Good afternoon, and thank you for joining NorthWestern Corporation's financial results webcast for the year ending December 31st, 2020. My name is Travis Meyer. I'm the Director of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations for NorthWestern Energy. Joining us on the call today to walk you through the results are Bob Rowe, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Bird, Chief Financial Officer. As most of you are aware, on Tuesday this week, we announced several key leadership changes. We also have incoming CFO, Crystal Lail, currently a Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer for NorthWestern, joining the fun today. Crystal has been with NorthWestern for over 18 years and has played a huge role in shaping the company into the great organization it is today. Brian is handing off some big shoes to fill, but those of us who know Crystal have no doubt she'll bust the toes out of those loafers. Just to be clear, that was a testament to her abnormal talent, not her very normal shoe size. NorthWestern's results have been released and the release is available on our website at northwesternenergy.com. We also released our 10-K pre-market this morning. Please note that this company press release, this presentation, comments by presenters and responses to your questions may contain forward-looking statements. As such, I will direct you to the disclosures contained within our SEC filings and the Safe Harbor Provisions included on the second slide of this presentation. Please also note this presentation includes non-GAAP financial measures. Please see the non-GAAP disclosures, definitions, and reconciliations included in the materials. This webcast is being recorded. The archive replay of today's webcast will be available for one year beginning at 6:00 P.M. Eastern today and can be found on our website at northwesternenergy.com under the Our Company, Investor Relations, Presentations and Webcast link. With that, I'll hand the presentation over to NorthWestern CEO, Bob Rowe. Thank you very much, Travis. Well, everyone, thank you for joining us. Wherever you are, I hope it's a lot warmer, than it is in South Dakota or Montana, where the temperatures have been well below zero and we're pretty well locked into a multi-day cold period. It's February, so what do you expect? I do want to start by thanking and congratulating both Brian and Crystal. Brian and I have been working together. In fact, he gave me this factoid, the Executive Comorbidity Index. If you add up his tenure and my tenure, we are at a total of 30 years. The industry average for CFO and CEO is closer to eight. Crystal and I will be starting over and resetting the clock. As you already know, Brian is a tremendous leader of the company. Several of you know Crystal, and she will do a great job. Brian is moving into a new position that we haven't previously had, and it's an important position. I would think about both these changes as well as some others as an indication of a healthy company that does good succession planning and looks out long-term as to its people, just as we do to our infrastructure. This is a change that the entire executive team and the board is really very enthusiastic about. Crystal, my advice to you, following up on Travis's comment, is when Brian hands you that pair of Keds, handle them delicately and wash them before you even think about putting them on. With that, let me turn to the highlights. Net income for 2020 was $155.2 million. That's almost $47 million or 23% less as compared to the same period in 2019. Diluted EPS was $3.06, and that's $0.92 or 23% worse than 2019. On the other hand, non-GAAP adjusted EPS was $3.35, which is within our guidance range of $3.30-$3.45, this is $0.07 or 2% lower than in 2019. The board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.62 per share, which is a 3.3% increase, payable on March 31st to shareholders of record as of March 15th. I'm very proud that despite COVID, despite all the challenges that were thrown at us, working in very different ways last year, we had the best safety record ever. That was while having the busiest year on the capital front ever. We've talked about our capital plans, of course, every quarter. We had a very successful year in terms of investing back in the system and doing it safely and doing it while keeping our employees healthy. Specifically, our recordable incident rate was down from 1.86 in 2019 to only 1.36 in 2020, and our lost time rate went from 0.58 in 2019 to 0.39 in 2020. Obviously, that translates into more people doing more work, but fundamentally it translates into more people going home safely every day. We're very proud of that. We had a great year in terms of customer satisfaction too. Our customers saw what our employees were doing in the community, saw what the company was doing in the community, and that was really recognized and appreciated. We've been talking about the competitive solicitation process in Montana for, it seems like a very long time. We are reviewing the independent administrator's analysis, and we expect to announce the selection of multiple projects during the first quarter. We do anticipate that at least one of our projects will be among those selected, resulting in owned capacity generation investment in Montana in excess of $200 million over the next three years, assuming we do receive approval from the Montana Public Service Commission. We'll be coming back and talking about some of these in much more detail. Brian, off to you for your victory lap. Thanks, Bob. I wish it wasn't a COVID year for my victory lap. With that, Bob talked about the financial outcomes in 2020, and net income was down on a GAAP basis, down $46.9 million or approximately 23%. You can look to that approximately $47 million negative variance, all in the gross margin line. Up at the top of page four, you see gross margin's down about $47 million or 5%. When you think below on the P&L, we did a nice job in terms of managing expenses. Matter of fact, operating expenses are down, and that combined with favorable AFUDC and the other income line, were offset pretty much entirely by increased interest expense and a lower tax benefit in 2020. We had a lot to do to overcome a difficult gross margin year. On page five, we speak to that. Gross margin down to $47 million, as I mentioned, about 5%. That was pretty consistent, down 5%, both for electric and gas. As we describe to the bottom of that page, I break it down into five buckets, if you will. Electric and gas were certainly impacted by unfavorable weather. Secondly, I'd say COVID impacted that. Those two, of course, were partly offset by customer growth. We also had a poor outcome or a disallowance on our PCAM. That's approximately $9 million. The first two I talked about were approximately $22 million in total. Below that, I really lumped together the three things. We did have a QF gain in 2020, but it was lower than the prior year. We did have, in 2019, we had a decent supply cost recovery, primarily as a result of dealing with the deadband. On a year-over-year basis, that was a negative item. We had lower transmission revenues this year, primarily from units one and two being down this year. Those three things combined together for approximately $9 million. Lastly, we did have a big other here, and as we've mentioned on previous calls, we had some favorable items in other in 2019, and unfavorable in 2020. These are primarily dealing with closed-out trackers. On a year-over-year basis, that was a $9 million swing. The total of all of those things is approximately $48.5 million. We did get $1 million back, I guess, in terms of gross margin when you net it out, those items that impact gross margin that are offset elsewhere in the P&L for a net decrease in gross margin of $47.4 million. Weather, on page six, was a big driver. We estimate overall unfavorable weather in 2020 resulted in $9.8 million pre-tax detriment as compared to normal, and a $17.1 million detriment as compared to 2019. When you look at heating degree days, for instance, at the top of the page, it was certainly warmer than normal, and again, the historic average, and quite a bit warmer than last year. We did get some help from a cooling degree day, primarily in South Dakota, but I think you all know that's a smaller part of our business, and so we didn't get as much bang for our buck, if you will, in the third quarter for that. Lastly, on this page, in the first quarter and the fourth quarter, we like to see a lot of blue. Unfortunately, in 2020, we saw a lot of red or orcange color, if you will. Much, much warmer. Just to give you a bit of hint for 2021, you're going to see quite a bit of orange, I think, in January, and you're going to see quite a bit of blue in February. Far in February, it's been very cold, as Bob pointed out earlier on the call. Moving forward, on page seven, in terms of operating expenses, this company, and we talked about this on earlier calls, whatever we did see in a shortfall in margin, we would be managing our expenses to make sure that we did hit our revised guidance and did a nice job. Operating expenses were down $6.8 million or down 1%. The biggest driver was a reduction in OG&A of over $20 million or down 6.6%. We still saw a 4% increase in property taxes and depreciation and depletion. On the OG&A, the biggest driver is employee benefits. Think medical, but a good portion of that were certainly lower incentive for the company during 2020. Had lower labor costs of about $4 million. Think of just, Bob talked about our biggest year from a capital investment standpoint, certainly allocating more labor to capital. Hazard tree removal, we did such a great job in 2019, really getting after that. We had less dollars in 2020. As you know, just less travel and other costs that you'd expect to see during a COVID year. We certainly took advantage of that as well. One area where we did see increased cost was on the uncollectible accounts. Even though we did get COVID relief, if you will, from the South Dakota Commission, we did not from the Montana Commission, that cost us a $3 million increase in that particular item. Net change, it was down $22.7 million in OG&A for those items that impact net income. We had some things that impact OG&A, but are offset elsewhere in the P&L. Those totaled $1.6 million for a net decrease in OG&A of $21.1 million. Mentioned the increases in property taxes and depreciation. Obviously, planned additions are the biggest driver there, on property taxes, changes in property valuations as well. Moving forward to slide eight, just operating income down $40.7 million, about 15%. Interest expense slightly up from higher borrowings. Other income up from net really from higher AFUDC, think of the build-out, you're seeing in South Dakota from a generation perspective, driving that to a great degree. That nets to pre-tax being down about $38 million or nearly 21%. Below that, we had a lower tax benefit than the prior year, and I'll speak to that in a minute. Again, as we pointed out earlier in the call, net income down $46.9 million. Moving on to taxes on slide nine. At the bottom of the page, you see the income tax benefit in 2020 was $11 million compared to $19.9 million benefit in 2019. A reduction in benefit of $8.9 million. That was driven, you can see as you move up the page, about halfway up the page, the biggest driver there was in 2019, the release of unrecognized tax benefit of $22.8 million. That was partially offset by really three items. Think of lower pre-tax income resulting in lower federal income taxes, the $8 million you see there, and lower state income taxes, the $2.7 million. I'd argue just with the increased capital work, we also had higher capital that qualified for tax repairs. That increase of $4.1 million helped offset last year's big benefit. Again, a net reduction in benefit of $8.9 million. Moving on to the balance sheet. I think all I'd say, I'd really focus on the capitalization really at the bottom of the page. We were definitely up in short-term and long-term debt. In 2020, we did delay equity needs that we had in 2020, and we'll talk about that on kind of 2021 moving forward. As a result of that delay, really our debt to cap did go up from 52% up to 53.5%. Still, certainly within our targeted range of 50%-55%. Moving on to the cash flow statement on page 11. Cash flow from operations are up about $55 million. That's primarily due to better supply collections this year. Also in 2019, you may recall we had TCJA refunds. We also had some generation interconnection refunds. That big improvement, that was over $100 million. Those three changes, that's reduced by the reduction in net income we talked about earlier, resulting in a net increase, if you will, on cash from operating activities of about $55 million. Bob talked about a big year from cash and investing activities. You can see that approximately a $90 million increase there in just higher investment, and we expect to be at this higher level investment and hopefully even higher, when we speak to generation in 2021. At the bottom of the page, cash provided by financing activity, certainly higher debt was the driver there. Moving forward on page 12, we had a slide in here just on taxes. Just wanted to point out we are using up NOLs. We do expect those NOLs to carry over into 2021. Because of PTCs and other tax credits that we have, we don't expect to be a cash taxpayer until 2024. Also want to point out, and