Bob Ferris
Analyst · Lake Street. Please proceed
Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for VirTra’s second quarter 2020 earnings call. I am also joined today by Judy Henry, our CFO, who will join me in answering your questions after our prepared remarks. I would also like to remind you that shortly after the earnings call, we will have the Virtual Annual General Meeting, with another chance for questions and answers. But first, I am excited to report our progress. The second quarter of 2020 presented VirTra with an unusual operating environment to say the least. There was not one but two macro level events that impacted our company and our industry this quarter that are worth addressing today. The first is the continued impact of COVID-19, which started at the tail end of Q1 and continued to be a major influence during Q2. I’ll discuss those impacts at length in a moment. The second is a series of polarizing events ignited by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis that have concentrated our country’s attention on the law enforcement community. More than at any other time in our history, there has been a very specific focus on how officers interact with those they are sworn to protect and how they decide, if and to what extent, force should be used in a situation. These are extremely complex questions that touch at the very nature of what police officers do. In our society, police officers exist to enforce the law and to protect the individual liberties of citizens from domestic threats. To do so, they are uniquely endowed with the authority to use force, should the need arise. As a knee-jerk reaction, some have suggested the defunding of police agencies. Fortunately, cooler heads have prevailed and many see the logic that to improve policing involves investing in the improvement of the training of the police, and that’s where VirTra comes in. Deciding if, when and to what extent force is necessary is an incredible responsibility we bestow upon them. And such tremendous responsibility requires tremendous preparation, practice and training. We, at VirTra, don’t have all the answers, but what we do have is a proven line of products that is part of the solution. In fact, nearly every major federal law enforcement agency has selected VirTra for their solution for simulating a wide variety of situations, and we continue to receive follow-on orders to support their training needs. However, far too many police agencies in the U.S. and abroad either use no simulation training or use an older and inferior product to the detriment of the trainees and the public. We provide the best simulation training available to improve the efficacy of both law enforcement and military personnel. The need for our solutions has arguably never been greater. Given how topical VirTra is to these national discussions, VirTra has been honored to receive increased regional and national news coverage. In fact media mentions of VirTra, has increased approximately 50% from the same time last year. There have been segments highlighting forward-thinking departments that have installed our simulators and who clearly understand the value we provide and how that value translates into saving both dollars and saving lives in the long run. We rolled out a new website and a record number of new digital marketing materials this year to better educate the thousands of police agencies about VirTra’s uniquely effective products. However, it’s important to be realistic about the current environment. Clearly, the events of the past few months could create opportunities for us to help a larger number of departments and improve their training and their relationships with their respective communities. Although our new sales have increased substantially in 2020 and pushed up our backlog to record levels, there is no guarantee that media attention or our marketing enhancements will translate directly into sales in the short term. So while we believe there are macro events generating momentum for VirTra, which may help drive additional sales, others have certainly complicated our installation process. You see if we must delay the delivery of our equipment to a customer, we must also delay recognizing the revenue. During our last call, we mentioned that we had not yet seen a material decline in our sales as a result of COVID-19. A major theme of our last call was that demand in the market remains incredibly strong, but revenue had been impacted as orders were taking longer to deliver and install. And since COVID-19 continues to be a major issue in the United States, that theme persisted throughout the second quarter of this year as well. As far as we know to date, we have not lost any business from COVID-19. However, our ability to install products has been impacted. Therefore, our ability to recognize revenue has been affected. Because of how strong the demand for our systems has been, even before the events in Minneapolis, we had expected our second quarter financial results to be extremely strong. However, because of continued complications with installations, which we started to see towards the end of Q1, we ended up with modest revenues in Q2. Our second quarter revenues were $2.8 million, a small decrease from last quarter and from the year ago period, but our backlog increased to a record $14.3 million. Our 6-month financial results, which Judy will discuss in a moment, were also – were almost identical to the first 6 months of last year, except that our backlog at June 30, 2020, was $4.2 million greater than it was at the same point in 2019. These two metrics, our revenue and our backlog, underscore the theme in the second quarter, robust sales for VirTra products coupled with a challenging installation environment due to the pandemic. For all of the second quarter, we were restricted on where we could travel and with whom we could install. We are still only able to travel on a case-by-case basis. As many of you know, our home state of Arizona remains in Phase 1. And as a result, several other states are either not accepting our personnel or requiring them to quarantine. Recent trends in Arizona are encouraging, and our operations teams are working incredibly hard to install products wherever possible while prioritizing staff and customer safety. But though installations remain impacted, we have actually accelerated our sales volume as compared to last year without COVID-19 headwinds. As just one example, during the second quarter, we received a new IDIQ, or indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity, contract from the Department of State for the Republic of Mexico. As a testament to the tenacity of our operations team, even with the pandemic restrictions, we fully expect to deliver and install this order, and therefore, recognize those revenues in 2020. Because of this momentum, we remain confident at our prospects for the second half of the year. I’ll add to this theme in a few moments. But first, I am going to turn the call over to Judy to walk you through the financial results for the second quarter. Judy?