Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss NV5's financial results for the third quarter of 2023, ended September 30th, 2023. Joining us today are Dickerson Wright, Chairman and CEO of NV5; Edward Codispoti, CFO of NV5; Alex Hockman, President and COO of NV5; Ben Heraud, COO of NV5; Kurt Allen, Senior Vice President, Geospatial at NV5; and Richard Tong, Executive Vice President and General Counsel at NV5. I would now like to turn the call over to Richard Tong. Thank you, operator. Welcome everyone, to NV5's third quarter 2023 earnings call. Before we proceed, I would like to notify all participants that today's presentation can be found on ir.nv5.com and remind everyone that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements about the company's future business and financial performance. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements are included in today's presentation slides and in our reports on file with the SEC. During this call, GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures will be discussed. A reconciliation between the two is available in today's earnings release and on the company's website at www.nv5.com. Please note that unless otherwise stated, all references to third quarter 2023 comparisons are being made against the third quarter of 2022. In this presentation, NV5 has included certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined in Regulation G, promulgated by the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The non-GAAP financial measures included in this presentation are: adjusted earnings per share and Adjusted EBITDA. NV5 provides non-GAAP financial measures to supplement GAAP measures as they provide additional insight into NV5's financial results. However, non-GAAP measures have limitations as analytical tools and should not be considered in isolation, and are not in accordance or a substitute for GAAP. In addition, other companies may define non-GAAP measures differently, which limits the ability of investors to compare non-GAAP measures of NV5 to those used by peer companies. A webcast replay of this call and its accompanying presentation are also available via the link provided in today's news release and on the Investors section of the company's website. You may also find today's presentation, which will be referenced during this call, on the Investors section of the company's website. We will begin the call with comments from Dickerson Wright, Chairman and CEO of NV5, before turning the call over to Edward Codispoti, Chief Financial Officer, for a review of the third quarter 2023 results. Dickerson Wright will then provide closing comments before we open the call for all your questions. Dickerson, please go ahead. Thank you, Richard, and thanks to everyone for joining us for today's call. The third quarter results exceeded analyst consensus. Due to the timing of acquisitions and project delays, our full year forecast may vary from original guidance. The results consisted of organic growth from our existing business, despite headwinds caused by interest rates to our construction and transaction real estate service lines. These two service lines delivered negative growth in revenue and EBITDA for the market, although we have begun to see improvement in these sectors. Last quarter, I spoke concerning two initiatives to promote further organic growth in our core business markets, particularly transportation and water resources. Perhaps an update from then to now. We have strengthened our recruiting organization to fill project needs and to train our people on all service lines of NV5. Let's now turn to slide five, where we will discuss our accomplishments for the third quarter of 2023 and to discuss our growth momentum for 2024. NV5 grew 17% in quarter number three of 2023 over quarter three of 2022. This growth was comprised by a combination of organic growth and growth from earlier acquisitions. The specific areas of growth include Geospatial, despite some federal project delays in 2024, and also our Buildings and Technology sector growth was driven by clean energy, data centers, and audiovisual support for international and domestic projects. Infrastructure overcame degradation in interest rate-sensitive businesses and has driven our recent growth with contributions of our growth initiatives through project wins. Let's now turn to slide six, where we will highlight our building and technology accomplishments and opportunities. International mission-critical opportunities continue to grow, and we had a total growth of 44% and 12% organic growth in the service line in Q3 this year over Q3 of 2022. This continues to be driven by increased demand for our cloud access for smartphones. We anticipate the acquisition of Red Technologies will further extend our growth. We are seeing growth in clean energy and technology services, as well as international design projects. Ben Heraud is responsible for our buildings and technology growth in our international businesses. I would now like to ask Ben a few questions. Ben, the international group has really been growing organically. What is driving this growth? As we will mention in a moment, we recently did an acquisition in Singapore of Red Technologies, and tell us what they are doing. Thanks, Dickerson. There's a number of factors which are driving our international growth. Firstly, we're a premier service provider in the mission-critical data center space, which is seeing huge growth right now. We work with an impressive portfolio of well-known companies in this sector, and as they grow, so