as we'll say elsewhere, that we expect the effective tax rate to kind of hover around 0%, either -2.5% up to 2.5% range on ETR on pre-tax income. Over time, we expect that ETR to gradually increase until the time we get to 2025, somewhere in that 10%-12%. Moving forward on adjusted non-GAAP earnings on slide 13. First of all, I should point out what were the things that were non-GAAPed out, if you will. We did add back unfavorable weather this year. We did add back the PCAM disallowance. In 2019's results, we actually removed favorable weather. We removed the unrecognized tax benefit. As a result of that, in 2020, our $3.06 diluted EPS increased by $0.29- $3.35. We compared that to $3.42. That's again, adjusting the 2019 GAAP of $3.98 for those items I mentioned down to $3.42. The difference between $3.35 and $3.42, $0.07 or down 2% on a year-over-year basis non-GAAP. If you look at kind of how we compare those non-GAAP items through the P&L itself, gross margin at the top of the page, down about $21 million. We look at it on a non-GAAP basis, think half of that really being COVID. You could also see, though, that from an OG&A perspective, we offset that gross margin detriment really in OG&A, reduction of $22.8, we certainly couldn't do enough to cover the increase in property taxes and depreciation. We did manage to do, I think as we pointed out, a good job in terms of increasing other income and a decent tax benefit, again, when you look on a non-GAAP basis year-over-year. Net net, we got back to still falling short about $3.9 million or again, 2% detriment on a year-over-year basis. Slide 14. In terms of forecasting load itself, we did all right on the residential side, we're still seeing commercial and industrial lag a bit. Those seem like quite a bit of difference, if you will, from a volumetric perspective. I'll grant that to you. If you move on to the next page 15, and focus on the impact of the fourth quarter from a COVID perspective, it was rather flat for us. We saw a similar detriment in gross margin than we saw in the second and third quarter, in the fourth quarter. The recovery that we did see in uncollectible accounts, we were able to collect from customers for a period of time before we entered into winter rules. Again, continued reduction in labor and travel and others. Net-net, that we really just kind of flattened out to really a minimal loss to, or effective, I'd just say zero, if you will, for the fourth quarter. For the full year basis, we did see a total $8 million-$11 million detriment in gross margin. Total operating expenses were down 2.4%, but in that number was, again, an increase in uncollectible accounts that had we got an accounting order, we would've actually reduced that to zero as well. Even with that as a backdrop, little bit different interest expense and better taxes just to calculate what we would've seen on a GAAP basis. After tax, we saw a loss about, I would argue, $5 million-$7 million or $0.09-$0.14 is associated with COVID. Back to the $3 million uncollectible accounts. I think we've been saying all along, if we didn't get an accounting order from the Montana Commission, it would be about $0.05. That $3 million is approximately $0.05. Instead of being in the bottom half of our earnings guidance on a revised guidance, we would've been in the top half had we been able to achieve that. Last thing I'd say, Bob referenced this upfront. I think when you consider a lot of concerns about COVID and how it could impact our capital spend, impact our supply chain, the company operated extremely well. Bob mentioned safety. To deliver on the biggest capital spend we've had, and really pull that off this year gives us a lot of confidence going into 2021 with even an increased level of capital spend. Feel good about the operations of the company at this point in time. Moving on to 16, the 2020 non-GAAP to the 2021 EPS bridge, starting with the $3.35. We range it low to high, up to $3.40 to $3.60. I'd acknowledge that that's a pretty wide range and as some of you have picked up, we'd like to tighten that, but we want to follow how things are going on COVID in 2021. One thing I should point out in the bridge itself, there's a big leap in gross margin there, $0.39- $0.54. I'd really kind of put that into three different buckets, and I'd argue that they're about a third, a third, a third. First, think organic growth as being that first third. I think second third would be a partial COVID recovery. Think commercial, industrial, and I would argue some transmission get back as well during the year. The last third is trackers. You guys know property taxes are going to be going up, and we're going to get recovery of a portion of those property tax increases in margin. I think also there was a drag, if you will, on other in 2020 and that we don't expect in 2021, and that would be part of that last third, if you will, along with the increases from property tax trackers. We do have our assumptions that go into our 2021 guidance in the bottom of the page. Of course, you know these well. Normal weather. We do expect COVID's going to be with us to the second quarter, and expect to see a more normalized look in the second half of the year. We have a consolidated income tax rate, as I mentioned earlier, -2.5 to +2.5, then diluted average shares ranging 51.5- 51.8. I'm going to focus on that last one for a second. I think there's maybe been some concerns about announcing a $200 million three-year ATM program. Obviously going from our share count where we sit today to this range, we're not planning on issuing $200 million of equity in 2021. That is a three-year look. I'd also remind folks that we did not issue equity in 2020 and we had discussions with the rating agencies in light of where our price was, and we have seen some rebound in our price. We do expect to be issuing equity in 2021, and some of that's snowplowed from 2020, and some, of course, with our needs. I want to reiterate, the $200 million is over a three-year period. Last thing I'd just say on equity, and I know Bob will see it in the slide here coming up as well. If in fact we're fortunate enough to win in the IRP and make an investment there after a pre-approval, we're going to need to raise equity for that as well. Anything associated with that Montana generation is not built into our numbers, either our capital or our equity and debt needs at this point in time. I'll go to my last slide 17. We have diluted EPS at the top of the page. Even with obviously 2020 had a reduction in GAAP and non-GAAP earnings. Even with that, the average growth rate over this time period was 4.3%. I'd also point out that the midpoint of our 2021 guidance versus our year-end 2020 on a non-GAAP is a 4.5% increase, that's in