenue. It's gone up about 140 basis points. We've generally guided to 10-20 basis points improvement a year. I think we think we can continue to do that, both given the mix, and given our scale- Mm-hmm ... and, you know, we'll carefully manage the corporate costs as we continue to grow. Sure. Yeah. We're out of time, guys. It was a great discussion, a lot going on. Great. Thanks, John- Thank you ... and Anne for being with us. ICF-