do we. This includes expansion into new geographies, most recently Japan and South Korea. It is also worth noting our domestic mission-critical team continues to gain good traction with several large project wins. This team works closely with our international group to leverage technical expertise and client relationships. We also have a very strong reputation in the casino and hospitality sector. Reopening of the tourism sector post-COVID is driving a lot of spending in this area, which we're well- poised to capitalize on. For example, earlier this year, Macau renewed the gaming licenses for major casino operators, and we are now being awarded new design projects as they ramp up investment in their properties. Red Technologies have integrated very well with our existing operations. They bring on an entirely new client base, and being upstream and downstream of our current services positions us well for cross-selling. We were recently awarded a project with a major insurance provider in Singapore, which incorporates all of our services. Their IT support services are a source of recurring revenue, and we're actively bringing this to our existing client base. Thanks, Ben. That's very helpful. Another question: here in the States and internationally, the Acoustics and Audio Visual Group has had a very good year for organic growth and profitability. Can you tell us about their client base and focus? Absolutely. Audio Visual is the primary service of the Technology and Acoustics Group. In addition to AV, we also provide services in IT, Building Security, Lighting, and Acoustics. For these services, we're a market leader in higher education and have done over 1,400 projects for 400 different campuses in North America. 12 months ago, we acquired KMK Consulting, who specialize in hospitality and gaming. This aligns nicely with our design and commissioning groups, and our revenue in this sector has grown significantly since. We've also broadened our core services within the group to include site lighting design, and we were recently awarded our largest lighting project ever. We have a strong focus on diversifying the sectors we work in, and have landed some large federal government projects, including new headquarters buildings for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, both under the Department of Homeland Security. Thanks, Ben. Why don't we now go to slide seven in our presentation deck, and we can see a little more graphic highlights of Red Technologies' acquisition that Ben was speaking of. You'll notice three attractive features that position us for cellular commercial expansion in Southeast Asia, recurring revenue due to ongoing maintenance of existing data centers, and also the expanded footprint as part of NV5 and the adoption of technology in the region. Let's now give an update on our infrastructure and utility service lines. Please turn to slide eight. Overall, our infrastructure group has had a very good third quarter in key geographical areas of North America. New York, a very important part of our infrastructure growth, grew 14% organically in quarter three versus quarter three of 2022. We had a 7% organic growth in California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and New Mexico. Turning to our utility businesses, which you'll see on the right side of the page, we drove 21% organic growth in our utility services, including substation and grid optimization. Our LNG business group, 33% organically over Q3 2022 as well. We have also continued to replace subcontract work with our personnel based in North America, as well as India and Malaysia. We continue to face headwinds in our construction quality assurance group, but we have recently seen improvement in this sector. Alex Hockman leads our infrastructure and utility services groups. I would like to ask him a few questions to provide an update for all of us. Alex, has the interest rate increase had a detrimental effect on infrastructure work? Thank you, Dick. Our infrastructure end markets, including design, project management, and inspection, have not been impacted by interest rates. However, we have seen some regional impacts in services that are primarily focused on private sector development. We have previously discussed the downturn in our real estate transaction services and the impact to some of our municipal outsourcing services. For example, comparing real estate transaction services, our 2022 revenue for the nine months through September was approximately $57 million, while in 2023 the revenue was $37.7 million. Corresponding EBITDA was $10.6 million versus $5.6 million. Also noteworthy is how the division adapted to the reality of higher interest rates since their Q1 EBITDA margin was 10.2%, and they have expanded margins to almost 15% on a year-to-date basis. Thanks, Alex. Very helpful. I know in this market you need to be creative and adaptive. What are some of the new opportunities and growth areas that you see in infrastructure? The transportation and utility end markets are very well- positioned for growth. We are seeing an increase in proposal requests and awards for roadway and bridge design and inspections throughout our infrastructure offices. We are also seeing significant proposal opportunities in water resiliency, and our power group is poised to grow organically with opportunities in all aspects of power delivery. One project of interest is an approximately 40-mile-long alignment of high-voltage overhead transmission lines in the Pacific Northwest. This type of project is an example of what is required to