line, if you will, with kind of the average we've seen over this time period. I'd also say that regarding the dividend itself, I'd say the projected $0.08 increase for a full year in dividend is a 3.3% increase. I would grant you that that's quite a bit less than the 6.7% you've seen on an average growth rate. I'd also tell you that it's our expectation that we're going to grow that dividend in line with our earnings growth rate on a going forward basis. I guess that would lead me to the red box at the bottom of this page. We do expect to see a 4%-5% growth in rate base, a 3%-6% EPS growth, over the long term. One thing I'd say about that, as we've said before, this higher level of capital spend that we're currently seeing, as we get recovery of that investment through rates, we expect to see ourselves in the middle of that range. Again, if we're so fortunate to see some success in the Montana RFP, we'd expect to be in the high end again upon getting recovery or a pre-approval, if you will, as we make those investments. Last thing I'd say on this page is we want to maintain that 60%-70% dividend payout, and I think that's one of the reasons you saw a lower increase in the dividend, than you have in the past, but still a strong dividend up $0.08. Want to make sure that we stay within that range on a going forward basis and expect that we will as we continue to grow the earnings of the company. With that, I'll hand it back over to Bob. I picture Brian dropping the mic right there. Brian, it's been great working with you as CFO over these last 12 and a half years or so. I'm looking forward very much to working with you as COO. Just to show you how seriously Brian is taking his new role, he's now driving a large pickup truck appropriate to his new position. As you get to know Crystal, you'll find out that she's much more inclined towards Jeeps and classic pickup trucks than she is towards those exotic German sports cars that most CFOs drive. I think the last quarter, I talked about how much we were all looking forward to 2021, in terms of the opportunities ahead of us. I would say that, speaking for myself, but I think really for the whole executive team and the board, we are more enthusiastic, optimistic about our ability to do good work for our customers than has been the case in quite some time. That is reflected, among other things, in the amount of capital work that we have planned for this year. We told you in our last call that our total capital forecast, five years, is $2.1 billion. As Brian mentioned, we expect to finance this with a combination of cash from operations, first mortgage bonds, equity issuances, through a three-year, as Brian said, ATM program. Financing obviously subject to change, depending on capital expenditures, regulatory outcomes, internal cash generation, and other factors. The plan that we depict does include some significant and important generation projects in South Dakota. As we've talked about there, we were really able to move from filing our plan to consulting with the commission to making the investments very efficiently. We have a project underway at Aberdeen, and even further along at Huron. The capital forecast here is really spread across all aspects of our business. Just as an example, we successfully commenced operation of our AMI system in South Dakota. This week, we had a great kickoff of the AMI team in Montana. That's going to be a substantial investment and operational opportunity over the next three and a half or so years. Again, we're looking forward to moving ahead on that. The five-year plan does not include incremental generation in Montana that might come out of the RFP. We do have ongoing investments in the hydro system as we continue to optimize that great asset for Montana. Just to press rewind for a minute on the Montana RFP. Last February, going into COVID, we did undertake a competitive solicitation for up to 280 MW. As I've described, the solicitation was in three tiers: long duration, 20 hours; intermediate, 10; and short, five. Bids were submitted on behalf of a wide variety of generating facilities. In excess of 200 MW. We do expect that at least one of our projects will be among those selected, and that should result in additional own generation capacity in excess of an additional $200 million. Again, that is not included in the plan. That would be an investment over a three-year period, assuming that we do receive approval from the Montana Commission through the statutory pre-approval process that's available in Montana. Then again, we've continued on cost-effective upgrades to the hydro facility, including generator rewinds, turbine upgrades, and other improvements. It was impressive that a lot of that work was able to go forward during the COVID year as well. We intend to enter into the Western Energy Imbalance Market this spring. There were challenges certainly around recruiting and training during COVID, but we do expect that We're quite confident that we'll be able to move ahead this year on that project, this spring, I should say. There will be advantages in terms of efficient operation, and lower costs. We've talked before about it. We had a very good experience in seeing real customer benefits moving into SPP out of South Dakota. The EIM obviously is not a full market, so we don't expect to see benefits of that magnitude. We are looking forward to seeing real benefits there. In South Dakota, just a little more detail, we're well underway on the 60 MW project in Huron, and those are the so-called RICE units. We expect those to be online late in 2021. That's been a very smooth project, and that's about $80 million. $40 million in 2020, and the rest going forward. That is, again, reflected in the capital budget that I shared. In addition to that, we're well ahead in planning an additional 30 MW- 40 MW of flexible generation at Aberdeen. Expect that to be online in 2023, and that's approximately $60 million. Again, the South Dakota investments are identified, are underway, and are included in the capital budget. Other regulatory items to provide a bit of an update. As you recall, the Montana Public Service Commission did approve a fixed cost recovery mechanism, AKA decoupling, originally to be effective in July of 2020. Because of COVID and the asymmetric patterns we were seeing between customer classes, we did ask the Commission to delay that until July of this year, and the Commission agreed. We expect the FCRM to take effect next summer. At the same time, we were wrapping up our Montana rate case successfully. We did file a FERC transmission rate case, and real thanks to everyone who worked on that through a whole series of settlement meetings, most of which had to be conducted online because of COVID. We