James H. Roberts
Analyst · FBR Capital Markets
Thank you, Ron, and good morning, everyone. This morning, I would like to provide you with a quick update on the execution of our strategic plan and then a view of our forward-looking business environment. Laurel will review first quarter results as she will discuss our outlook for 2014, and then, as always, we will both be happy to answer your questions. Before I get going today, I just wanted to take a moment to express how proud I am that, for the fifth consecutive year, the Granite team was recognized by the Ethisphere Institute as a 2014 World's Most Ethical Company. This is an exceptional accomplishment. Congratulations to all the Granite employees who are living our Code of Conduct. When we last spoke with you in late February, we highlighted the fact that Granite's most significant opportunities center on our ability to execute our strategic plan. This has not changed. Our teams are focused on winning business and building profitable work to drive growth across the enterprise. Our traditional and our new end markets will continue to create opportunities to broaden our reach. Strong backlog and a healthy bidding environment continue to drive opportunities in Large Projects. And we are focused on implementing continuous improvement throughout our business to drive down cost and improve efficiency. As we enter the 2014 building season, I am pleased to say that our plan remains on track. In order for us to maximize returns on continuous improvement investments, we are laser-focused on, first, driving results through improved execution on our existing healthy book of backlog across both our Construction and Large Project Construction segments. We created a center of excellence to focus on reducing waste through lean efforts, reducing cost by standardizing processes and reducing variability to further improve the quality of our work. In doing so, we have laid the groundwork necessary for implementation. And I am pleased that Joe Mazzulo, Senior Vice President of Business Processes, has joined our team. I am very confident that Joe and his team are ready to grow and implement process excellence across all of our businesses. This commitment to driving incremental change through improved processes and improved execution is creating exciting opportunities that foster a continuous improvement culture of Granite. While we are confident that our continuous improvement program eventually will touch all parts of the company, we already have identified some opportunities to create bottom line savings this year that produce immediate recurring returns for the business. You can look forward to regular updates on the progress we make toward everyday excellence. The bid season, across the country is in full swing. While win rates and backlog in our vertically integrated businesses are healthy and in line with historical norms, we have seen more private work bidding, which is a positive offset to this lower public sector in certain markets. I have said for some time that market recovery would require contribution from the private market, and that it could show up first in results in our Construction Materials segment. It remains too soon to say if we have finally reached an inflection point, but we are encouraged by improved first quarter performance in this part of our business. We continue to execute on the Tappan Zee Bridge in New York, the IH-35E in Texas and the I-40/440 in North Carolina. These projects contributed substantial revenue in the first quarter. But since each remains less than 25% complete, they have not reached our profit recognition threshold, and therefore, are not yet contributing profit. We continue to expect these projects will reach proper recognition threshold later in the year. And we continue to work with the owner in the State of Washington on our clients for potential significant cost recovery on that project. And I highlight all of these factors as they are timing issues for Granite, and we expect we'll contribute to the results as the year progresses. We expect to bid on more than $12 billion of Large Projects in the next 12 months, but about half of the value of the work representing potential Granite backlog. As you may know, the Granite team was announced last week as a successful bidder on the $2.3 billion I-4 Ultimate project in Florida. Our 30% portion of the project is nearly $700 million and will show up as additional backlog in the near future. In addition, we have several other Large Projects, which we already have bid and are simply awaiting results. These projects total close to $2 billion, with our share in excess of $600 million. As you can see, the markets for alternative procurement Large Projects remain strong. Opportunities in power, tunnel and underground remain quite strong as well. However, the continued inaction by Congress to address our country's infrastructure needs has reached a critical juncture. We have spoken often about the positive aspects of MAP-21, the current Federal Highway Bill and of the expansion of TIFIA that has helped spur significant Large Project bidding opportunities. The MAP-21 at its core remains a short-term static funding mechanism. This method simply does not allow State Departments of Transportation to practically plan beyond 1 to 2 fiscal years. And now the health of our industry, our infrastructure, and our economy certainly is at greater risk as we head down the path toward potential transportation trust fund insolvency later this summer. Congress must act now and act decisively to adequately fund America's infrastructure. Without this investment, it could quickly erase the early signs of recovery that we are finally experiencing. As we have said for some time now, funding stability and financing alternatives are critical to driving progress on infrastructure investment at the federal, the state and the local levels. While federal funding issues could create potential headwinds, we are pleased with the opportunities we have to drive incremental growth across all of our end markets in 2014. Private market recovery remains a key driver of improved performance. These factors and the opportunities we have to optimize our business make me confident that we will grow and produce significantly improved results in 2014. With that, I will turn the call over to Laurel.