strengthen our grid and avoid power disruption and expand the infrastructure for green energy initiatives. The design involves multiple NV5 disciplines, including geotechnical, environmental, geospatial, surveying, and our civil and electrical engineering divisions. Thank you, Alex. Let's now move to our geospatial service line for an update. We'll start by going to slide nine. We're expecting a very good year from geospatial services. As you can see, year-to-date, total growth has been 69% over last year. Organic growth was 70%. Our recent acquisition of Axim gives us greater access to federal projects, and L3Harris Geospatial acquisition provides a recurring revenue base for geospatial software. Both acquisitions grew 8% over the previous quarter, and bookings and backlog are growing. Kurt Allen is responsible for sales for all of our geospatial services. Let's ask him for an update. Kurt, we recently made two acquisitions in the geospatial space, Axim Geospatial and L3Harris Geospatial businesses. You have been very involved in the integration of the entire geospatial sales organization, particularly with our recent acquisition. How have you combined our federal and commercial sales organizations? Thanks, Dickerson. Yes, in fact, the sales integration of both Axim and the L3Harris Visual Information Solutions group, or VIS for short, with the NV5 Geospatial core group, is now almost complete, and it will be finalized by year-end. Organizationally, we are operating as one unit, with the sales teams working together to cross-sell when possible and leverage our combined client base to upsell software or services. I say almost complete because integrating our CRM does take some time, but even with that, we expect that capability to go live during Q1 of next year. From a sales reporting perspective, the geospatial vertical is divided into four subverticals. Those subverticals are defense and intelligence, federal civilian, state and regional, and commercial. We also have two cross-functional disciplines that sell into each of those four subverticals that are tracked separately. They are hydrospatial and software. Additionally, with regards to integration, all geospatial will be branding as one NV5 starting on January 1st. So we're moving into the new year in good shape, one team, one brand. I thought I'd also take a minute to discuss Axim and how they fit into the core NV5 geospatial group. Axim brings us a hugely expanded capability within the defense and intelligence market. This means access to clients we have been unable to sell to because of the classified nature of the business. In addition, Axim is recognized as a premier enterprise GIS provider, which adds to our capabilities within this final portion of the life cycle. With these two acquisitions, NV5 probably now has the broadest and deepest geospatial life cycle capabilities in the world. Thanks, Kurt. Perhaps you can also tell us how the acquisition of L3Harris Geospatial has helped introduce a new client base and revenue stream for geospatial services. Sure. The addition of VIS has greatly expanded our ability to provide a wide range of solutions to our existing client base. It also allows us to tap into the ENVI software ecosystem that VIS has been known for for the last 46 years. In a nutshell, the ENVI ecosystem includes more than 500,000 software users worldwide, and the acquisition has now made NV5 the world's leader in providing advanced imaging software, particularly with respect to imaging spectroscopy and synthetic aperture radar, which is also known as SAR. From a growth perspective, this acquisition has geographically opened up the world for our geospatial vertical by adding four offices in Europe and two offices in the Asia-Pacific region. It has also allowed us to open doors within the geospatial project life cycle, where the core geospatial group was not as strong. While Quantum Spatial was a leader in the collection and processing of geospatial data and the development of derived analytics, VIS enhances our ability to provide proven, developed software and modeling capabilities within the geospatial life cycle. Already, we are seeing the integration of our professional services sales team with our software team bear fruit. For example, we just recently closed an ENVI Inform software booking with a publicly traded mining company. This company wanted to utilize ENVI to analyze hyperspectral data for mineral exploration. For VIS, this would probably have just been a software sale. Instead, NV5 introduced our services capability to the client and are now also providing a complete solution to optimize their workflow with hyperspectral data. The revenue to be generated by our professional services group for that transaction is more than five times the software revenue. While this is just one example, it speaks to our growth possibilities within geospatial with the acquisition of this. Exciting. Thank you, Kurt. On slide 10, we get insights into how the overall NV5 business is doing. Our backlog has grown to $833 million, which represents work we plan to do in the coming 12 months without any new awards. The results represent growth year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter. On the right-hand side of the page, you can reference key wins in Infrastructure, Utility Services, and Geospatial. I would now like to turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Ed Codispoti, to provide an overview. Ed? Thank you, Dickerson, and good afternoon, everyone. If you would please turn to slide 12 of the presentation, I'll review our third