did reach a settlement agreement that was filed in November. As of end of December, we did have cumulative deferred revenues of about $31 million, and the refunds have been executed on that. We refunded about $20 million to our wholesale and choice customers in January. We expect to submit a compliance filing with the Montana PSC, adjusting the FERC credit in our retail rates upon receipt of a final order. Notable out of the FERC case, we're moving to call it a modified forward test year, and there will be much better harmonization between prices or costs recovered in Montana and recovered at the federal level, which will address a potential gap that we did see there. Finally, in this category, each year, of course, we submit tracker requests for recovery of purchase power, particularly purchase power, natural gas, and then also property taxes in Montana. The commissions review these. Often, they are relatively straightforward filings in Montana. Unfortunately, in October, the commission voted to disallow $9.4 million in purchased power costs over the prior period. We've issued refunds associated with that also in January of this year. We have, as we've discussed on previous calls, we are extremely concerned about the implications of that order and do not agree with it. It is for a past period, and we're certainly looking forward to working with the new commission going forward. We've been doing a lot of work around ESG. Brian heads our internal ESG committee, and actually, everyone on this call is very active contributing to that. We think we've got a great story to tell on all three letters of that particular alphabet. Among the key initiatives, we have a new landing page consolidating all of the existing ESG information. That includes disclosures of 19, in some cases new, in some cases existing, policies and standards that are associated with best ESG practices. We've also included a new easy reference sustainability statistics report to disclose the five-year trend of operational and financial ESG data and statistics. Do encourage you to go to the link to the webpage at the bottom of the page you're looking at right now. We really do continue to make very good progress, most notably the substantial improvement you'll see in the MSCI rating from a double B to an A. A couple of other notable things here, along with the investment in system-wide electric vehicle charging in that we've got good projects underway in South Dakota, and we're hopeful in Montana as well. We've also committed to a thoughtful transition in our own fleet starting in 2021. Initially, we'll be targeting about 30% of light-duty and bucket trucks and 20% of medium and heavy-duty to be electrified by 2030. Again, in summary, a great year despite the challenges from an operational safety, customer satisfaction perspective in 2020, and laid the foundation, we believe, for a particularly good year in 2021. With that, we'll take your questions. Thank you, Bob. If you're joining us by computer today and would like to ask a question, please signal your intent by using the raise your hand button that is typically found within the toolbar at the bottom of your screen. You can also simultaneously press Alt and Y on a PC or Option Y on a Mac to raise your hand. Please ensure your microphone is unmuted if you are in the queue to ask a question. If you're dialed in by phone, you can press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute your line to ask a question. Again, that's star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute your line. We'll give it a few seconds for our first questions in the queue. If you have not provided your name and Zoom ID or dialed in by phone, please be listening for us to announce your Zoom ID or last four digits of your telephone number to notify you that your line is open and ready for your question. Again, please be sure that your line is unmuted on your end. We'll take our first question from Andrew Levi. Andrew, your line is open. Hey, I did it right, huh? Good job, Andy. How you guys doing? Good, thank you. I have a couple things. First, I just want to say it's Friday and a long weekend, and it's 4:10 P.M. You guys remind me of Hawaiian Electric. That's a joke between us portfolio managers. We don't get Monday off, shame on us. Okay. Maybe you want to rethink things next time. I know you have to round your board meeting and all that stuff. Anyway, that's my complaint. I guess that had nothing to do anyway but go skiing. As far as you guys are concerned, just a couple things I've been thinking about. Just first, on a very high level, just looking at COVID and your guidance. How much have you put into your 2021 guidance as a, I don't know if I want to call it a hit, but kind of negative effects of COVID. Ongoing COVID, yeah. All right. Brian, you're ready for that one? Yeah. I would just say this, Andy, is we kind of backed up our thoughts for the first half of the year, expect to receive COVID linger really through the first two quarters. The first quarter certainly is a big quarter for us. Second's our lightest quarter, typically. We do expect by the summertime, things are going to be in a much better spot. That's our expectations. No, I understand that, but I'm just saying like financially. Financially, that's how we're looking at margin, that's how we're looking at expenses. Is it like $10 million? I'm just trying to figure out if you were in a more normalized environment, let's say 12 months from now, what would we be adding back to earnings? Maybe one thing that would be helpful, Andy, is we did give quite a bit of detail, if you will, for quarters Q2 through four this year in terms of how it impacted our P&L, and if there's an expectation we're going to see some of that impact us certainly for the first half of this year. That's how I think about it. Obviously if COVID's not here and think about organic growth on top of that's how things should start unwinding, if you will, out of COVID. Okay. On the IRP process, where you talk about potentially $200+ million that you feel very comfortable with. I get that part. Can you just talk about the part that is kind of unknown at this point and if there is the possibility for more than that stated CapEx? What I would say is that in the current RFP, we're actively involved right now in finalizing what we'll take forward to the commission, and we're comfortable that we will have a project as part of that will take us over the $200 million threshold. That takes down a part of our customers' exposure to the market. We didn't include it in this deck, but as you recall, our customers in Montana are over 45% exposed to the regional market. We expect that there will be a subsequent RFP. Okay. We haven't made decisions about