quarter 2023 financial results.... Our gross revenues were $239.3 million, compared to $204.1 million in the third quarter of last year. The 17% increase in growth was fueled by organic growth and acquisitions, primarily Axim and VIS. Gross profit was $115.4 million, compared to $99.9 million in the third quarter of last year, an increase of $15.5 million or 15.5%. Net income was $13.3 million in the quarter, compared to $16.1 million in the third quarter of last year, a decrease of $2.7 million. The decrease in net income was impacted by amortization expense from acquisitions, which increased $3.5 million when compared to the third quarter of last year, and interest expense, which increased $2.9 million. Additionally, our margins this quarter were impacted by the pre-integration period of our VIS acquisition and LNG project cycles. Our net income during the quarter also reflects a benefit from income taxes of $2.1 million, which was driven by larger R&D tax credits and deductions related to stock compensation. As a result, our GAAP diluted earnings per share were $0.86 per share in the third quarter of 2023, compared to $1.05 per share in the third quarter of 2022. This EPS is based on 15.5 million shares outstanding this quarter, compared to 15.3 million shares outstanding in the third quarter of last year. Our Adjusted EBITDA was $37.8 million, compared to $36 million in the third quarter of last year. The increase was impacted by project cycles in our LNG business and by the pre-integration period of our VIS acquisition. Our adjusted earnings per share, which exclude the impact of intangible amortization and the acquisition-related costs, were $1.51 per share in the third quarter, compared to $1.50 per share in the third quarter of last year. On slide 13, you can see that our cash flows from operations during the third quarter were $19.9 million. We have seen a sequential increase in our cash flows during each quarter this year, as we generated $11.3 million of cash from operations in the first quarter, followed by $14.2 million in the second quarter and $19.9 million in the third quarter. Keep in mind that we generated $19.9 million of cash from operations in the third quarter, despite higher interest rates when compared to the first and second quarters of this year. As of September 30th, 2023, we had $46.4 million of cash on hand, and our net leverage was 1.3 x, down slightly from 1.4 x last quarter. This net leverage includes the impact of the Axim and VIS acquisitions. We feel confident in the strength of our balance sheet and believe it positions us well for future growth. I'll now turn it back over to Dickerson for some closing comments. Thank you, Ed. Let's go now to slide 16, and we have updated this slide from last quarter's presentation, and you will see some of the initiatives that we're doing to grow the company even further. Please note, along with our seven previous drivers, we will expand our focus on software revenues that will serve as driver number eight. We have also expanded our international footprint to capitalize on the growing technology market. Thank you. I would like to now turn the call over to the operator. Thank you. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Our first question will come from Chris Moore with CJS Securities. Please proceed. Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks for taking a couple questions. Thanks, Chris. All right, so maybe, maybe we could start with the fiscal 2023 guide. Obviously, it's down a bit from Q2. You talked a little bit about it. Can you maybe talk some more about the drivers there? And, was it, you know, work that you thought you might get in Q4 that's not happening? Or just, you know, kind of any further insight there? Sure, Chris. One thing I can say, it's not was not based on our lack of organic growth, which is actually improving, but a lot of our growth is based on acquisitions as well. And so we've had some acquisitions that we were anticipating to come to fruition much sooner or earlier in the year that have not come, and we're anticipating that maybe some of those acquisitions could extend over to 2024. The other thing is that we haven't really lost any backlog or any work, but we've had some project delays in our geospatial group, which have federal delays specifically, that were pushed over to the fourth quarter. But so we've been very conservative in the guidance, and a lot of that was really based on just the timing of project delays and acquisitions that have not come to fruition. But the company has been growing organically. Got it. I appreciate that. Maybe just in terms of what you're seeing from utility CapEx spending, it looks like it, I think it slowed down a little bit in Q2. Did that slower pace continue in Q3? Is it picking up? I know, you know, typically it had been low single digits. It was much higher than that for a while. I'm just trying to get a sense as to what you're seeing. Well, you know, I'll, I'll let Ed maybe answer that specifically more, but generally, we've been-- we've seen a real growth, we've seen a real growth in our geospatial business, and the geospatial is much more capital intensive. So if it's, I know your question was on utilities, and I wasn't quite sure if you meant the capital expenditure of our clients or our capital expenditure. Yeah, of your clients. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, we've had some delays, and—and you've seen some recent things, a delay in the wind, in wind farm work. So we have seen the lack of capital there, but there's been significant improvement in capital on improving the grid, optimizing the grid, modernizing the grid, and not so much in capital, actually, in energy generation. It's mostly in energy delivery. But maybe Ed or Alex may have a specific comment to you on that. I think you said it very well. We've seen a little slowdown with respect to the wind, but in terms of our power distribution and delivery, we're not seeing any slowdown right now. Got it. I I appreciate that. Maybe just last one on this. A backlog, $833 million, but roughly what percentage of that is Geospatial? Geospatial is around $156 million or so of that portion. Got it. And has that changed much over the last year, year- over- year? Is that number much different? I think... Well, of course, we had the acquisition of- The acquisition. Sure. Yep. But I think the proportion that you're seeing now should be representative, you know, going forward, absent any, you know, larger acquisitions that would kind of cause a change in the mix. But I think it's an expected mix right now as of end of Q3. Very helpful. I'll leave it there. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Our next question will come from Rob Brown with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Good afternoon. Hi, Rob. Just wanted to first talk about gross margins a little bit. I think you talked about some one-time things, but maybe just clarify the dynamics in gross margins. Should those kind of snap back here, as those pull through in Q3? Yeah, I'll just give a general comment, but I'd like Ed to maybe speak specifically on that. The interesting thing to me on gross margins is, if you look at our second quarter, we had a higher gross margin, but a lower net, net income, no, no, a lower Adjusted EBITDA. And it really depends on the one, the mix of the client, and then on our percent of completion projects, what we think is completed. One of—you know, we are a very labor-intensive business, and so sometimes our increase in labor or salary increases to people may not match up to the exact timing of our contract acceleration or increasing. And so, you'll have some variance in gross margin from month to month and quarter to quarter. But Ed? I think with respect to Q3, Rob, the outlier there, as we mentioned in the release, is the LNG business, and that's just timing of contracts. So as we cycle through different contracts, I would expect that those margins would get back to normal over time. But I think Q3 was, you know, a lower than average quarter with respect to margin because of that reason. Okay. Thank you. And I know you talked a little bit about Q4, but how do you sort of think about next year in terms of the trends in the business for organic growth? Are some of these headwinds kind of muting that a little bit into next year, or do you feel like this sort of sorts out and next year it looks sort of normalized? Well, you know, we are certainly optimistic about the business, and I'll speak a little bit more of that in the concluding comments. But you'll notice we have a very strong backlog, and we really use our backlog in the budgeting processes. But we're anticipating a solid, strong, good year in 2024. And, you know, I was gonna comment on this, and I'll maybe mention it again in the concluding comments, but, you know, I think it's we all need to look at the credibility of the company. And I’ll just kind of say in general, on credibility, and then we can speak to specifics, but we have never had a losing year in business. We have never had, since our inception, we have never had anything that would indicate any kind of a loss. So, we want to base that on that credibility. From what I see in the backlog and all the indicators that we have used in the past, from 2013, when we went public, where we were doing $100 million in revenue to, today, year- to- date or year end, we're anticipating $864 million in revenue. So all of that growth has come from very limited leverage, always profitability. Going into 2024, I have to use those same indicators, and I'll speak specifically of those things in our concluding comments. But we have a very strong backlog, and we have a switch in, in stability and revenue because we're getting more and more portion of our business has been recurring in revenue, subscription-based revenue, and that tends to be a little more solid. So I'm very encouraged, Rob, about 2024, and we're entering it with a entering the year with a really, optimistic viewpoint, and we expect 2024 to be a stronger year. Great. Thank you. I'll turn it over. Great. Thank you. Our next question comes from Tim, Tim Mulrooney with William Blair. Please go ahead. Yeah, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Well, welcome, and thank you for following us. We appreciate it. Yeah, thanks. I wanted to ask, build on an earlier question, on the utility business. We've seen some favorable regulatory changes lately in T&D, whether that's, you know, in Texas with the ERCOT reforms or the recent FERC Order 2023, that'll hopefully streamline the interconnection queue. I was just curious, is that helping drive that strong organic growth that you saw in the utility services business of the quarter? Or do those dynamics not really impact, you know, what you're doing in utility services? Well, I'll give a general thing, and then I'll really leave it to Alex to perhaps answer. But we are really focused on the utility business, and we've hired additional people, and we're entering into new markets, so we're very positive. And I wouldn't—for our piece, I wouldn't say it's so much of the increase