timing, but this is real stuff. This isn't just a policy debate. I'll say just a little bit about how the system is operating today. Fortunately, we own gas transmission and storage, as well as electric transmission and generation. Our folks are doing a fantastic job coordinating with one another. We are on the market, and we don't want to be on the market nearly as much as we are. It's a price risk, and it's even a supply risk. This is something that can happen in Montana pretty much any time of the winter, but it can also happen in August. We're very pleased to be moving ahead with the RFP right now, but we do expect we're going to be going out relatively soon over the next several years, with a subsequent RFP to continue to take down our customers' exposure to a market that you just really do not want to be in. Okay. I understand. The way I had read it was that you had at least this, whether it's a project or two projects, whatever it may be, through the RFP, but that there were still unknown relative to this RFP. You're really talking about future RFPs where there could be continued upside. I get that. Well, yeah. I understand. Not to be upside in the current, but again, the future RFP is going to be very important too. I understand. Then I guess I don't know if I want to say whether this RFP or future RFPs, what are you guys thinking as far as solar/storage, as an opportunity and whether that makes sense within your service territory as a way to handle some of the shortfall? Yeah. They have a role, one of the reasons that the RFP was structured as it was five-hour, 10-hour, 20-hour, was so that resources of different kinds could participate. In fact, that has occurred. A great place if you want to dig a little bit deeper into how these things behave on our system is a filing our supply planners made with the Montana Commission in December. There's a really robust discussion of different kinds of resources and their effective load carrying capacity or ELCC, contributions of resources. Actually, it's one of the best things I read last year. There is a place, but you've got to be, I think, practical about what that place is. Remember, on our Montana system right now, we are pushing, we're not quite there, but we're pushing 70% carbon free. We've got about 450 MW of wind on our system right now. Unfortunately, today, when we need it most desperately, the production is negligible. It's a long answer, but I think that's the best way to think about it, and I really would encourage you to take a look at the December supply supplement. Hey, Bob. Bob, I'd like to just add one thing, too. I think obviously we wanted to participate in this RFP for build that's going to take place in the 2022-2023 time period. There'll be, as Bob pointed out earlier in the call, another RFP maybe late this year, early next year. That would be for builds in the 2024, 2025 time period. We'd like to think we're going to have an opportunity to participate in that as well. Just want to make sure that people understand there's really going to be two of these coming. Okay. Just one more comment there. If you look at the, again, the five-year capital forecast and think about how any kind of future project might be layered in there, I think that's quite positive as well. Okay, then this question is for Brian. I should have said at the beginning, congratulations, Brian. Thanks. Very proud of you. You're almost there. You're almost in the executive suite. Actually, you're in the executive suite, but the CEO office, so you're almost there. We'll see. As far as the financing plan, it's very straightforward. Okay, I understand it. The one thing I just don't really understand, though, is why are you doing an ATM versus just issuing. Look, you give us your shares outstanding, it looks like you need about $75 million of equity this year, give or take, right? Which is like 1.3 million shares. Why not just issue it to us? Your stock trades 271,000 shares today. In general, that was all on the close, really by three o'clock, it had traded like 160,000 shares. It's going to take you like all year, I'm exaggerating, to do it. Whether it's me or some other people like me, we could easily take down your shares at a small discount, and then you wouldn't have this affecting the performance of the stock. Truly, I believe it can, because the stock, unfortunately, trades so thinly, as do a lot of utilities at the current moment because of the way the market is. Well, I appreciate your view, Andy. I would tell you this, we've had great success with ATM in the past. In fact, we have quite a bit of build, as you know, both from the generation side in South Dakota and our current plan in terms of capital needs. I would tell you this, that the ATM is, like I said, served us well. We're bullish on our share prices that it's going to be going up over this time period. There's another reason we like what we're doing here. I'd also tell you, nothing precludes us from doing anything else. If something better comes along and makes sense for us to issue shares, we could possibly do that as well. Right now, the plan is to, over a three-year period, is to raise that $200 million to meet our current needs. Just to understand, through your ATM, I guess from what you're saying is if someone wanted to come and make a bid, I guess, for no better way to put it, to take down a small block of your stock, I guess that could be part of the ATM as well, right? I know that's not the right term. I'm just saying we have flexibility to either use the ATM or something else if something else better comes along. Right. Okay. Got it. Thank you. Thanks, Andy. Just a reminder, if you want to ask a question, for most people, you can find the Raise Your Hand under the Participants button on the bottom of your screen. Again, if you're dialed in by phone, press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute your phone. We'll take the next question from Michael Weinstein at Credit Suisse. Mike, your line is open. Hey, guys. Hey, Mike. Hey. To follow up on Andy's questions, in terms of what you're thinking about rate cases in Montana going forward, considering 2020 as a test year, I guess, if you were going to do it this year. 2020 is a funny year, right? I don't know if that's really Yeah. I'm just wondering what your timing is looking like. I think normally you provide an update in April, right? I can confidently say that we eventually will file a rate case in Montana. This year, I think our focus, and it will be an all-hands-on-deck focus, will be on the pre-approval filing associated with the supply plan implementation. Right. That'd be the primary focus of this year would be the pre-approval. That's going to take most of the year, you think? I think