in the overall general utility business, but the specific client bases that we're going after. So we're really focused on the utility business from areas that we want to identify and we want to focus on. So I think we're just giving more emphasis towards it, and so we feel very optimistic in 2024 about the utility business. But, you know, Alex, you may have a comment on that. No, I would agree with what you said, Dickerson. The only thing that I would add is that we're seeing tremendous opportunities with our strategic undergrounding of both transmission and distribution, as well as in general increase in CapEx on distribution lines. Got it. Thank you. And I also wanted to ask on your infrastructure business, and apologies if you already addressed this, but I just wanted to get your 10,000-foot view on where we are in fiscal stimulus, with a particular focus on IIJA. I ask because we've been hearing some more U.S. dollars that are finally flowing into actual projects and new contract vehicles being announced. So just curious, you know, how do you expect this particular piece of stimulus to unfold over the next several years, and when you really think, you know, it might really start to impact your numbers, if at all? Thank you. I'll just speak from our provincial look at things. We've always wanted to be in a mandated business. So anything in infrastructure is not so much based on the economy as it is based on need. You know, people need to drink clean water, people need to use the facilities, people need to go over bridges, and those things have to be done, whether the economy is good or bad. And so we think that we wanted to have something that is much more stable than something that is just some business that are based on the economy. So in infrastructure, we are starting to see some new projects that have had some support from federal funding. The overall general view is we are seeing some tailwinds, and so we think the federal mandated projects are giving some assistance to that, and we seem to be benefiting from that. Okay. Thank you. And if I might sneak one more just modeling question- Oh, right ahead. Thank you. For Ed, apologies, but I'm still new to the story, so I was just curious, within COGS, it looks like that other direct cost line jumped up about $6 million sequentially here in the third quarter. I'm just curious what drove that increase, and if, you know, $21 million-$22 million is a good run rate for how to think about that particular line item in our models moving forward. Right. So that particular line of the COGS has a few things flowing through it. One is your traditional pass-throughs for expenses of employees that are working on their projects. But the items that move the needle more, which are the ones that you're alluding to, are in the case of the LNG business. When they assemble and manufacture the equipment, the equipment itself passes through that line. And so sometimes it's a little bit noisy, right? Because a lot of it has to do with the timing of the project cycles, but that's what's driving that particular spike that you're referring to. Okay, so maybe not something that we should be using as a run rate moving forward, it sounds like. No, you got to look at a larger, longer window, right? And look at averages. But it's hard to say it's going to stay static at that current run rate of $21 million. Got it. Thank you all for taking my questions, and good luck in the fourth quarter. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Jeff Martin with Roth MKM. Please proceed. Thanks. Hi, Jeff. Good afternoon, guys. Hi, Dickerson. How are you? Good, good. I was wondering if you could give us, you know, a frame of reference on the LNG projects. I mean, I don't recall a whole lot of discussion on previous calls regarding LNG, so maybe give us, you know, a high-level view and maybe narrow it down on, you know, specific projects. You know, collectively, how large is LNG this year versus last year? Are there large projects that are tailing off? I think it would be helpful for us to know and have a point of reference as we model out the balance of this year and into next year. Okay, I'll start to comment on it. And you're right, it, from me, it is gonna be very high level. So, I think this is one of our business units that is really focused on percent of completion. So we anticipate having a much stronger, very strong year, quarter in the fourth quarter of LNG, where they will be recognizing a revenue better. I don't think there's there isn't anything that they're doing now that would indicate that there would be a slowdown in the fourth quarter. A lot of the work they're doing now is transferred over to unit price basis rather than. They're very risk-averse, so they're not so much based on outcome as they are on billing for the progress as they're making it, and they tend to be a little bit conservative, conservative in recognizing revenue. But, you know, that—the LNG group, it reports an infrastructure group to, to, to Alex, and he's here, he's here today, and, and Ed may have some comments on how they see the LNG business. Yeah. So the one thing that's unique about the LNG business, Jeff, is that it, it's an EPC model, so they're providing engineering procurement as well as overseeing the construction. So as you look at the types of projects, you could consider it in these three phases. So while the engineering phase is actually very steady in terms of its revenue, the issue that you have with the cost of goods or relative to the procurement of various pieces of equipment, that's where we