realistically, yeah. Once they determine the filing to be sufficient, they're on basically a nine-month shot clock. Right. Let's see. Yeah, I wanted to see about the transmission rates. Let me see here. Not the transmission, but the disallowance on Colstrip. Is that final at this point? I mean, the $9.4 million. I guess it's been a couple of years in the making. It is final. Yes. Yeah. Is there a reason why Montana, just in the final analysis, just thought that you didn't deserve recovery of that? It sounded like the explanation you provided sounded pretty reasonable. It's not your fault. We certainly thought so. Crystal was one of the key witnesses in that proceeding. There were basically two questions. One had to do with whether the outage associated with taking the plant down partially for environmental compliance was in some way imprudent when we went to the market to procure replacement power. Secondly, the timing of elimination of the deadband under a statute that was passed. We were very concerned, disappointed, and strongly disagreed with what the commission decided. It is now a past period, and we're not appealing. We are, on the other hand, really focused on working with the new commissioners, the new chair of the commission to continue to improve things. In fact, on that subject, the new commission, the makeup of it looks like there might be some chance or some room for improvement in terms of regulatory treatment going forward. Do you have any comment on what the new priorities might look like going forward? In the past, there's always been this legislative focus on making sure coal jobs are maintained in the state. Has any of that changed going forward, do you think? First, a comment about the Commission. We obviously have got a fantastic relationship with the South Dakota Commission that translated into being able to invest to serve our customers there very efficiently. In Montana, we want to have the same kind of relationship with the commissioners, with the staff, and then ultimately, of course, with the Consumer Councel as well. Most of the Commission's decisions that we're concerned about are driven by advocacy from the Consumer Councel. I'm impressed by the two new commissioners, very impressed, and believe that they're going to be strong additions to the commissioners who are returning. Chairman Brown is a lawyer. He's got a graduate degree in tax. He's spending a lot of time, my impression is, on really managing the Commission and the process, and that's something that's extremely important to him. At the same time, our legal and regulatory folks are reciprocating, working with their counterparts at the commission. That's all very positive. We've had a number of good informational meetings, even in COVID land. Had a very substantive overview of the company with the two new commissioners going back to December. We had, in January, I think, an excellent presentation by our supply leaders to the full commission, really focusing on the peak deficit, the exposure to the regional market, and what we hope to bring out of the RFP. They were very engaged. They understand the concerns, are, I think, committed to addressing them. In a couple of weeks, we've got an overview of our financial operations. The two areas where the state commissioners really need to focus to be successful in their jobs, as far as I'm concerned, are operations and finance, to understand how their decisions affect our ability to do our jobs. I'm very encouraged by all of that. The thing I would say on a larger scale in Montana is that for the first time in many years, there's a political alignment between the governor, the legislature, and the commission. Governor Gianforte is a very successful entrepreneur. He founded RightNow Technologies, ultimately sold that to Oracle. Oracle has continued to invest in Montana. I made the point, he would not have been able to create so much wealth and value in Montana if that company had been subject to the kind of challenges that we've been subject to at time. He is committed to investment in the state's essential infrastructure. He certainly is committed to maintaining the viability of Colstrip as a key asset for its useful life. In the legislature, the Republican majority has actually increased. They work very closely with the governor. At the commission, we've talked about, I think, the very strong additions that the two new commissioners will be to the commission's important work. Yeah, I guess it's just striking to me that if you have to write off purchased power costs for an outage at Colstrip, that would be a perfect illustration of why reliance on the Western market for purchases is a problem. It's sort of inconsistent, I guess, with the prevailing view that has been in the state about ownership of generation at the utility, and I'm just wondering if that's changing going forward. I would say that, if anything, there is a greater appreciation of the value of own generation as part of a portfolio. For perspective, we own less of our generation than do many companies, particularly in the non-organized market. We talked about how vastly more exposed we are to the regional market at peak than any of our peers. Again, I'm looking out the window. It's beautiful, but it is snowing and it is below zero. I would be much more comfortable if we had control of more of our own resources to serve our customers. Makes sense. Congratulations, Brian and Crystal, and thanks. I'll leave it there. Thanks, Mike. Thanks, Mike. We'll take our next call from Jonathan Reeder at Wells Fargo. Jonathan, your line should be open. Hey, can you hear me now? Yep. Sure can, Jonathan. All right. For what it's worth, you have to hit star six after you're called on. Okay. So- Good to know. Thank you. Yeah, no. We're all learning the new system today, right? We appreciate all the color so far on the call. You were kind of almost getting into, I thought, with the last caller there, Bob, but what are your thoughts on some of the bills that have been introduced in Montana this year? I think there's one that would get rid of the pre-approval process while another would expedite the time that the MPSC has to authorize pre-approval. Where do you think those head this year, and how does that impact the current RFP and the future RFP plans? Yeah. Very directly, I think that, quite honestly, the bills sponsored by the majority are much more likely to go forward than the bills sponsored by the minority. The bill clarifying the current pre-approval process is much more likely to go forward. I believe, actually, the bill eliminating pre-approval either has been or soon will be tabled, which is appropriate. A number of other bills we're paying attention to are ones, for example, that were passed in