start to get the lumpiness. But overall, we're seeing still very, very high demand for these peak shaving facilities, and we're very bullish on the future of our LNG business. Yeah. And then just from a numbers standpoint, to give you a sense, it's around an $80 million business right now on the top line. $80 million this year, and what was it last year, and what do you think it could be next year? Last year was also in the $80 million range, roughly, so. Okay. And then, do you foresee any project completions that would create growth headwinds for next year? Be a little less, huh? Yeah. So it's not a matter of growth headwinds. What happens when, as a project completes, the engineering phase is still very strong. But in terms of the pass-through revenue, that is very dependent upon where you are in the construction cycle. Okay, great. In terms of project delays, I believe you mentioned at the start of the call there were some construction-related project delays. I was wondering if you could elaborate on that. Some of the delays that we're seeing relative to construction is, with interest rates increasing, some of the private development have just put projects on hold. They've already acquired land, but the actual initiation of breaking ground and going through with the projects are the types of projects where we've typically seen some headwinds. Okay, great. And then as we head into next year, I would assume with the strong bookings and strong backlog in geospatial, you would expect some, you know, organic growth acceleration for the business next year in geospatial? That's certainly been the trend. We really are seeing an increase in our, in our organic growth and, in the infrastructure business, you know, we are optimistic about the future organic growth. Okay, great. And then just one last question, if I could. On, on the real estate transaction side, what has been the trend over the course of this year? I think in Q2, we thought it may have bottomed out. Did it uptick in Q3? There's been a slight uptick in both segments of that business. But as Alex mentioned, the interest rates are really driving projects. We've had project delays. Recently, we were awarded a large project and I can't name the specific. I won't name the specific name, but they have delayed it until they see they're sure that interest rates are gonna stabilize. So you can imagine that if, you know, everyone is working on, more so than not, on borrowed money, so when the increase of interest rates, it really has slowed down that business, which is really portfolio acquisition and things that are very dependent on investments, and the investments were dependent on what the interest rates were. I'll just add to that, that sequentially, over the last three quarters this year, so real estate has improved each quarter through Q3. That's very helpful. Thank you. Okay, thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one. Our next question comes from Andy Wittman with Baird. Please proceed. Oh, yeah, great. Thanks for taking my question, guys. I just wanted to ask a couple questions here first to- Great ... understand the quarter a little bit better. Can you hear me? Just wanna make sure. I've had- Yeah, I- ... technical difficulties. Okay, good. I've, I've had too many calls recently where I haven't been coming through. Well, we only have difficulty hearing hard questions, but if you have an easy question, you'll- Yeah. Well, we'll see. I don't think... So I guess maybe for Ed, how much of the revenue in the quarter was derived from companies owned less than 12 months. I guess this number is going to show up in your 10-K or in your 10-Q anyway, but I just thought to understand that one to calculate the organic growth rate for the quarter. Yeah, the quarter three had around $30 million-$33 million or so, $32.9 million of revenue from acquisitions. Got it. Okay, thank you for that. And then just on the tax rate here, it looks like you actually had a refund or something that was recognized. You've got positive or negative tax, positive income on that. I was wondering if you could describe what happened in the quarter and what. When these things happen, it's always somewhat difficult to understand what the underlying effective tax rate was for the quarter, because I imagine there's some kind of one-time or special item in there. Understood. No, so, with respect to the third quarter, as you alluded to, there is a benefit this quarter, and that was primarily driven by both R&D tax credits and deductions for stock compensation. But the larger piece of that is, are R&D tax credits, and that's just the, you know, we're in the business that we operate in, those come around just as a result of the R&D work that we do, frankly, with across our businesses. So when.. Our statutory rate, Andy, is 25.5%. That's the statutory rate, but on top of that, you're gonna get, call it, discounts for R&D tax credits, stock comp deductions, etc. In this particular quarter, that statutory rate, you know, it, it's always going to be in that 25.5% range. 30% of the 30% represented R&D tax related, and then you've got about another 7% that's stock comp deductions that got you to that 19% of the benefit, if that makes sense. Yeah, I think it does. Yeah. Yeah, no- We have a 19% effective rate, that's a benefit. If you start with your effective rate of 25.5% or so, you deduct 30% for stock, for R&D tax credits, and another 7% for stock comp, and then you have some other items mixed in there. But the bigger story is that it's related to R&D tax Credits. Yeah. Okay, that's good. Thank you. And then, I guess, kind of curious, the cancellations that Ørsted has made, or that were announced a couple of days ago for two of their four offshore wind projects. I didn't know if you had direct exposure to Ørsted or not. I think that you've talked in the past about doing some things related to offshore wind. I think some of the investments that you've made in subsea geospatial, and as well as some, I think you've done some onshore stuff for the grid. I just don't know if you're connected to these projects at all. So I was wondering if you'd comment on if this has any impact on NV5, and what that impact could be if so. Well, a very good question. Ørsted is a client of ours, and we have done some things for their specific needs. The cancellation of the project that was in the news today in New Jersey, we weren't really doing much there. So, I'm knocking on serious hardwood, which is my head right now. You know, we are doing a lot of work in North Carolina. As you know, we had one of our capital expenditures was that deep water measurement ocean vessel, and that was really for foundations for wind farms. That has not, that portion of Ørsted's project has, you know, has not been delayed as much. But, Ørsted is a client, and we will be affected if they, if there's further delays. Got it. Okay, I think that is all I had for now. Thank you very much. Hey, thanks, Andy. Thank you. Thank you. At this time, this concludes our question- and- answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Wright for closing remarks. Thank you, operator. I just had a few thoughts, and, actually, I am often asked, or we, our company is often asked: What is our vision? What do we see for the company? How do we—What areas are we gonna grow? And what do we, or what are we going to do to, mitigate any downturns in, in, certain sectors of the business? First is, diversification. I'm thankful that we have a very diversified, and NV5 was built on segments, and so when some segments are down, other segments seem to improve, but we're not so dependent on any one specific area. So we want to grow, but not grow for the sake of growth. So we are growing with—we're looking for stable revenue with minimal leverage, and you can see that in our base. So we don't want to grow by debt, by taking on more debt. We have many ways of independently doing this, but we really are looking for continuity of earnings. We want to make sure that the earnings are stable, what revenue that we have, that translates to earnings is going to be stabilized. So you'll notice on our geospatial and other developments, we are really moving to subscription-based revenue... revenue that's recurring, revenue that we can continually count on. And so that is another way that we are positioning NV5 Technology. You've noticed a lot in the presentation today. We think the competitive edge will be given by technology, and so we wanna be on the forefront of that, and we're positioning our company to be very dependent and have that advantage of technology. So look for that in the growth of the company. But I would say if there's a good outcome of the increase in interest rates, it allows for more opportunities for NV5 to move in our vision and to capitalize on, you know, companies that are leveraged but may have good earnings. So it really has grown our M&A field. We have a lot of opportunities that the valuations are becoming more realistic, and we've moved competitors that are basing on debt. This increase in interest rates is something that if they have to utilize more debt, it becomes more expensive for us. So we think there's a, there's some good opportunities there. I think, I often ask or we often, the company often asks that, you know, to companies, "What separates you from the competitors?" And they can use many things that are not objective. We believe in objective measurement. So I said this earlier, I would like to, you know, mention to you and just something that we constantly need to improve, we constantly need to grow. But if you look from when we, the inception of the company was from zero, but when we went public, and I said this earlier, in 2013, our revenue was a little over $100 million. In 2023, we think our revenue is gonna be close to $900 million, $865 million, and we're looking at a very strong year in 2024. We have positioned with everybody our goal of being $1 billion in revenue by the end of 2024. We still are focused on that. And so what I'm trying to mention or to convey is, if we are anticipating a good year, every indicator that we've used, that we've grown from 2013 to 2023, from $100 million to $800 million, those indicators that we use really are showing us or giving us some clarity on having a stronger year in 2024. So we look for good prospects in 2024, and some of those dashboard indicators, of course, are backlog. We take that very seriously. We'll learn much more in the budget process, and hopefully, we'll have some of those acquisitions that enhance our growth will be dialed in sooner in the year than later. So I wanna thank everybody for listening in, and we like to be very conservative on our outlook on things, and we wanna base it on, one, where is the company going? What is the vision? How are we gonna get there? And then, what are we forecasting? So, I thank everyone for their continued interest in the company, and we look forward to speaking to you again in the fourth quarter and entering into 2024. So thank you, everyone. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. That concludes today's call. You may now disconnect.