previous legislators, and then unfortunately were vetoed. In fact, yeah, the pre-approval repeal bill has already been tabled, and we feel very good about that. I think there's an opportunity to do some things in this legislative session that will allow us to better serve our customers. That's very important. That's interesting you make the comment about ones that have passed but then were vetoed. Are there any that fall in that bucket that we should be particularly aware of? I'm trying to think back to past legislative sessions. Yeah, two. remind them of. Two that come to mind immediately. One, the legislature prohibited subsidies in net metering. It didn't prohibit net metering. It simply prohibited cross-subsidies from one group of customers to another. Unfortunately, the previous governor vetoed that bill. Certainly hoping that there will be progress to make net metering a fair and sustainable program, something that we can support and, in fact, make available to our customers without harming other customers. The second bill that was approved in a previous session and vetoed was the Community Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard. That, we had found to be really unworkable. The challenge is projects to qualify as CREPs have to be both below a certain size and meet the cost threshold to serve our customers. It's very difficult to meet both thresholds. It's been a big distraction for us. We have managed to get most of the way to our CREP requirement, but we certainly believe that modifying or eliminating that requirement would be a substantial step forward. Okay. The only other question I had was on the Montana decoupling pilot that goes into effect in mid 2021. Remind us, will we see the true up to normal flow through the P&L in the second half of 2021, or does it not occur until, like, the end of the 12-month period? I'm going to put Crystal Lail on the spot to answer the first question in her new role. She was close to that. Hey, Crystal. Thanks, Bob. Throwing one my way. Yeah, the FCRM, we expect at this point still to implement that pilot beginning in July, and we will record that. You'll see it in our earnings on a quarterly basis. Okay, great. All right, thanks. That's all I have. Appreciate you taking my questions. Thanks, Jonathan. We will take our next call from the line of Ryan Greenwald at Bank of America. Go ahead, Ryan. Good afternoon, guys. Can you hear me? Yep, we sure can. We can. Congratulations to you both, Brian and Crystal. Thank you, sir. Assuming you guys are successful with some of the generation projects in Montana and you guys get the pre-approval, how would you kind of frame equity needs on the dollar of additional spend from here? Brian? Yeah, I'll grab that one. I think I would just assume for practical purposes, just a 50/50 capital structure associated with that. Got you. Maybe just lastly, given the discrepancies in valuation across the space and where you guys are currently trading, how are you kind of framing consideration for anything strategic from here? That was an artful way to put the question. What I would say is we are really focused on the opportunities right in front of us. Brian, do you want to take that one this time? I'll grab this one, Bob. All right. we certainly think we are undervalued. We're certainly not three turns worse than our peer average as some people have us today. I think the best thing we can do is increase the value of our company, and that creates strategic opportunities down the road, and we'd be better positioned either way in a stronger position. Right now, our share price, certainly relative to our peers, isn't where it should be. Again, going back to focusing on what's in front of us. If we're able to invest and if the financial community is more comfortable with Montana, ultimately, that's good for the company and very good for the customers. Great. Thank you, guys. Have a great weekend. Thanks. Bye. Thanks, Brian. It appears as though Andy Levi decided this was more fun than skiing after all. Looks like he raised his hand again. Andy, do you have another question? Got on mute. Just on the last question, the strategic question. Just very logically, looking at where your stock price is and where your P/E ratio is. There's nothing you can do. You could do something crazy dilutive deal. I guess I would view you as something that somebody would be looking at. I understand you guys aren't looking to do that. You want to get your value. Based on your stock price, there's really nothing strategically you can do. Is there? Andy, I woeld answer that by saying, where are you going skiing this weekend? Okay, that's fine. Yeah, Andy, great commentary. We're just going to take that as no question. Appreciate your opinion. Okay, thank you. Have a good one. I will tell you. I'm going to go out and play in the snow. Look, if you look at kind of the latest 13F, I want your stock price to do well. Absolutely. I think it's super cheap here, but I don't want people to think that you guys are out shopping for something. All right. With that, looks like we've exhausted our Friday afternoon queue, and so I will hand it over to Bob and/or Brian to close out the call. Just to finish the way we started, it's been fantastic to work with Brian as CFO for many, many years. He's going to do a great job as COO. All of the operational leads are looking forward to working with him in that capacity. Crystal, based on her career, is stepping into her new role just about as well-prepared as can be. Thank you for spending your Friday with us before what is for everyone other than us, a three-day weekend. As I said, I'm going to go outside and play in the snow. Have a great weekend. Bob, hey, if I could, I'd like to say just a couple things real quick. Oh, absolutely. My gosh, yes. Well, first of all, likewise, Bob. I know our combined 30 years actually continues, just with different roles. I continue to enjoy our relationship and look forward to adding on to those years. I am also excited for Crystal. I started this job 17 years ago in my early 40s, and that's where Crystal sits. I expect similar great things from her, probably even better than certainly my performance over that time period. Lastly, I'd like to thank Travis. Everybody knows Travis Meyer. He does a fantastic job. You may not know Tori Payne, who works with Tori. The two of them make a fantastic team, and I think one of the best IR departments in the space. I want to thank those guys for their help as well. Thank all of you who supported the company. Really appreciate not only the support of the company, but support that you've given me as CFO. Thank you very much. Thanks again for joining us. With that brings this webcast to a close. You may now disconnect.